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THE WEST BRANCH:
The West Branch of the Black River spans 37.8 miles in distance, draining 175.40 square miles of land area before reaching the mainstem in Elyria. The mainstem of the Black River is highly urbanized and industrialized while the East Branch of the river involves a mix of traditional agricultural activity and more recent urban sprawl. Being further from Cleveland and urban centers in northern Lorain County, much of the land area in the west branch watershed is still devoted to agricultural production. Agriculture is the number one contributor to the nonpoint source pollution problems confronting the Black River. This section of the virtual tour will feature several examples of innovations in local agriculture that are helping to reduce agriculture’s contribution to pollution in the watershed. The George Jones Farm outside of Oberlin and a number of farms following precision agriculture techniques will be highlighted. As a fairly undeveloped region, the West Branch also features more unique ecosystems, including wetlands featured on the McConnell Farm north of Wellington and the Charlemont Reservation south of Wellington, a site significant both to local natural and social history.
CHARLEMONT WILDLIFE AREA/SWAMP
The Charlemont Wildlife Area is the southern most park in the Lorain County MetroPark system. Charlemont lies between State Routes 511 and 58 on New London-Eastern Road. The park provides a unique glimpse of both the natural and social history of southern Lorain County. The park stands at the very southern extent of Lorain County, bordering the boundary of Ashland County. The 400-acre preserve includes an equestrian loop trail as well as rabbit and pheasant hunting during “open season.” Hunting has been permitted at the park since the Park Board passed a resolution in 1974. The park contains diverse old-field and upland woodland habitat areas. Outside of the equestrian loop, there are no regular maintained trails on the park site, providing a more primitive hiking experience.
Straddling the border between Rochester and Huntington Townships in the northern portion of the park is an upland hardwood forest. A hike in these woods will reveal a diverse collection of hardwoods, dispersed in a healthy forest ecosystem. Trees such as elm, ash, maple, red oak, and butternut and shagbark hickory are frequently encountered in these upland forests. Along Charlemont Creek, a tributary to the West Branch of the Black River, are some impressive bottomland forests, including rich assemblies of elm, willow, walnut, cottonwood, and sycamore. Along the floodplains of the park are several small wetlands that tend to fill during times of high precipitation. Vernal pools are frequently encountered in upland woods, often flooding small areas or filling the depressions left by fallen trees.
The Elnathan Beckley family, who moved to the area in 1863, first owned the Charlemont reservation. The family operated a small dairy. In the early years of the operation, they produced cheese. Wellington was once considered the “cheese capital” of northern Ohio and families such as the Beckley’s fed this small industry.
In 1869, Lyman Beckley, Mr. Beckley’s son, joined with a neighbor to start the Beckley Cheese Factory. Lyman took over the dairy operation following his father’s death in 1872.
The dairy operation was sold to Harley Beckley, Lyman and Mary Beckley’s oldest son, in 1876. Under Harley’s directorship, the dairy became one of the most successful farming operations in Lorain County. Harley built one of the largest barns in Lorain County for $2,000. Unfortunately, this barn burned down. A replacement barn was constructed in 1937 and is still standing today. This barn features weathered siding that has been painted white and a slate roof. The cheese factory was torn down in the 1960’s. A small cemetery maintained by the township represents some of the rich history of Charlemont. The cemetery is located along Charlemont Creek on the south side of New London-Eastern Road.
An abandoned railroad corridor traverses Charlemont. The railroad right-of-way was a part of the 66-mile-long Lorain, Ashland, and Southern railroad. The old railroad right-of-way was nicknamed the “Ramsey Road” after financier Joseph Ramsey. Rail operations along the Ramsey Road began in 1914. Shortly thereafter, the line was sold to the Pennsylvania Line, which sold half interest to the Erie Line shortly thereafter. The rail could not stand up to competition for Lorain’s commerce with Baltimore and Ohio and the Wheeling and Lake Erie line. Operations were ceased in 1925 and steel from the old tracks was salvaged and used as scrap metal during World War II. The old Ramsey right-of-way still remains in several communities throughout the watershed. In downtown Oberlin, a small stretch of the Ramsey Road is being converted into a bike path to provide pedestrian access to the recently completed swimming pool and recreation center.
