Lancaster Conservancy is beginning restoration work to improve a 17-acre floodplain, including a wetland, at Wizard Ranch Nature Preserve in Hellam Township, York County. The preserve will be closed starting Monday, Aug. 24, as contractors begin work removing sediment that has accumulated in the stream over time. The work will restore a floodplain with a wetland, improving habitat as well as stormwater absorption and filtration.
Why Are Floodplains & Wetlands Important?
A floodplain is an area of land near a stream or river that floods during periods of heavy rain. Wetlands are transitional ecosystems between waterways and dry land, where the soil is either saturated or covered by water sometimes or all the time. Wetlands serve as filters for pollutants, sponges for floods, and habitat for a diversity of plants, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals.
In the past 200 years, over half of the wetlands in the contiguous United States have been lost to agriculture and development, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and many of the wetlands that exist today are degraded. Unhealthy wetlands provide poor quality habitat and have a reduced ability to filter and absorb stormwater.
What Makes Wizard Ranch’s Wetland Unhealthy?
The floodplain and wetlands at Wizard Ranch are currently heavily compromised and unhealthy due to the compounding impacts of nearby roads, dams, land use, and invasive plant species. Roadways and other impervious surfaces channeled unfiltered stormwater into the previously dammed stream on the preserve. Sediment and other pollutants carried by the stormwater built up behind the dam over time, leaving tall, steep, eroding streambanks after the dam was abandoned.
Degraded stream bank at Wizard Ranch Nature Preserve (Photo by Keith Williams)While part of this 17-acre floodplain at Wizard Ranch is still technically a wetland, it doesn’t fully function as one. The stream channel is feet below the ground surface of the wetland due to the artificially accumulated sediment, which means the water doesn’t braid through the wetland but rather flows through the stream channel. Because of this, the pollutants wetlands should filter out of our waterways – sediments, nitrogen and phosphorous – stay in the stream, since the water stays in the stream channel. Its ability to absorb floodwater is also limited, as the water must rise 3-4 feet up the steep banks of the stream before it flows over the floodplain.
Additionally, rampant invasive plant species have dominated this ecosystem, decreasing the diversity of wildlife present and reducing the quality and resiliency of this habitat. Life here is less abundant than it should be in a healthy wetland.
What Will the Wetland and Floodplain Restoration Entail?
In order to restore this impaired wetland, the Conservancy is partnering with Resource Environmental Solutions (RES) to remove that legacy sediment and recreate an integrated, healthy, fully functioning floodplain, returning the ecosystem to the state it existed in for centuries before the dam was constructed.
“The Hellam Hills Conservation Area Master Plan, completed in 2022, identified floodplain restoration at Wizard Ranch Nature Preserve as the most paramount and impactful habitat restoration need for the entirety of the 1,000+ acres assessed. The Wizard Ranch floodplain restoration serves as a keystone to all other restoration efforts on the preserve, with ecological benefits including restored hydrologic cycling, significantly improved wildlife habitat, and a dynamic, resilient ecosystem providing essential ecosystem services such stormwater retention and filtration,” said Brandon Tennis, Senior Vice President of Stewardship at Lancaster Conservancy.
While this restoration project is necessary to foster a healthy floodplain ecosystem, it will involve some changes that may look surprising. The project will involve the removal of some trees, including dead ash trees and invasive species, to recreate a healthy, functioning floodplain. The legacy sediment that is removed from the stream will be redistributed across the upland area of the floodplain, and trees that are removed will be repurposed into features that will be used in the stream restoration and stream bank stabilization. This process will reconnect the floodplain with ground water and allow the wetland to infiltrate polluted stormwater as it moves more slowly through the site, reducing flooding downstream. Native plants will be reintroduced to create a healthy forested buffer to protect the water quality of the stream and the Susquehanna River into which it drains.
The floodplain restoration and four stream crossings, including a pedestrian bridge, are funded through the establishment of a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation mitigation bank for wetland restoration.
“Utilizing opportunities, such as environmental markets, to fund large-scale ecological restoration initiatives on our nature preserves allows the Conservancy to prioritize funding towards additional land protection projects,” said Tennis.
A Learning Lab for Ecological Restoration
Wizard Ranch has served as the Conservancy’s flagship for ecological restoration education. The Conservancy acquired the over 200-acre nature preserve from the Boy Scouts of America in 2019. When the Conservancy acquired the property, the unhealthy forests were suffering canopy collapse due to unchecked invasive plant and insect species. Wizard Ranch has been the site of invasive species removal volunteer workdays, tree plantings, and the first prescribed burn on a Conservancy preserve. As we have worked to restore healthy ecosystems on the property, it has provided firsthand opportunities for our community to learn about ecological restoration.
“With the return of native hydrology, we expect to see a return of a diverse ecosystem, home to declining wetland-dependent birds, frogs, salamanders, and turtles. Wizard Ranch has served as a place where our community can reestablish a reciprocal relationship with nature by giving back through ecological restoration. Monitoring the wetland after restoration is an exciting extension of that reciprocity,” said Keith Williams, Vice President of Engagement and Education at Lancaster Conservancy.
Wizard Ranch Nature Preserve will be closed to the public starting Aug. 24, 2026, in advance of the restoration work. The Conservancy expects the preserve will reopen within 6-8 months.