Parkway Clean-up Report

Here is a report from Donal about the Parkway Pick-up Saturday:

After 2 hours, I left two bags and a large cone (of the type used by AT&T to mark their trucks stopped on the street) at the northwest corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Little Falls Parkway right next to the intersection traffic signals. It includes miscellaneous trash, lots of plastic bottles!

I also went to the west side of the waterway and quickly filled a complete bag at one place that was easier to get to and clamber down from the bank. But there is still lots more on that side that might be more easily accessed by crossing the stream in wading boots at low water.

Thank you to everyone who came out to help. If you missed this month, our next pick-up is scheduled for December 11, 10:00. Meet at the gravel parking lot at the corner of Mass Ave and Little Falls Parkway. We have safety vests, gloves and bags.

Norwood Park Cleaned

About 50 volunteers came out on 10/16/2010, a beautiful fall day, to improve the wooded areas in Norwood Park by picking up trash and removing invasive vines and other weeds. We saved many trees from dying of strangulation and from the weight of these vines, which were mostly porcelain berry,on Asian vine.

Thank you to our partners Friends of Norwood Park, Chevy Chase West and Montgomery Parks for all their help. Thank you to Honest Tea for supplying beverages. Thank you to Jim Auerbach for the lovely photos. And a big thank you the the Little Falls Ramblers. We love you guys!

Watershed Cleanup

Saturday is the 22nd Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup. We will be focusing on the Little Falls Stream Valley Park which runs from MacArthur Blvd to Norwood Park in Chevy Chase.

Find us at three locations
*Mass Ave and Little Falls Parkway
*Little Falls Parkway between River and Mass Ave
*Bethesda Pool, Hillandale and Little Falls Parkway

We'll have bags and gloves!

And talking about picking up trash... Did people notice that LFWA has adopted a highway! The stretch of Little Falls Parkway between River Road and Massachusetts Ave is officially ours to keep clean. We will have litter pick-up parties on the first Saturday of each month. Watch the blog or the website for details.

No Building in the No-Build Zone

Every once in a while, we make it into the news. Check out this article in this week's Gazette concerning the Town of Somerset's proposal to build a new pool house next to the creek.

www.gazette.net/stories/09162009/bethnew200422_32535.shtml

The Town's proposal for renovation places a new building within 50 feet of the stream bank (where the handicapped parking is for those who know the site). The 600 square foot structure would house a kitchen and storage room. A basement is also suggested for this new building. The old pool house would remain on the same foot print, but be considerably renovated. Copies of the plan are on the Town website.

The background on this project is that some 35 years ago, the Town of Somerset built a pool and pool house right next to the creek. The entire facility is located in what today is called "the no-build zone", a 150 foot stream buffer. If the building was proposed today, it couldn't be built in this spot as no buildings are allowed in this important environmental feature. (btw, I'm not sure how the 150 foot buffer came to be a law, but you can be sure that environmentalists fought hard for this, especially given the strength of the developer lobby!)

Today, the Somerset Pool House is in grave need of renovation. There is considerable structural damage and the floor of the women's locker room is in danger of collapsing into the pump room located directly below. The County will not prevent Somerset from renovating the pool house despite its location creek side nor will it make the town remove the building, but the County will be monitoring the environmental impact of the proposed renovations and requiring that the new project conform to present day stormwater management requirements. At the meetings with County officials that I attended, they also emphasized that the Town should try to mitigate the impact of the impervious surfaces of the pool and pool house by creating as much new pervious surface as possible.

In my humble opinion, I fail to see how putting a new building as close to the stream as possible can be considered in the spirit of mitigating the environmental impact of the facility. Even more critical than the 150 foot buffer is the first 50 feet. The new building would be smack in this 50 foot area. Although there is a parking lot there now, putting the new building next to the creek would take out an area of landscaping which provides some stormwater management. More important, this landscaping strip allows some recharging of the ground water which is essential to the health of several large trees located on the stream bank.

The Town has the opportunity to make this an environmental show piece and mitigate some of the damage that was done 35 years ago. There are other ways to renovate the pool house. I would like to see the town consider other options that would either not increase the footprint of the building (like a second floor), or would site the new rooms further from the creek on surface that is already impervious. There is amply room on the pool deck which is already an impervious surface to put a 600 square foot building.

The Little Falls Watershed Alliance has requested a meeting with the Town to discuss the project and how to mitigate the effects that it has on the Little Falls Branch. Hopefully, we will get some answers to my concerns.

