By Jack Chavez, Staff Writer

(July 28, 2022) The Berlin Mayor and Town Council struck an agreement on Monday with the Nature Conservancy to improve water flow on the Pocomoke River by breaching manmade levees.

“We started the project back in 2013 with state and federal agencies,” said Mike Dryden, a wetland restoration specialist who works out of the nonprofit’s Salisbury field office. “It’s funded through the (Department of Natural Resources).”

Dryden said that when the channel in upper portions of the river was stabilized and straightened in the 1940s, the floodplains that flow over after rain were completely cut off from the river,

“What we’re doing is … bringing the floodplain elevation straight across,” Dryden said. During a storm event, it has more opportunity to return to the disconnected floodplain that we’ve opened back up. We’re not adding more water it’s just more frequent. So during the summer, the breeches will act as inlets-outlets, so they’ll go back out to the river once it recedes.”

The work will occur roughly between Purnell Crossing and Whiton Road in the watershed — 12 breaches altogether, Dryden said.

The Conservancy is in the permitting process right now, he added, and they hope to begin sometime in late August or early September, before the rainy fall months.

The agreement between the two entities states that the conservancy will be entitled to cross onto the property sites in question for work related to the project, defines when the project is considered complete and restricts the town from altering or removing the project.

The agreement is effective for the next 10 years.