Stormwater Partners Network

The Stormwater Partners have sent the following letter to Governor O’Malley:

Dear Governor O’Malley,
In 2001, the State of Maryland joined Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, and the District of Columbia in signing the Anacostia Restoration Agreement, and in committing to 2010 targets and goalsfor improving the Anacostia River. Goal 5 of this Agreement is to “protect and expand forest cover” in the Anacostia Watershed. The resulting 2005 Anacostia Watershed Forest Management and Protection Strategy noted the many benefits that forests provide to Anacostia water quality, and again emphasized the importance of their preservation and expansion.
The Montgomery County Stormwater Partners Network, formed in 2005, consists of almost two dozen groups concerned with stormwater prevention and reduction in order to improve and protect the health of local streams and riers including the Anacostia headwaters. We are concerned that, far from fulfilling this commitment through forest protection combined with reforestation, Maryland is causing a net additional forest loss in the Anacostia watershed. At the Montgomery County Forest Conservation Advisory Committee meeting in September 2009, the Maryland State Highway Administration reported that it had cut down 420 acres of Anacostia Watershed forests for construction of the Intercounty Connector, but had identified only 100 acres for reforestation in the Watershed. Not only is Maryland failing to protect and expand the Anacostia’s forest cover as it pledged in 2001, but it has instead caused a net loss of 320 acres. We are concerned that this severe forest decline indicates that the State is less than fully committed to restoring the Anacostia.
The Montgomery County Stormwater Partners Network asks that your administration reaffirm Maryland’s commitment to fulfilling the 2001 Anacostia Agreement, by directing the state agencies to identify and purchase suitable lands for reforestation to (1) make up for the 320 acre loss it has caused (2) then start to live up to its pledge by proactively protecting and expanding the Anacostia’s forests through new and expanded parkland and conservation land acquisitions and reforestation projects. We further suggest that you direct the Department of Natural Resources to actively partner with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, and similar entities, in order to make Maryland’s Anacostia commitments a reality.
Sincerely yours,
Diane M. Cameron and Steve Dryden
Coordinators
Montgomery County Stormwater Partners Network

The County Executive has made a proposal to the Council to reduce the 2010 budget for key water quality programs including tree planting, tree maintenance, and the Keep Montgomery Beautiful program, which runs programs including storm drain marking in the County (see page 12 of the pdf).   Also slated for cuts are important Anacostia watershed U.S. Geological Survey stream gaging projects.

It is essential that the Council follow the recommendations of the Anacostia Watershed Forest Management and Protection Strategy which was created to guide decision makers so that Anacostia streams may one day be restored.  One of the specific goals in the strategy is to increase the number and long term viability of street trees in the Anacostia watershed.   The Council should be fully funding the programs that will help to meet this goal.  Street trees need to be increased in all the County’s urban watersheds, not only for the Anacostia streams, but in Rock Creek and other Montgomery County watersheds as well. Why bother creating these strategies and plans if the recommendations in them are going to be ignored?   

The December 15 meeting of the Stormwater Partners has been canceled due to holiday schedules and other meetings on that same night.  One of those meetings is that of the Forest Conservation Advisory Committee, at which DEP will unveil their Forest Conservation Law reform proposal. (12/15, 7:30 pm at the DEP large conf. rm, 255 Rockville Pike).

We are tentatively planning to meet on Monday January 19, and to meet in 2010 every other month, on either the third Monday or Tuesday — please let me know if that approach will work for your schedule, and what your top priorities are for the Stormwater Partners for this coming year.

Nearly 60 volunteers came out to clean up the future Northwood Chesapeake Bay Trail including over 30 students from Northwood High School.  It was not too long ago that County High School students were in the news for littering neighborhoods around their school.  Today, students cleaned up thousands of pounds of trash from the wooded area.  Much of the trash was household & automotive trash and plastic lawn bags thrown in the woods by homeowners.  Several members of Friends of Sligo Creek and Neighbors of the Northwest Branch were also helping out with the clean up.  See November 25, 2009 Gazette article about the clean up

A Northwood High School Student in next to one of three trash piles collected.  

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