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McCONNELL FARM (WETLANDS)
Every place is associated with particular ecosystems that emerge through a complex interaction of geology, climate, hydrology, and time. High alpine tundras cling to mountaintops in the Rockies; towering redwoods follow the coasts of California, and, in northern Ohio, wetlands and bogs express the unique ecology of the area. To the uninitiated, these wetland complexes may not be the first to roll off of the tongue when one is asked to describe some of America’s most spectacular natural areas. Nonetheless, wetlands play an essential role in the ecological fabric that stitches together the North American continent. Their current degradation has far-reaching consequences, from increased flooding to loss of biodiversity.
Wetland communities form as a function of geology, hydrology, drainage, and plant and animal diversity. The geology of these surface features plays a role in the hydrological regime (the presence and behavior of water) and greatly influences the watershed’s wetlands. For instance, the rate at which the water table abates during the summer months affects the time it takes for vernal pools and other wetlands that are not saturated throughout the year to drain. The length of time it takes for a wetland to drain is referred to as its “draw-down rate.” The draw-down rate is more rapid in areas underlain by porous parent material, such as the Berea Sandstone, than it is in areas underlain by clay-heavy matter such as shale bedrock. In addition to geology, land-use patterns and other human activities affect water chemistry and drainage rates, dramatically altering and often degrading wetlands ecology. However, this degradation is not without costs, as wetlands offer numerous services that benefit human health and local ecological conditions.
Human activity has greatly reduced the extent of wetlands in the Black River watershed, as with most of the Lake Erie drainage basin. Native Americans began clearing the original elm, ash, and pin-oak-dominated forests for agricultural purposes nearly 1,000 years ago. European settlers moved to the Black River Watershed about 200 years ago, bringing European-style agricultural methods with them. The landscape experienced permanent changes and, by 1900, almost 95% of the land in northern Ohio had been cleared of trees and drained for agriculture and settlement. Severe blights in the first half of the 20th century caused elm and chestnut trees to disappear as functional parts of local forest ecology. In many places, the water table was lowered by 5 feet or more, fundamentally altering the ecological and biotic character of the area. Before European settlement, about 90% of the Lake Plains in the watershed could be considered wetlands (mostly swamp forest). Currently, only about 10% of these original wetlands remain, mostly ecologically isolated and in a degraded state. The same rates of loss have occurred in the Till Plain area.
The surviving wetlands are different from the original wetlands of the Black River watershed and fall into several primary categories. Forested wetlands often survive in floodplains and in the formative Lake Erie beach ridges. Many of these forested wetlands contain vernal pools, which tend to be saturated for only a portion of each year. Marshlands, wet meadows, and shrub/scrub wetlands occupy open areas within former stream channels and in cleared areas and old agricultural fields. Riparian wetlands reside in stream channels that are fed by heavy storms in the spring and fall. Along the northern slopes of sandy beach ridges are some remnants of artesian wetlands. A number of wetlands have been reconfigured by human activities and are sometimes erroneously referred to as “manmade” or “constructed wetlands.” In reality, these are original wetland areas where a hydrological regime persists, ensuring the reformation of wetlands in low spots. An example of this is the wetlands that have formed in old ditches that run parallel to railroad rights-of-way, roadways, and adjacent to agricultural fields. The development of land involves heavy drainage and increased impermeable surface areas. When stormwater lands on an impermeable area, the water increases in volume rapidly, making remaining fields — and, sometimes, lower-lying neighbors’ basements — more prone to flooding during storms or spring and fall rains.
To understand the dynamics of wetlands ecology, we will take a virtual tour of a particularly diverse wetland complex in the headwaters of the West Branch of the Black River. This wetland complex sits on the farmstead of the McConnell family, located just north of Wellington. The property includes a heavily wooded river valley as well as dense pockets of upland woods. Both the valley and the upland woods contain a number of wetlands.
