The Illick's Mill Project - Environmental Objectives

Why re-use the Mill as an environmental center?

Monocacy Nature Center, a 20-acre site contiguous to the mill, is located in a densely populated area, and is heavily utilized by local citizens. Stream bank conditions and water quality are highly threatened;

As an environmental center in a city, the Mill's programming will acquaint our citizens with the beauty of nature, and will foster an appreciation for environmental issues and action;

The Mill is a beautiful structure currently under restoration; Our architectural plan models an environmentally-friendly approach to development, and will improve an historic structure in an especially popular park;

The Monocacy Creek is significantly understudied, and local students from neighboring schools, colleges, and universities must currently travel out of our area to do hands-on environmental study.

Education and environmental activities at Illick's Mill will have an infinite impact on our community in the years to come.

Goals and Objectives for The Illick's Mill Center for Environmental Education

Goal: To protect and restore water quality in Monocacy Creek to the following standards: Water temperature no greater than 66 degrees F; ph levels between 6.5 and 8.2; Dissolved Oxygen level of at least 7 mg/L; Alkalinity levels between 100 and 200 mg/L; Nitrate levels less than 1 mg/L; and Phosphate levels between 0.03 and 0.1 mg/L.
1. Objective: Protect Monocacy Creek's water quality.
  1. Activity: Begin a daily water testing regimen.
  2. Activity: Analyze changes longitudinally.
  3. Activity: Create a consortium of local higher education Science departments, state and local environmental organizations, corporate leaders, citizen activists, and municipal leaders to study the creek’s water quality and create a list of recommendations for the creek’s protection.
  4. Activity: Organize a "Neighbors of the Watershed" organization, an organization of private landowners along the creek.
  5. Activity: Create a "best management practices" homeowner?s guide.
  6. Activity: Implement a voluntary ?best management practices? homeowner?s pact.
1. Objective: Keep the stream at a constant 56 degree temperature.
  1. Activity: Identify sections of the creek that require additional native stream bank plantings to shade the creek.
  2. Activity: Work with willing local landowners to implement native streambank plantings.
  3. Activity: Identify sections of the creek that require narrowing to increase flow rates.
  4. Activity: Work with willing local landowners to implement stream bank remediation projects to narrow sections of the stream.
  5. Activity: Create community education programs and materials to encourage use of pervious pavement materials in new construction.
  6. Activity: Create community education programs and materials to encourage planting of low-maintenance native plants.
  7. Activity: Identify areas where devices such as oil separators should be installed to control runoff of deleterious substances.
  8. Activity: Raise funds, through grants and events, to defray the cost of installing these devices in existing infrastructure.
  9. Activity: Coordinate reassessment of the 100-year-floodplain, seeking better compliance with current regulations, and incorporating floodplains in a riparian buffer zone to ensure their protection.
  10. Activity: Coordinate creation of a watershed-wide riparian buffer zone perhaps by adapting Montgomery County’s “Riparian Corridor Conservation District” ordinance, presenting this adapted ordinance to all watershed municipal planning boards and using the media and public support to leverage passage of the ordinance. Evaluation: Regular water quality testing should result in meeting and maintaining the following water quality goals: Water temperature no greater than 66 degrees F; ph levels between 6.5 and 8.2; Dissolved Oxygen level of at least 7 mg/L; Alkalinity levels between 100 and 200 mg/L; Nitrate levels less than 1 mg/L; and Phosphate levels between 0.03 and 0.1 mg/L.
Goal: Protect native species of fauna.
1. Objective: Identify, quantify, and analyze current fauna populations numbers and trends.
  1. Activity: Conduct and compile daily fauna counts, involving students from local schools, colleges, and universities as well as citizen environmentalists.
  2. Activity: Participate yearly in national counting days such as National Audubon Society’s Great Backyard Bird Count, annual Christmas Count, and “Big Day” birding count.
  3. Activity: Analyze local data over time, and compare local data with national data.
1. Objective: Protect threatened species of native fauna.
  1. Activity: Using accumulated data, create management plan to improve Monocacy Nature Center habitat to provide increased food supplies and shelter for threatened species.
  2. Activity: Form a management team consisting of Mill employees, volunteers, City park personnel and others to implement management plan.
  3. Activity: Implement management plan. Evaluation: Yearly analysis of data will show steady increases in populations figures for threatened species, with a target increase of 5%, averaged over a five-year period.
Goal: Educate the community on local environmental preservation and protection.
1. Objective: Teach our community members, from youngest to oldest, the importance of environmental preservation and protection.
  1. Activity: Involve local students and community members in hands-on restoration projects such as stream bank restoration, native planting, and clean-ups.
  2. Activity: Record the stories of their efforts in articles, artwork, and reports. Activity 1c: Publish articles, reports, and artwork in our newsletter, The MillWright, and on our website, illicksmill.org.
1. Objective: Provide an integrated educational experience at the Mill.
  1. Activity: Create curriculum that encourages scientific inquiry, environmental action, application of technological and writing skills, and discovering and making history.
  2. Activity: Attract students from local schools, colleges, and universities to participate in programing at the mill.
  3. Activity: Take proactive steps, with visiting students, to restore the environment, rebuild and restore nature trails, replant native plants, while learning about nature in the process.
Goal: Research and teach the history of Illick’s Mill, the surrounding WPA era park, the adjacent train system, the mill raceway, and the ties these facilities and structures have to our industrial past and present.
1. Objective: When adults and students visit the mill, they will see and interact with displays and archival materials about the history of Illick’s Mill, the surrounding WPA-era park, the adjacent train system, the mill raceway. and the ties these facilities and structures have to our industrial past and present.
  1. Activity: Create and present posters, murals, paintings, and interactive hands-on displays that interpret the history of the mill, W.P.A. park, creek, train lines, and their ties to emerging local industry and industry today.
  2. Activity: Create curricular materials to interpret the history of the mill, park, creek, train lines, and their ties to emerging local industry and industry today.
  3. Activity: Attract students from local schools, colleges, and universities to participate in historical research at the mill. Process.
1. Objective: Local historians and history majors will help the mill staff expand and interpret our current archives of materials related to the mill’s history, the park, the raceway, and the train that runs directly behind the mill.
  1. Activity: Organize a meeting of local historians and history professors from the seven colleges in our watershed and numerous high schools.
  2. Activity: Form an Illick’s Mill History advisory committee to assist in the expansion and interpretation of our archives, and to create community events and curricular programming utilizing the archival materials, and a system for safely storing, cataloguing, and accessing the materials.