Stormwater Partners Network

There will be a public meeting regarding the Anacostia Watershed Restoration Plan on Tuesday May 13th at the M-NCPPC building in Silver Spring at 8787 Georgia Avenue.  According to the meeting flyer, it will be an opportunity for residents of the watershed to discuss target areas for future watershed restoration and provide an overview of study methods.  There will be a display session from 7:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m., and the meeting will take place from 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

FORCE (Friends of Rock Creek Environment) reported in their Winter 2007 Rock Creek Current that the Department of Public Works and Transportation (DPWT) recently completed $350,000 stream stabilization of Boiling Brook. Boiling Brook is a tributary of Rock Creek and is located in the Randolph Hills community in North Bethesda. The DPWT stream stabilization project included extensive use of gabion baskets of stone along a 1,000 foot segment of Boiling Brook. Stormwater runoff from nearby parking lots, roads, driveways and other hard surfaces was causing serious stream bank erosion along Boiling Brook. The erosion was serious enough to threaten Boiling Brook Parkway and the utilities that run on either side of the brook. Rather than addressing the stormwater runoff at the source, DPWT turned that segment of Boiling Brook into a lifeless drainage ditch. Were alternatives to controlling stormwater runoff seriously considered by DPWT and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)? Was this the only solution?

Boiling Brook - A portion of the newly armored Rock Creek Tributary
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The $3,500,000 Turkey Branch Restoration project is the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP’s) largest restoration effort to date. On March 15, 2007 DEP staff toured (more…)

Over the years, uncontrolled stormwater runoff badly damaged the stream leading to the Sligo Creek golf course stormwater pond. As a result there is little in the way of aquatic life found in the stream. The runoff from 70 acres of developed residential property, the golf course, and a mile-long portion of the Capital Beltway with little or no stormwater control resulted in stream channel damage. The runoff caused high stream velocities and increased sediment loads. The stream banks had become steep and the streambed was eroding (called incisement), straightening out and deepening. The normal flat floodplain and meanders (snaking around as streams should) were disappearing.

An aerial view of the stream running south into the stormwater pond

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