A vista upon a hilltop of the farm provides a fuller perspective of the southern part of the property. The hilltop is on the top of a valley wall carved patiently by the Black River. The river cannot be seen from here, but the splotchy bark of sycamores along with some willows draw the river’s obscure line. Between the river and the valley wall is a mosaic of farmed fields, woods, and wetlands, many of which lie within former stream channels. Directly to the south is a large marshland. Near its northeast quadrant, an outlet that drains to the river is infested with the invasive reed canary grass. There it also a fine sweetflag community (reported to actually be a European variety of this native species) along with our native broad-leaved cattail. The marsh contains a rich array of plants, including a verdant fringe of woolgrass (a bulrush), soft rush, sedges such as crowded sedge (Carex stipata), shallow sedge, and blunt broom sedge (C. tribuloides), grasses, osiers and other shrubs. We can hear the last of the breeding calls of spring peepers and chorus frogs, as well as the trill of toads and the “rubbed-wet-balloon” calls of a few leopard frogs, which are declining rapidly in Ohio. A number of dragonfly and damselfly can be seen skittering across the surface of the open water. Many kinds of flies, beetles, moths, butterflies, bees, wasps, leaf hoppers, crickets, and other insects will increasingly adorn the area as the season progresses. A sweep of the water net reveals predatory larvae of dragonflies, damselflies, and predaceous beetles within the tangle of decayed organic material in the water. Snails and many species of small crustaceans cruise along surfaces and through the water. Swaying green and brown one-inch cylinders prove to be houses for caddisfly larvae, made from chewed-up bits of soft rush and sedge leaves. Some jumping flecks at the water’s surface reveal the tiny primitive insect as the springtail.
Beyond the marsh, a transition zone of sedges, rush, green bulrush and scrubby growth leads west to a buttonbush swamp. Like the marsh, this swamp formed in an old stream channel. Around the bases of these shrubs grow masses of sphagnum and other mosses that support sedges and other herbaceous species such as bugleweed. Red-winged blackbirds and great blue and green-backed herons visit these sites looking for lunch, acting as agents of natural selection for frogs and other animal populations.
Farther west, an old abandoned railroad runs above a third wetland area that contains 4½-foot-tall Carex lacustris, one of Ohio’s larger sedges. Another old streambed heads off in an easterly direction. The waist-high water contains duckweed and the shallower edges of the wetland contain swamp rose, osiers bounded by banks of fluffy willow herb, mild water pepper with sprays of pink or white beadlike flowers, and 2-foot spangles of water plantain with tiny white flowers. The area is surrounded by walls of willow and young cottonwoods choked with mats of various sedges, bugleweed, cattails and water parsnip. The beginnings of swamp milkweed spring upward, and ladies’ tresses (an orchid) that are frequently encountered. Wrens, blackbirds, migrating warblers, and red-bellied woodpeckers flit and chirp, feeding their young and guarding their territory. Frequently, the shadow of a high-hunting red-shouldered hawk passes across the water’s surface as the hawk casts a watchful eye over the scene.
Woods begin to rise just to the south of this complex of wetlands. In the dappled light under the expanding canopy lies a modest-sized (100' by 30') vernal pool that is flanked by the rare swamp cottonwood, one of a handful of sites in Lorain County that contain this threatened species. Few plants emerge from its waters, although its banks are fringed with brome sedge and fowl manna grass. A five year-old fallen ash trunk nurtures a micro-community of mosses, fungi, grasses, and clearweed. A ribbon snake, similar to a garter snake, swims through a submerged mat of decomposing leaves. Within these murky waters is a food web alive with protozoa, crustaceans, and insect larvae. Lifting the slender fallen branches from the water will frequently reveal dangling spent gelatinous egg masses of smallmouth salamanders. A careful inspection reveals a few of the inch-long larvae at the bottom of the pool, stalking their lunch from among the tiny animals inhabiting the living waters. Hordes of wriggling mosquito larva and pupae proliferate until salamander larvae start feeding on them.