Sarah Morse

First Annual Meeting - September 13

Long summer and not much happened for the Little Falls Watershed Alliance. But, we're back now with our first Annual Meeting and Celebration!

Meet us in Norwood Park (4700 Norwood Drive, Chevy Chase) for live music, food and fun. Steve Dryen will be there to talk about watershed issues and what we can do to improve our environment. David Batson and the newly named Little Falls Ramblers will entertain us and there will be food!

Bring a snack to share. Rain or Shine.

Updates from LFWA

Long time since my last posting. I guess everyone was tuckered out by all the activities in April.
To recap - we utilized some 400 volunteers on four different days.
On April 4, As part of the Alice Ferguson Foundation effort to clean up the Potomac, a group picked up street litter in the Friendship Heights and Tenleytown area in an effort to stop the trash before it hits the creek!
On April 18, Partnering with numerous groups, we did a creek clean-up. More than 200 volunteers pitched in at four different locations in the watershed.
On April 25/26, we have over 120 volunteers label 250 watershed storm drains. Thank you to our many partners and sponsors who helped with this. We have t-shirts now too! You can buy one for $15.00 info@lfwa.org

All this while continuing to have our twice monthly invasive pulls and lead talks for area groups! Not shabby!

May has been a time of planning, education and some housekeeping necessary for running a small non-profit. We received a scholarship from River Keepers so that I could attend their River Rally in Baltimore. This three day conference was a great opportunity to meet with watershed stewards from all county. There were three full days of terrific workshops and I am now almost fluent in CWA, TMDL. ESD and other acronyms related to the Clean Water Act (CWA) and stormwater management! We have also been working on a plan for a forest restoration at Westbrook Elementary School. With any luck, we should be ready to start pulling in the fall. More on that as we firm up details. We will need a lot of volunteers to remove invasives and plant native species.

We are gearing up for our first annual members meeting (yes, we are celebrating our first birthday!) The meeting will take place in July and we're hoping to have a big party. If anyone knows any musicians in the watershed who might be willing to donate an evening of music, please let us know - info@lfwa.org.

On the advocacy side of LFWA, we are working with Stormwater Partners to lobby Montgomery County for strong regulations as they rework their permitting process to comply with the Maryland Clean Water Act. The new regulations must be in effect by May 2010, so everyone is working very hard on this. If you would like to see a copy of the guidelines that Bruce Gilmore from American Rivers has put together, please email me and I will be happy to send you one. stormwater@lfwa.org

Lastly, we are in the process of planning our calendar for next year. If you have a great idea for an event let us know so we can get it on the calendar.

Sarah Morse
Blog Master

Watershed Cleaned and Labeled!

We did it! With the help of over 100 volunteers, 243 storm drains were marked with beautiful "Do Not Pollute" labels and over 2,000 residents received information about storm water run-off and the DC and Montgomery County programs to mitigate. A great way to end earth month!

We have pictures coming just as soon as I get them uploaded and figure out how to post a slide show.

And in case you missed the education part of the day - two messages to take away:
Everything that goes in the Storm drains comes out in the creek.
Water is killing our waterways!
Stormwater run-off washes pollution, trash, silt and more into the creeks. All this flows downstream to the Potomac and to the Bay. Further, too much stormwater causes the creeks to flash flood, the banks to erode and loss of habitat for the macro-organisms who live on the rocks on the stream beds. When these organisms lose their homes, they die, the animals that feed on them disappear and this part of the ecosystem becomes sterile.

The solutions lie locally. Redirect the rain water from the impervious surfaces back into the ground. Not only will the waterways be better for it, but the groundwater will be recharged. Plants depend on this ground water to survive. Visit the DC Riversmart Homes website, www.ddoe.dc.gov/riversmarthomes or the Montgomery County Rainscape website, www.rainscapes.org for a wealth of information on what you can do right on your property.

Thank you again to everyone who came out. Please support our sponsors and raffle donors listed in the previous post. And check back for pictures!

And if you missed the festivities, but want a t-shirt, we have a limited number available for a $20 donation.

Sarah Morse

Sunshine and Labels for this Weekend

Just checked the weather, and it promises a beautiful weekend, just right for spending an hour or two gluing labels on storm drains!

On Saturday, pick up supplies at the Bethesda Library from 1:00 to 3:00.
On Sunday, we will be at the Bethesda Pool Parking Lot from 11:00 to 5:00.

