Stormwater Partners Network

The County has been working on a big expensive watershed restoration project in Turkey Branch (a tributary of Rock Creek). Extensive stream restoration work has been completed including the installation of stormwater ponds.  The County is getting ready to focus on getting homeowners in Wheaton Woods (a community along Turkey Branch) to install LID practices.  However, the park (Matthew Henson State Park) and Turkey Branch are trashed.  If this restoration effort is going to be successful, there is a need for increased community stewardship in the watershed and in the park/branch.  On April 4 (Potomac Clean Up Day) from 9 am to noon, I will be helping a Wheaton Woods resident to organize a cleanup of Turkey Branch between Viers Mill Road and Connecticut Avenue.  If you are not committed to clean up in your community that day, please consider helping us clean up this stream.  We could use the help in kicking off this effort.

See http://www.riverexplorer.com/rock_creek/details.php4?id=24 for location.

The park is currently a dumping site for auto parts and other trash.

A ladder and car battery in the park.

Trash is all over the park and in Turkey Branch.

News flash!   The draft final Montgomery County Stormwater Permit has been released by the MDE.  This is the same permit as last fall’s draft, with one key change:  a requirement for deadlines for meeting pollution limits for degraded waters restoration in the TMDL Implementation Plans.  This is a step in the right direction, and one of the changes we requested at the November 19 hearing.  This permit also requires Montgomery to undertake revisions to its stormwater and zoning and planning ordinances and codes in order to implement Environmental Site Design to the Maximum Extent Practicable.  Bruce Gilmore, consultant to American Rivers, is working on the ESD stormwater ordinance in Prince George’s County and in Montgomery, and is seeking to collaborate with other Stormwater Partners in moving this ball forward.    bgilmore@americanrivers.org.

See also this final response.

A coalition of conservation and community groups calls on the Montgomery County Planning Board to stop the Maryland State Highway Administration’s (SHA) plans to begin construction of a highway bridge along the Upper Paint Branch in the Anacostia Watershed.

Citing pollution problems and design flaws already evident in the Upper Rock Creek Special Protection Area portion of the highway project, the Audubon Naturalist Society, Coalition for Smarter Growth, Eyes of Paint Branch, Community Research, and Neighbors of Northwest Branch call on Governor O’Malley to grant a “stay of execution” for Upper Paint Branch.

The State Highway Administation has turned the Mill Creek area of Upper Rock Creek into a moonscape  and has obliterated the forests, wetlands and streams there.  It really comes down to this: Can we truly depend on the State and the County Planning Board to protect and restore the Anacostia River and the Chesapeake Bay.

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