Volunteers are the heartbeat of the Little Falls Watershed Alliance and on March 5, we honored them with dinner, music, awards and more. The Honorable Brian Frosh, former MD Attorney General, Senator and Delegate, was our guest speaker and he reflected eloquently on his years of public service and the need for environmental stewardship. Maryland House Majority Leader Marc Korman brought us up to date with environmental issues in the Maryland legislature. Sara Love, MD delegate from district 16, shared her hopes for the current legislative session.
Elected officials from Montgomery County government including Councilmembers Natali Fani-González, Andrew Friedson, and Laurie-Anne Sayles, and County Executive Marc Elrich were on hand to congratulate LFWA on 15 years of stewardship and share their thoughts on watershed issues in Montgomery County.
The evening belonged to our volunteers though. Our Volunteer of the Year award went to Woody Stanley for his commitment to water quality testing and role in establishing our bacteria monitoring and salt watch teams. Woody trains our bacteria and salt monitoring volunteers, collect and analyzes the data, and puts together our annual water quality report as well as volunteers on our Benthic stream monitoring team, coordinating the data for that effort too. It is fair to say that it is because of Woody that we have a robust and active water quality monitoring effort, providing us with valuable information about the health of our creeks.
The 15-person bacteria monitoring team was honored with their own “bacteria monitoring team” t-shirts. The team is responsible for testing the Little Falls and Willett Branch creeks in 10 locations through out the summer. Because of their dedication and efforts, LFWA was able to identify a major sewer problem and alert WSSC and the Montgomery County Government of the need to identify the source and fix the problem.
Bacteria Monitoring Team: from Left: Sarah Morse, Audrey Stewart, Steve Eichenauer, Sally Winthrop, Julie Steinberg, Emily Cordas, Sara Robinson, Joe Barnes, Woody Stanley. Not pictured - Mateo Castro, Felicity McGrath, Josh and Tim Nickerson, and Graham White.
We were also pleased to show the first cut of our new Willett Branch movie. This movie, produced by a team lead by Reid Lewis, Emily Best, and Karen Thornton shows the current state of the Willet Branch and our vision for a naturalized creek and new gateway park. Look for announcements later this year for the final film.
Thank you to David Batson for providing music for the evening along with his band. And for all his help in setting up the PA systems. Thank you to Westmoreland Church for allowing us to use their social hall and beautifully remodeled kitchen. And thank you to all the volunteers who helped organize, set-up, and clean-up including Maurie Kathan, David Kathan, Mary Morse, Brad Moore, Suzanne Richman, and the hardworking LFWA board members.