The wetlands encountered at the McConnell Farms are a microcosm of the complex of forested swamps and coastal marshes that once covered a significant portion of the land in the Black River Watershed. The drainage of wetlands throughout the watershed opened up the area to settlement, agriculture, and urbanization. Unfortunately, the loss of these wetlands has reduced critical habitat for migratory birds, salamanders, and other wildlife that depend upon these rare ecosystems for their survival. The wetlands at the McConnell Farms are one example of the possibility of preserving and restoring wetlands and reviving the vibrant ecosystems that were commonplace before settlement. Advances in the field of restoration ecology open up the possibility of re-introducing wetlands to farms and to forested areas in the watershed. Through such efforts, we can raise the level of biological diversity in the watershed while helping to clean the water and reduce the impacts of flooding. Meanwhile, wetland fragments such as those at the McConnell farms can provide a glimpse of the past as well as a template for the future.
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GEORGE JONES FARM
The George Jones Farm is located one mile east of downtown Oberlin, nestled south of State Route 511 and north of Parsons Road. The 70-acre property is owned by Oberlin College and was recently leased to a local non-profit organization, the Ecological Design Innovation Center (EDIC). EDIC is developing the site as a sustainable land-use education center and a demonstration for alternative land management in the Black River Watershed.
The farm is divided by a ridge, which separates the property into two separate drainage systems. The northern part of the property drains into Plum Creek, which is located about 200 feet west of the site. The southern part of the property drains into the West Branch of the Black River. This connection between the Jones Farm and its surrounding watersheds is an important piece of the management plan for the site. Management plans include the development of a small-scale organic farm, wetland-, meadow-, and woodland-habitat restoration, and naturally designed buildings and structures. Overall, the site plan involves a careful integration between site ecology and economic use while considering the larger impacts of site activities on the watershed.
There are five primary landscapes represented at the Jones Farm: an organic farm, wetland habitat, woodland habitat, an education center, and a residential zone. The overall design of the space is intended to provide a model for providing the basic needs of food energy and shelter while enhancing environmental quality and restoring habitat. The site is being developed as an educational resource for Oberlin College, local schools, and the wider community.
Spanning the frontage of State Route 511 is a 3-acre organic farm. The farm will apply for organic certification in 2003, which means that no chemical fertilizers or pesticides have been used on the property for three years. The top priority for the farm in 2002 is soil restoration. 
As is common with many cropped areas in the flatter lake plains and glacial till soils of the watershed, the Jones Farm has experienced a considerable degree of “sheet erosion.” This is a process of soil degradation in which soil particles are washed off of the soil in wide sheets when it is left bare to the elements after the growing season. The farm has undergone significant soil degradation over the last several years with about a 1-2% organic matter content for most of the cropped areas. The woods, by contrast, have an organic matter content of 8-12%.
Four strategies have been developed for rebuilding topsoil on the farm. First, a blend of red clover and orchard grass was sown on all historically cultivated portions of the property in 2000. The clover fixes nitrogen, adding fertility to the soil while sending deep-boring roots to break up the hardpan. The more fibrous root system of the orchard grass helps to increase the organic matter content of the soil while reducing sediment erosion. Second, the City of Oberlin has provided composted leaf mulch collected from city residents each fall.
This leaf matter adds organic matter to the soil, mimicking the process of a deciduous forest where leaves are shed to the ground each year before winter. Third, the farm utilizes “chicken tractors” to help further break up the clay-heavy topsoil and improve fertility. The chicken tractor involves a series of moveable chicken pens with built-in roosts and laying boxes. The chickens are moved daily, scratching up new ground and mimicking the tilling effect of a tractor while eating grubs and weed seeds, adding manure, and providing a revenue stream through egg production. Finally, the staff of the Jones Farm is working with Oberlin College to compost the 220 tons of food waste generated annually by the college dining systems. This food waste can provide an additional source of organic matter and nutrients for the farm. As food waste compost is introduced to the soil, future crop yields will increase which will increase sales back to Oberlin College. This model provides a model for “closed-loop waste recycling” where waste from one source (college dining halls) becomes food for another source (soils on the Jones Farm property).
