If anyone happens to be wandering around Annapolis on Thursday, May 15 at 
noon, and you are interested in learning about Hart-Miller Island, I would 
like to invite you to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources MANTA 
(Monitoring and Non-Tidal Assessment) Noon Seminar.

DATE:  May 15, 2008

TIME: Noon

LOCATION: Tawes State Office Building, C-1 Conference Room, 580 Taylor 
Avenue

SPEAKER:  Gene Scarpulla, Maryland Ornithological Society & Maryland 
Entomological Society

TITLE:  HART-MILLER ISLAND - PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE:  the transformation 
of dredged material into beneficial wildlife habitat

SYNOPSIS:  Hart-Miller Island is located in the northern Chesapeake Bay, 
approximately 6.5 miles east of Baltimore.  Hart-Miller was created in the 
early 1980s by connecting the rapidly eroding Hart and Miller Islands with a 
6-mile perimeter dike and thereby creating a 1100-acre impoundment.  The 
impoundment was then subdivided by a cross dike into the 300-acre South Cell 
and the 800-acre North Cell.  These two cells received dredged material from 
Baltimore Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay shipping channels.

Members of the Maryland Ornithological Society began weekly monitoring of 
avian usage of the facility in 1983.  The placement of dredged material into 
the cells created mudflat and pool habitats that are a mecca for waterbirds. 
Migrating shorebirds use these habitats as feeding sites during spring and 
fall on their way to and from breeding grounds in the Arctic.  Gulls and 
terns have historically nested on the island dikes, and both regularly use 
the cells for feeding and resting from spring through fall, with a large 
influx of birds during post-breeding dispersal.  Wintering waterfowl are 
attracted to the cells for feeding and resting from fall through spring. 
Additionally, insect monitoring began in the late 1990s.

Dredged material was no longer added to the South Cell after 1990.  A 
restoration effort began there in the early 2000s that created open water, 
wetlands, upland habitat, and a 1-acre nesting island.  The restored South 
Cell has unexpectedly attracted breeding populations of several of 
Maryland's Rare, Threatened, and Endangered breeding birds.  Additionally, 
some of Maryland's rarest insects have been observed on Hart-Miller Island. 
After the North Cell ceases receiving dredged material in 2009, a similar 
restoration project will follow.

Gene Scarpulla
Millers Island, Maryland