A lone red poppy stands out in a filed of wild cornflowers and oxy-eye daisies at the Patuxent Wildlife Viewing Area in Anne Arundel County. BGE built this wetland as a mitigation for wetlands affected by the construction of a 500 kV transmission loop around Washington, D.C.

Completion of BGE's 500kV loop around Washington, D.C. affected 13 acres of federally protected wetland areas. Because federal regulations required replacing wetlands acre-for-acre when altered by construction, BGE agreed to mitigate by building two wetland areas: two acres at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant and a 25-acre wetlands at Patuxent. Everyone involved in the project benefited.

BGE mitigated wetland disturbance without having to purchase property, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife expanded its research center without having to pay for more land, and the U.S. Army turned formerly unusable real estate into an environmental showcase. Today, the public continues to benefit by having a beautiful educational site to visit and view wildlife in its natural habitat at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center near Ft. Meade, Maryland.