EASTON, Md.- The wetland floats in the pond off of Bay street in Easton once looked artificial, but today it's a different story. The plants have taken over helping it look much more natural.
Jeffery Horstman with the Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy, says that's precisely the point.
"The floating wetland acts like an installed, real wetland, but it floats. The roots come down through the wetland and absorb the nutrients that you don't want to continue to flow down the river," said Horstman.
But it did have some hiccups over the winter with the cold and ice.
"I would say because of the ice it wasn't as successful as it could have been because a lot of the plants were just starting to take. But we've replanted it and I think it has been very effective at what it was supposed to do," said Horstman.
The wetland has support from the county. They are another group involved in maintaining the wetland.
"It has potential applications for golf courses, where they have ponds. And we have other pond systems upstream of this area that basically are going to be retrofitted with this device," said Bill Wolinski, an environmental engineer with the Talbot County Public Works department.
The Riverkeepers Conservancy says they, along with the city and county have secured over $1 million in funding for 15 to 18 additional projects in this same vein to clean up Easton's watersheds.
