$1.2 million project could breathe life into Aaron Run

Michael A. Sawyers

BLOOMINGTON - If everything works as planned and as hoped for, a $1.2 million project directed by the Maryland Bureau of Mines will change Aaron Run from a four-mile sluice for acid mine drainage into the clear-water stream it was in days of yore.

And, if the leach bed leaches, the lime doser doses and the SAP cell (successive alkaline producing cell) does its job, maybe, just maybe, native brook trout will be returned to the Garrett County stream.

"That's the goal," said Alan Heft, a biologist with the Maryland Inland Fisheries Division. "Aaron Run has been dead because of acid mine drainage, for what, 40 or 50 years, and we hope that in 2009 we will be capturing wild brook trout from the lower Savage River and moving them to a new Aaron Run."

Aaron Run lies to the northwest of Westernport Road and flows southwesterly into Savage River near the first bridge that is reached driving upstream from Bloomington. Its steep flow just before reaching the larger river is visible from Savage River Road.

Connie Lyons Loucke, one of a number of people from the mining agency involved in the project, said she is confident that the group's experience in improving water quality can work again, this time on Aaron Run.

"This is the first time we have done a project on an entire drainage," Loucke said Monday. Perhaps the larger challenge, according to Loucke, was in the finagling, researching and coordinating it took to come up with the cash to fund the project using numerous state and federal sources.

"We have substantial experience improving water quality in the North Branch of the Potomac," Loucke said. Seven lime dosers are in place at various locations. The lime neutralizes the acid, allowing life, including trout, to once again flourish in these mountain waterways.

According to Heft, $75,000 for the work was contributed by the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture, an effort that deals with brook trout throughout its native range in the eastern United States.

"One of the goals of the venture is to restore brook trout fisheries," Heft said.

Heft said that most of the project will be on private land. "Any public access will be with the blessing of the landowners," he said.

Mining agency officials said Aaron Run flows through land owned by Walter Wassel, Rod and Charlee Owens, and the Moran Coal Co.

Heft said that if the Aaron Run water quality improves adequately, crews will capture native brook trout in the lower Savage River for transplantation. "That way we will be assured that the same, original genetic strain is being used," he said.

Mike Garner, also of the mining agency, said bids for the first portions of the project are soon to be awarded with a second phase likely to start in the spring of 2009. Completion will be four months later, with brook trout transplantation shortly after that.

"We've proven we can bring fish back," Loucke said.

Aaron Run is one of 10 waters being restored via the National Fish Habitat Action Plan, produced by an assembly of the nation's leading authorities on aquatic conservation, including the Western Maryland Resource Conservation and Development Council.

Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.