Today, we’re spotlighting one key stretch of the Blue Green Connector: the Marietta Avenue restoration site.
At first glance, it may look like just another piece of open land. But beneath the surface, this landscape tells a much bigger story about water flow, ecological health, connectivity, and why restoration work matters.
More importantly, this site represents something much larger.
The Blue Green Connector is undertaking the most ambitious floodplain restoration project in Lancaster County’s history. Spanning six restoration sites along the Little Conestoga Creek, the project will ultimately restore approximately 25 acres of floodplain, reconnecting the creek with its natural landscape, improving water quality, increasing flood resilience, and creating healthier habitat throughout the watershed.
Today, half of those restoration sites have already been completed, with more work continuing in the years ahead, starting with F&M College Spalding Conservancy this winter.
Restoration is not a single moment—it’s a process that unfolds over time. Looking at this section of the Connector through three phases helps tell that story.
Why This Area Matters
This site plays an important role in the larger system of the Little Conestoga Creek.
Of the six restoration sites along the Connector, this location is the furthest downstream, meaning it reflects the cumulative impact of everything happening upstream.
By the time water reaches this location, it has traveled through nearly 40 square miles of watershed, flowing through agricultural lands, neighborhoods, roads, businesses, and developed areas across Lancaster County before continuing its journey to the Susquehanna River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.
That means restoration here benefits far more than this immediate landscape.
Improving this section of the creek helps reduce erosion, improve water quality, restore wildlife habitat, reconnect natural floodplain processes, and strengthen ecological resilience throughout the broader watershed.
It’s one piece of a much larger effort to rethink how Lancaster County lives alongside its waterways.
Before Restoration
Before restoration began, this area faced several environmental challenges.
Years of accumulated legacy sediment had buried the historic floodplain, disconnecting the creek from the surrounding landscape. Instead of spreading into wetlands during storms, as healthy streams naturally do, water became confined within the stream channel, increasing flow velocity and causing erosion.
The site also experienced:
- Streambank erosion
- Invasive vegetation
- Reduced biodiversity
- Limited wetland habitat
- Poor floodplain connectivity
As these natural connections disappeared, so did many of the ecological functions that make streams healthy, slowing stormwater, filtering pollutants, supporting wildlife, storing floodwater, and improving downstream water quality.
During Restoration
This is where change becomes visible.
Restoration begins by removing decades of accumulated legacy sediment, lowering the floodplain closer to its historic elevation and reconnecting the creek with the surrounding landscape.
Large amounts of soil are carefully removed, groundwater connections are restored, stream channels are reshaped where needed, and native vegetation is planted to begin rebuilding ecological function.
To someone passing by, the site can temporarily appear more disturbed than before.
Heavy equipment, exposed soil, and large-scale earthmoving may not look beautiful, but they are all necessary steps toward creating a healthier landscape.
In fact, some of the most exciting changes are happening where we can’t even see them.
As the floodplain reconnects with underground groundwater systems, long-buried springs have begun to reemerge. Water is once again moving naturally through soils and wetlands, increasing flood storage, improving water quality, and helping cool the creek as steady 55-degree groundwater mixes with warmer surface water.
These hidden changes lay the foundation for a healthier creek for decades to come.
After Restoration
Over time, the landscape begins to settle into a new rhythm.
A diverse mix of native wetland plants, grasses, shrubs, seed mixes, and carefully selected trees is transforming the site into the wetland-meadow ecosystem that historically characterized much of this corridor.
As vegetation matures, the restored floodplain begins functioning as nature intended.
Stormwater slows and spreads across the floodplain instead of rushing downstream.
Sediment settles naturally.
Water filters through soils and native vegetation.
Wildlife habitat expands.
The creek becomes cooler, healthier, and more resilient.
These changes don’t happen overnight, but year after year, the landscape becomes stronger and better equipped to support both people and wildlife.
Looking at the Bigger Picture
While this blog highlights a single restoration site, it’s important to remember that this work is happening across an interconnected system.
Together, the Blue Green Connector’s six restoration sites represent approximately 25 acres of restored floodplain, making this the largest and most comprehensive stream restoration initiative ever undertaken in Lancaster County.
Once complete, the Blue Green Connector is projected to prevent the following pollutants from entering our waterways every year:
- 7,752 pounds of nitrogen
- 1,541 pounds of phosphorus
- More than 4 million pounds of sediment
Each completed site strengthens the next.
Every restored floodplain stores more stormwater.
Every native planting supports more biodiversity.
Every improvement contributes to cleaner water flowing downstream toward the Chesapeake Bay.
This is restoration at a watershed scale.
Looking Ahead
Restoration can look messy before it looks beautiful.
What may appear today as exposed earth and construction equipment is actually the beginning of an ecological transformation that will continue unfolding over many years.
With each season, native plants will mature, wildlife will return, floodplains will become more functional, and the Little Conestoga Creek will continue reconnecting with the landscape that has sustained it for centuries.
Projects of this scale don’t happen overnight and they don’t happen often.
That’s what makes the Blue Green Connector so significant.
By restoring 25 acres of floodplain across six sites, we’re not simply improving individual streambanks. We’re investing in cleaner water, healthier habitats, greater flood resilience, and a more connected future for Lancaster County.
The landscape is changing, and with it, so is the future of the Little Conestoga Creek.
