On a sunny Saturday morning, about a dozen people clad in sunhats and gardening gloves gathered around the trailhead at Calamus Swamp Preserve.
Columbus Audubon President Kori Sedmak welcomed new and returning volunteers. She explained that Calamus Swamp is no ordinary pond.
“It's pretty unique geologically. It was formed 10,000 years ago, give or take, by the glaciers, so a big chunk of glacial ice fell off of the glacier into this pond that we're going to see and formed the pond itself,” she said.
In fact, Calamus Swamp is one of just a handful of glacial kettle ponds or kettle swamps remaining in Ohio. The ponds are typically shallow and can fill easily with sediments or be overtaken with plants – which is what has begun to happen to Calamus.
About 25 years ago, the family of Ada Burke, a Circleville resident, gave the 20-acre nature preserve and kettle pond off State Route 104 in Pickaway County to the Columbus Audubon. Burke had cared for the pond throughout her life and wanted it to be continued to be preserved.
The all-volunteer Columbus Audubon has done just that, but in the quarter of a century that’s passed, the cattails have overtaken the pond. Sedmak believes the likely cause is changes in agricultural practices over the year. It’s likely the surrounding farms have caused water, sediment or nitrogen pollution that’s helped the invasive plants thrive and put the native plants at risk.
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Restoration
Saturday morning, Sedmak led the volunteers along a grassy path to a boardwalk that ran through the dappled sunlight in the woods. At the end of the path was a duck blind looking over the pond.
Columbus Audubon Conservation Coordinator Allison Boehler stooped to peer through the slats at the pond. The water was barely visible through the tangle of plants, but she said it was a huge improvement from a few months ago.
“If you look out here, you can see a complete delineated sort of portion where they've clearly treated, and you can even see some of the natives popping up in between already,” Boehler said.
She points to the clear line between dry, brown cattails and green plants beyond.
Columbus Audubon is in the process of tackling Calamus Swamp’s invasive species problem, thanks to a $175,000 Section 319 grant from the Ohio EPA. The funds come from the federal Clean Water Act and are used to restore areas impacted by water pollution.
Calamus Swamp’s rehab last year when restoration experts Coldwater Consultants used GPS to map the swamp.
“We knew there were some stands of higher quality wetland vegetation still in the swamp. We wanted to preserve that,” said John Shady with Coldwater Consultants.
Mad Scientist Associates, a wetlands consulting firm, has started treating the swamp, targeting the invasive plants.
“One of the things that our team is really adept at is kind of a surgical strike. They know what to hit and what to avoid with the herbicide,” said Mark Dilley, a scientist with Mad Scientist Associates.
Mad Scientist Associates will treat the cattails again this year and will also treat the invasive reed canary grass.
Hunting invasive plants
In the surrounding fields and woods, however, invasive species like honeysuckle bushes still crowd out native plants. That’s where the volunteers come in. They took the trails with gloves, plastic bags, and long metal tools called honeysuckle poppers. They clambered into the foliage and ripped up white multiflora rose and garlic mustard, discarding the plants in the path or hanging them in the trees to dry.
Kathy Bruns pointed to a small invasive plant.
“See these little guys? These can just be pulled up,” she said.
Bruns ripped up the plant but missed some of the roots – which meant it could grow back. She quickly pulled out her bottle of the herbicide glyphosate. She carefully sprayed just the remaining stump, avoiding all the nearby plants.
“Glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide, but we are using it in a very selective manner as you can see,” she said.
Down a different trail, Kathy’s husband, Bill Bruns, used a cordless saw with a pruning blade to chop a larger plant. Likewise, he sprayed the stump with herbicide.
The couple from Blacklick are regular volunteers and are passionate about removing invasive plants from Ohio parks.
“It's kind of a curse though because now when you go into a park somewhere, you can't just walk through and enjoy nature because you see all the invaders and say, ‘I got it. I get to work on this,’” Bill Bruns laughed.
They’re not the only ones who take tackling invasives seriously. Many of the Calamus Swamp regular volunteers work in conservation or environmental protection for their day jobs. They still enjoy spending their weekends elbow-deep in invasive plants.
“This is our hunting season is going after garlic mustard,” said Hardy Kern of Westerville.
Kern used to work at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium taking care of animals. Now, for his day job, he advocates for the American Bird Conservancy, but he doesn’t get outside as much. He enjoys the sunshine and exercise, as well as the conversation with fellow environmental restoration enthusiasts.
“it’s rare I can go to an event and have a 20 minute conversation about the best ways to remove honeysuckle and have the other person be as equally interested as I am,” Kern said.
Preserving Ohio’s Heritage
The Columbus Audubon said preserving Calamus Swamp is about saving a unique piece of Ohio’s geologic history. It’s also an important, biologically diverse wildlife habitat.
Sedmak calls it an important part of Ohio’s heritage.
“I would hate to see it just disappear in a decade because we weren't paying close enough attention,” Sedmak said.
After treatment of the pond is completed later this year, Columbus Audubon plans to monitor the site and add signs so visitors can learn about the area’s importance.
