Disappearing Act: The mystery of Hoyes Run

By Gary Yoder
“It just disappears down a hole in the streambed,” says Alan Klotz, Western Regional Fisheries Service Biologist for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), “and when it reappears a hundred yards downstream, it brings a whole lot of problems with it.”

The problems Klotz refers to result from the influx of sediment and warm water, which, over time, threaten to strangle the life out of a stream and slowly but inexorably render it incapable of supporting a healthy matrix of aquatic life. Klotz and a team of Fisheries Service personnel have been monitoring Hoyes Run since 1980 and have documented signs of the stream’s general degradation such as siltation and a marked decline in aquatic invertebrates. Most ominous of all has been the precipitous drop in numbers of adult fish and young-of-the-year production in all three species of trout.

Hoyes Run, Garrett County Maryland

Trout:
A fundamental indicator
“Trout are to streams what canaries were once to deep mines - a great indicator of stream health. In 1998 there were nearly 700 trout per kilometer in Hoyes Run; today there are only about 300. And young-of-the-year production has dropped to under 100 per kilometer,” Klotz explains. “We believe this decline is directly related to poor reproductive success caused by sediment loads, increased water temperatures, and reduced flow associated with the limestone quarry.”

Dye tracing indicated that Hoyes Run was being “captured” by the nearby Keystone Quarry through fractures in its sub-surface rock formation. After entering the quarry, the stream is pumped into two sediment control ponds as part of the quarry’s normal operations. It is then released as the quarry’s pumps are operated, resulting in varying flow volume as the water is redirected back into the streambed. Heavy flows carry sediments, which are then deposited over the streambed, inhibiting spawning activity. Stream conditions are made worse by water temperature increases in the ponds during the summer, and further exacerbated by open pasture and lack of overhead canopy downstream.

Several investigations conducted by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and DNR in the 1970s were inconclusive as to what caused the sinkhole to develop. Theories range from blasting by previous quarry operators to naturally occurring geologic changes underlying the Hoyes Run streambed. In either case the impact was the same and since there was no enforceable action, the stream continued to degrade for more than a decade. Conventional wisdom was that there wasn’t much that could be done.

Unconventional wisdom
Enter Edgar Harman and the Youghiogheny River Watershed Association (YRWA), a group of Garrett County residents who were not predisposed to paying much attention to conventional wisdom. The group had been organized by Harman to identify restoration projects within the Youghiogheny watershed and work with governmental agencies to secure the necessary funding to move such projects forward. Hoyes Run was a perfect candidate for this organization and Klotz brought the problem to its attention.

“I serve as a board member of the Western Maryland Resource Conservation Council, and also on the Bureau of Mines’ Land Reclamation Committee,” Harman, the now retired Director of Environmental Health for Garrett County, explains. “I noticed that there were numerous opportunities to obtain grant funding for restoration and enhancement projects such as Hoyes Run, but to qualify you had to be an organization so I formed this group with the help of the local Garrett County Soil Conservation District.”

The YRWA is made up of citizens interested in projects that improve water quality in the Youghiogheny, the state’s only designated Wild and Scenic River. Members include fishermen, canoeing enthusiasts, a partner in an engineering firm, a college professor and a sanitary engineer, as well as regional natural resource professionals.

“This group has been effective because it wants to make something happen and it focuses its energy on doable projects. It doesn’t bog down in minutia or pet projects,” Harman continues. “Since we are a local organization, someone on the committee always knows someone in the community that can help move a project along. This is why we’ve been somewhat successful working with property owners in the watershed.”

Brook Trout
(Salvelinus fontinailis)
Brook (or speckled) trout are the only trout species native to Maryland waters. They are easily recognizable by their cream-colored spots set against a dark background - all other trout species in Maryland have dark spots on a light background. Spots along the back (dorsal) appear elongated and worm-like while those below the lateral line are round, red and surrounded by a bluish halo. Their bottom fins are also quite distinctive featuring a white leading edge followed by a black streak with the rest of the fin various shades of red, orange and yellow. Brook trout require clean, cold streams in order to thrive, and Maryland boasts nearly 100 streams that are home to self-supporting populations.

Rainbow Trout

Rainbow Trout
(Oncorhynchus mykiss)
Rainbow trout were transplanted to Maryland from the West Coast of the United States. They have a greenish-silver back and silver sides with a faint red band that travels the length of the lateral line, and are heavily spotted along the sides and top to include the dorsal and tail fins. Naturally reproducing populations of rainbow trout are found in only three small streams in Maryland.

Brown Trout

Brown Trout
(Salmo trutta)
The brown trout, a native of the British Isles and Europe, was introduced into Maryland waterways in the early 20th century and has become well established in many watersheds across the state. They are generally olive-green to brown on top shading to a golden-yellow on the sides, back and dorsal fin, with dark spots surrounded by a light halo. Frequently, the spots near the lateral line are red. Brown trout tend to grow bigger, live longer, and tolerate a wider range of habitat conditions than either brook or rainbow trout. Fishermen consider them to be the smartest and most difficult to catch of the trout species found in Maryland.