The organic farm will provide a diversity of products, intended for sale to Oberlin College, local restaurants, and to residents through the Oberlin Farmers’ Market. Future products include perennial crops (apples, pears, raspberries, asparagus, blueberries), annual vegetable crops and herbs, native wildflowers, and eggs and poultry. The farm is being structured as a “community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm.” This is an increasingly common economic arrangement for small farms around the country. Through the CSA, local residents are encouraged to purchase “shares” in the farm at the beginning of the growing season. The shares range in price from $135-400 and provide upfront capital to cover expenses at the beginning of the growing season (seeds, fertilizer, farm manager’s salary, etc.). Residents exchange their shares for fresh organic produce throughout the growing season. This allows many farmers to function at the beginning of the growing season before there is a large revenue stream. It also enables a wider community to directly support a farmer and participate in the production of their own food.
In addition to food production, the Jones Farm will provide a model for habitat restoration. The middle of the farm includes a 22-acre, wooded preserve. The woods include a diverse mix of native hardwoods including white oak, red oak, pin oak, sugar maple, beech, cherry, hornbeam, shagbark and butternut hickory, and green and black ash. The woods also include several large vernal pools which provide habitat for salamanders and tree frogs. The woods are at varying states of maturity. Several sections include large concentrations of one species, such as sugar maple. These areas were cropped more recently and have poor understory development and canopy stratification. Other sections of the woods are more mature and feature a wider mix of species and a more well-developed forest understory. 
The woods will be undergoing several restoration programs in future years, including thinning of tree saplings, selective timbering to provide lumber for on-site structures, introductions of forest wildflowers, and even food production (ginseng, goldenseal, shittake mushrooms). Like soil restoration efforts, the wooded area on the farm will demonstrate how human management can actually accelerate the restoration process.
Another dominant feature of the farm is a mix of wetlands, most occurring in old farm fields. On the north end of the property lies a 4-acre wetland. Formed when a drainage tile ceased functioning about 10 years ago, this wetland lies in a depression on the farm. Sedges, cattails, sawgrass, and other aquatic wetland vegetation blanket the wetland. In addition, the wetland provides habitat for over 65 species of birds, including several migratory species. Birds observed in the wetland include blue herons, great white egret, sandpiper, mallard ducks, kingfishers, wrens, red-winged blackbirds, and warblers.
On the south end of the property, a large-scale wetland will be reintroduced to the property on an old 35-acre agricultural field. This wetland will be introduced in one of the low spots on the farm that contains hydric soils that indicate historical wetlands. EDIC is working with the Natural Resource Conservation Service for Lorain County to secure a 20-acre wetland introduction. The Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) supports the program. The CREP was set-up specifically for watersheds in southern Lake Erie. By enrolling acreage of farmland in the CREP program, farmers receive payments for habitat restoration, installation of grassy filterstrips, or preservation of riparian corridors alongside stream banks. In addition to curbing soil erosion and agricultural pollution, these areas provide critical habitat and offer a model for making agricultural production and environmental protection more integrated. As a lessee for the property, EDIC will receive a signing bonus, annual payments, and a 75% restoration subsidy for devoting the acreage to wetland introduction. The CREP area will include several deeper basins, which will support wetland habitat. Wildflower meadow fields will surround these basins. In addition, plans call for a 3-acre wetland restoration experimental area. This area will feature 6 cells of like size that will be hydrologically isolated. These cells will undergo different experimental treatments to determine the effects of nutrient levels on plant biodiversity. In addition to an applied research opportunity for Oberlin College students, this area will add to our understanding of effective strategies for restoring wetland habitat. Overall, in addition to increasing habitat, the wetlands on the property will help to reduce stormwater run-off from the property. The wetlands store and filter stormwater. Overflow will be collected in a series of ponds or underground cisterns where the rainwater can be used for agricultural irrigation.
