The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education completed the largest land improvement project in its 61-year history this month.

The center held a volunteer tree planting event on Oct. 17 to celebrate the Port Royal Gully Stabilization Project, a $1 million initiative designed to reduce flooding and erosion in the center’s woodlands. Nearly 100 volunteers planted 135 trees on Saturday, the young forest consisting of 18 native species.

Mae Axelrod, director of communications for the Schuylkill Center, said the event was “joyful” and fulfilling for volunteers.

“We’re just so grateful to everyone that showed up for the center,” she said.

The stabilization project uses nature-based methods like stone and native vegetation to reroute stormwater from Port Royal Avenue and reduce sediment from eroding into Wind Dance Pond at all sides.

Before the project, the stormwater had carved a 20-foot-wide, 10-foot-deep erosion channel on the hillside, damaging the plant life. It formed gullies that ate away at Port Royal Avenue, bringing road macadam into the pond. The storm damage has also polluted the Smith Run stream that feeds into the Schuylkill River, which supplies about 40% of Philadelphia’s drinking water.

“This is a problem that’s been here a long time,” executive director Erin Mooney said. “It’s an issue that’s specific to the community, but has larger ramifications. So, you drive down a road and you see flooding, you don’t realize that that flooding has ripple effects into nature and into the landscape beyond.”

Wind Dance Pond is a common canoeing site for the Schuylkill Center’s summer campers and is home to a variety of insects, marine life and migratory birds. But the inundation of stormwater and sediment has made the pond less accessible, said Steve Goin, the director of land and facilities at the Schuylkill Center.

“When the pond’s filling in, the canoers can’t really get out there,” he said. “All of a sudden things are changing at a pace that really the wildlife can’t keep up with.”

The project began with a grant from Schuylkill River Greenways in 2018. The center also received funding from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD), PECO, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and an anonymous Schuylkill Center donor.

Volunteers and the center’s staff planted native perennials by the pond and at the forest revitalization area, they created a new trail and removed clumps of invasive species, including devil’s walking stick and multiflora rose.

PWD and the center’s contractor installed about 700 trees and shrubs in addition to the 135 trees planted by staff and volunteers on Oct. 17, Goin said. The tree species include swamp white oak, river birch, basswood and black gum, he said. The new forest is expected to mature in around 50 years. Their roots grab onto the soil and prevent it from eroding, Goin said.

“Basically, it makes it more of a sponge,” he said. “That’s what water management can really be boiled down to. You want the earth to absorb the water so that it doesn’t get to a point where it has so much power that it’s eroding and causing problems.”

To contain the deluge of stormwater from Port Royal Avenue, landscape architects at Hinge Collective, engineers at Terracon and contractors at Flyway Excavating installed a stepped conveyance channel — a system that uses rocky steps and shallow pools to control stormwater down a slope. The energy of the stormwater flow dissipates as it runs down each step with a shallow pool and the stone traps the soil. The native plant life at the bottom of the hill also serves as a buffer between the erosion and pond.

Goin said the center staff chose a conveyance channel, the biggest project element, to be “as naturalistic as possible.”

“One could just install a culvert pipe, but that’s not benefiting the environment the way that a naturally occurring or naturally simulated channel would,” he said.

Mooney said it was imperative for the center to conduct the restoration project as climate change leads to more intense and frequent storms. A storm that once had a 1-in-100 chance of happening every year, a so-called “100-year storm,” could have a 1-in-7 probability by the end of the century, according to PWD.

Mooney is grateful for the stakeholders that supported the initiative “that may look small on the face of it, but has large effects in reality,” she said.

“We’re incredibly proud that we’ve had a multiagency investment into this project. It’s the largest landscape project that we’ve done to date. We have 365 acres here, and it’s a piece of it. But it affects the entire organization and our property,” she said.

Axelrod said the center’s work and dedication from the volunteers help the landscape become more resilient against storms and enhance biodiversity on the Schuylkill Center’s grounds. Wind Dance Pond attracts various types of migratory birds, turtles, frogs and toads, as well as groundhogs and foxes.

“As land around us gets developed, concrete gets laid down… there’s less and less space for wildlife,” she said. “So it’s even more important that the space that there is for wildlife is high-quality habitat, and that’s what we’re building here.”

Abby Weiss is an environmental reporter for the Local and a Report for America corps member. She can be reached at abby@chestnuthilllocal.com.