Details are in the previous blog, but I just wanted to take a little space to recognize our sponsors, without whom we could not be giving away t-shirts (I just picked up the t-shirts and they are so beautiful!) and our raffle donors who have given us dozens of prizes to reward our volunteers.

So thank you to sponsors:
Giant Food, macUpgrade, American Plant, DAI, Press, Potter and Dozier,LLC, Advanced Energy Dynamics and Planet Cotton.

Our raffle donors are: Strosniders, macUpgrades, Mamma Lucias, Austin Grill, Ledo Pizza, Lord and Taylor, Tickled Pink, Aveda, Wild Bird Center, Safeway, All Fired Up, Cosi Restaurant, Lilit Cafe, Wow Cow, Green Paper Studio and Bethesda Magazine.

Thank you also to Honest Beverages for donating Honest Tea and juice drinks. It's supposed to be hot this weekend so the beverages will be appreciated.

And of course, we have great partners - Chesapeake Bay Trust gave us a grant for the door hangers, Montgomery and DC governments provided the storm drain labels and glue and Bethesda Green and Friends of the Bethesda Library are also worthy partners.

I hope to see everyone there. Contact me at stormwater@LFWA.org if you have any questions.

Sarah Morse

Watershed is Clean. Time to Label it!

Saturday was a fantastic day for the Little Falls Watershed. Crews of volunteers in seven locations spent the morning cleaning trash from the creeks and pulling garlic mustard. At my station alone (Bethesda Pool), we pulled 14 bags of trash out of a section of the creek in Kenwood Forest that has never been cleaned as far as I can tell. I'll post more (and photos) as the reports come in.

So, moving right along, plans are finalizing for Label the Watershed April 25-26. We've cleaned it, now we will label the storm drains to remind people that everything in the gutters, sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, etc, flows right into the creek. Much of the trash we pulled out came in via the storm drains.

April 25 - from 1:00 to 3:00 we'll be at the Bethesda Library with maps and supplies.
Apirl 26 - from 11:00 to 5:00, we'll be at the Bethesda Pool Parking lot on Little Falls Parkway and Hillandale Road.

Stop by at anytime and pick up supplies. We'll send you out with a map to label 10 drains. Along with the affixing labels, we have door hangers to pass out to neighbors with information about the problem stormwater run-off causes and what people can do to help. It should take a team of four people about an hour.

Rain Plan:
We cannot glue the labels on if it is wet out, even a little drizzle.
So, the rain plan is:
For April 25: you can still come to the library and pick up supplies. Hopefully, it won't rain on April 26, so you can label the drains and return the supplies to the Bethesda pool and get your raffle tickets.
For April 26: If it's raining on Sunday, we will postpone to May 3. Check the this blog for up-to-date information.

Free Raffle Tickets and T-shirts:
When you return your supplies and marked map,we'll give you a raffle ticket for every storm drain you label. The raffle drawing will be at 4:00 on April 26, but you don't have to be present to win. We have great prizes including a nano shuffle donated by macUpgrades.

And we have free t-shirts for all the volunteers.

Partners, Sponsors and Donors
The best thing about this event is that we have been able to engage the whole community to support us. We are grateful to have many sponsors and partners:

Thank you to Chesapeake Bay Trust for partial funding, partners Bethesda Green, Friends of the Bethesda Library and the DC and Montgomery County governments.

Our sponsors include American Plant, macUpgrades, DAI, Giant Food, Planet Cotton, Advanced Energy Dynamics, and Press, Potter & Dozier, LLC. Raffle donors include Strosniders, macUpgrades, Mamma Lucias, Austin Grill, Ledo Pizza, Lord and Taylor, Tickled Pink, Aveda, Wild Bird Center, Safeway, All Fired Up, Cosi Restaurant, Lilit Cafe, Wow Cow, Green Paper Studio and Bethesda Magazine. Thank you to Honest Tea for in-kind donations.

LFWA Gets CBT Grant

Label the Watershed

is officially funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust! Our grant will cover costs of educational materials and other expenses associated with putting on the event. A big thank you to them for supporting local watershed groups. Hopefully, we'll see everyone out on

April 25 or 26

. See previous blog posting for all the details. btw, if it rains, we will have to postpone the April 26 date to May 3. You can't affix the labels if it is wet out. However, we will still be at the library on April 25. That's an indoor location and we'll just pass out labels for people to apply when the weather gets drier.