“The Hoyes Run project fit well with our goals. It was critical to the stream’s long-term health and very important to the Youghiogheny’s recreational use. Hoyes Run is one of the main feeder streams and an important part of our region’s recreation,” Harman explains. “It also had support in the right places: Eric Schwaab, former Director of the DNR Fisheries Service, had made it a priority and had identified an excellent funding source that mirrored our objectives. We want to take on projects that improve the long-term health of the resource and foster our quality of life.”

The funding source to which Harman refers came in the form of a challenge grant from the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. “Our project didn’t require a huge sum of money, but this grant gave us more bang for the buck because it could be used to leverage other resources and to solicit in- kind services from other agencies. The other advantage we have in addressing the problems on Hoyes Run is that the new quarry operator had a reputation as environmentally responsible and was willing to work with citizen groups such as ours. They were more than willing to work with us to solve the problem even though there was no legal obligation to do so,” Harman concludes.

Problem/Solution
Don Herman is the operations manager for Keystone Lime Company, a Pennsylvania-based firm that operates several limestone quarries in the region. “We knew we had a water problem when we purchased this quarry from the previous owner, but we didn’t know how much of a problem,” Herman says. “We have to treat any and all of the water entering the quarry as a result of our operation. But to have an entire stream ‘drop in for a visit’ was not something we planned on.” Hoyes Run, like an uninvited guest, was overstaying its welcome and everyone concerned wanted it to leave.

But identifying a problem is one thing and fixing it another. After all, this was not a small stream. And it was being sucked down a hole into a limestone quarry and pumped back into the streambed 100 yards downstream. What lay between the streambed and the quarry was an unknown. It could simply be a crack in the rock formation or it could be a cavern the size of a football stadium.

The Western Maryland Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D), a private non-profit organization that promotes conservation projects in the state’s five westernmost counties, recommended the group invite an engineer from the DNR Power Plant Sighting Research Program (PPSRP) to meet and discuss possible approaches to solving the problem. The PPSRP had been looking into the use of coal combustion byproducts to solve similar problems at other quarry sites and coalmines in Maryland, and Hoyes Run could be an excellent demonstration project for the use of coal ash grout as a permanent fix.

Fly ash, a fine particulate ash sent up by the combustion of a solid fuel, such as coal, and discharged as an airborne emission, is finding new use in the construction of dams, power stations, offshore platforms, tunnels, airports, bridges, pipelines and grain silos. Grout formed from the fly ash has also been used to shore up highway embankments, grading beneath industrial parks, and restoring structure to areas that have been surface-mined. For the Hoyes Run project, it was proposed the fly ash grout be applied to create a “synthetic rock” barrier between the stream and quarry.

Both the watershed group and the quarry operator liked the idea. It offered a permanent solution to the problem, the methodology was environmentally safe, the technology sound, and it was relatively inexpensive - about $70,000 including in-kind time commitments from within the agencies.

Between a rock and a hard place…
Paul Petzrick, who heads the PPRP, says there are several steps in the process. “The first thing we must do is conduct a geophysical survey which will give us a ‘picture’ of the sub-surface cavity we are dealing with. Then using a polyurethane grout, we would seal the crack in the streambed and allow the underlying cavity to drain. Once the cavity drains we will drill into the cavity and fill it with flyash grout which, once it sets up, forms a cement wall between the stream and the quarry.”

According to Petzrick, the concept of using coal combustion byproducts for sealing rock fissures in limestone is a relatively new one, but it already shows great promise as a permanent fix for dealing with such problems. In addition, the Maryland Bureau of Mines is investigating the use of polyurethane grouting to address similar problems in the mining industry. This process is considered environmentally benign and is even approved for use in conjunction with water and food storage areas by United Laboratories.

“The Hoyes Run project is an excellent demonstration of the effectiveness of these processes being used in tandem to solve a fairly common but complicated problem, and it recycles an unwanted byproduct of our demand for electricity,” Petzrick explains. “We generate 1.1 million tons of flyash per year and only about one-third of this material is put to beneficial use, with the rest taking up valuable space in landfills. We want that to change. In fact, the PPRP and the Resource and Development Councils of Maryland have set a goal of putting all of the state’s combustible coal byproducts into beneficial use by the year 2010,” Petzrick concludes.

The plan in motion
Alan Klotz - DNR's Western Regional Fisheries Service Biologist. This spring, when water levels in Hoyes Run allow, the plan will be put into motion. Once complete, Al Klotz and his team, which includes DNR professionals as well as natural resource students from nearby Garrett College, will evaluate the stream to make sure it’s no longer making unintentional visits to Keystone Quarry and determine the project’s effectiveness in reestablishing the health of this very special ecosystem.

To Klotz, who is also an adjunct faculty member at Garrett College, the Hoyes Run restoration project is a unique opportunity. “This is not only a demonstration of innovative technology being put to great use in restoring a threatened stream, it also illustrates what can happen when a diverse group of people with assorted interests come together with a common goal. It adds meaning to the work I do at DNR as a fisheries biologist and at the college where I can involve my students in a project that offers the greatest lesson of all - cooperative efforts make things happen.”

Gary Yoder...
has been with the Department of Natural Resources for more than 20 years and has served in a number of capacities during that time. For the past five years he has been assigned to Fisheries Service working on Special Projects in western Maryland and several statewide outreach initiatives. He also provided the photos for this article.

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