In addition to food production and habitat restoration, buildings and structures on the Jones Farm will provide new models for green architecture and renewable energy generation. In 2001, the endwalls for a hoop greenhouse were constructed with strawbales. Strawbale construction utilizes an agricultural waste product (wheat straw) to construct high-performance wall systems. Strawbales provide insulation, helping to improve the energy performance of a space. The strawbales are coated with an earthen plaster which protects the bales from moisture while also adding thermal mass to collect and store thermal energy from the sun. As another example of waste recycling, a small tool storage barn was constructed using white oak and chestnut timbers from an old barn in southern Ohio. Future structures on the site will blend natural construction with the use of recycled or salvaged materials. Future projects include: a solar and wind energy generation station, an equipment storage barn and processing center built with recycled barn lumber, a strawbale education center, and a small farm manager residence constructed with a timber frame made from trees milled on site.
Overall, the George Jones Farm provides a model for new approaches to agricultural production, habitat restoration, building construction, waste recycling, and energy production. The site will be closely monitored over time, so that impacts on local ecology can be measured and used to provide feedback as to the effectiveness of different management decisions. Monitoring criteria include: soil quality, water quality, and rates of carbon absorption, crop yields, biodiversity surveys, and economic performance. As a 70-acre buffer on the eastern edge of the City of Oberlin, the Jones Farm also demonstrates a new approach to open space preservation that combines farmland and habitat preservation.
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CONSERVATION FARM
Much of the emphasis for the Black River Remedial Action Plan (RAP) was on controlling point sources of pollution, such as those coming from industrial sources in Lorain or water treatment facilities in Elyria. Current clean-up efforts are targeting “non-point source” pollution problems from dispersed sources that are not easily traced to an original producer. Agriculture remains a significant land-use activity in the drainage basin of the West Branch of the Black River. 
Overall, agriculture is the number one source of pollution in the Black River Watershed. The primary sources of pollution include sediment from soil erosion, pesticide and herbicide contamination, and nutrient run-off from water-soluble fertilizers.
Often times, the Black River will have a greenish tint during times of high run-off in the spring. Algae causes this greenish hue, which proliferates on the surface of the river, especially in slower moving sections of the river. Through a process referred to as eutrophication, high levels of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus can cause algae colonies to bloom. As algae accumulates at the top of the river, it reduces light penetration and reduces temperatures lower down in the river. In addition, as dead algae decomposes, it consumes oxygen and reduces available oxygen to aquatic organisms. Chemical fertilizers used for agricultural production tend to accelerate the process of eutrophication. Most chemical fertilizers are water-soluble which makes nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, or phosphorus immediately available to plants. Organic fertilizers such as manure take a longer time to break down in the soil and become available to plants. Whatever chemical fertilizers, that are not absorbed by the plant roots, will tend to leach out of the farm field during a storm event and accumulate in the Black River and its tributaries. The concentration of nutrients will magnify down-river and dramatically impact aquatic ecosystems downstream.
To address the issue of nutrient contamination, the RAP has worked closely with the Soil and Water Districts and the health department to promote “precision farming.” This agricultural technique utilizes state-of-the-art Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to modify fertilizer application rates. Precision farming involves the integration of three primary information technology systems. First, the farm is mapped on a 2-½-acre grid system. 
On the farm, a Geographic Positioning System (GPS) is used to measure the coordinates of soil samples taken at the center of each square of the grid. The GPS helps to locate each sampling point on the farm. These samples reveal the changes in nutrient levels throughout the farm. Second, the samples are fed into a GIS map system that uses this information to determine changes in nutrient levels across the farm. Third, a GPS is attached to a tractor and connected to a “variable rate treatment” device that regulates the flow of chemical fertilizers. As the farmer travels down the field, this device will vary the application rate of fertilizers according to how much of a given nutrient is needed in the field based on soil data. Through grant support from the Ohio EPA, seventeen farmers in Lorain County, including several farmers in the West Branch drainage basin, have utilized this technology to reduce their use of fertilizers and improve water quality conditions in the Black River.
OTHER FUTURE FEATURES:.... (A Work in Progress)
HIGHEST POINT
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