Bacteria Monitoring Program Needs Volunteers

Little Falls Watershed Alliance is excited to announce that we are re-starting our bacteria monitoring program June 1 for the Little Falls and Willett Branches. Building on the success of last summer’s program, we will be adding more sites for a total of 6 sampling locations and expanding our sampling frequency from every other week to once a week.

Along testing for E. Coli, we will be looking at pH, water temperature, and air temperature in order to provide up-to-date water quality information for residents during the recreational season. The results will be posted on our website and Facebook page for the public to access.

Citizen Scientists Needed

The key to the program is volunteers. We have selected six locations for testing and we need two or three people to adopt a location to do the sampling. The samples MUST be taken Wednesday mornings and they are sent to the Anacostia Riverkeeper lab for analysis Wednesday by 10:00. All volunteers must attend a short training session.

Please contact us at stormwater@LFWA.org if you are interested in helping out.

Why Monitor?

While the water of our creeks is mostly odorless and looks sparkly clear, the creek is one of the most impaired in Montgomery County. As an urban creek, located in a heavily paved area, stormwater run-off carries a toxic mix of chemicals, trash and other pollutants into the creek. Dog poop left on lawns or dropped into the storm drain system pollutes the creek with fecal matter. The storm drain system flows directly to the creek and after it rains, the volume and velocity of the water is so high that it causes considerable erosion and collapse of the creek banks. Further, sewer lines located under the creek are often exposed by the erosion and leak or break. By testing the E. Coli levels in the creek, we will get an understanding of the extent of fecal pollution and how the fecal count is affected by rain events. Most important, we will be able to advise the public about the safety of the creek for wading and other water activities.

What else do we Monitor?

Benthic Macro-invertebrate Survey: Four times a year since 2016, LFWA has taken a census of the macro-invertebrate life of the creek. We look for diversity of species as well as total number. Using the Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (BIBI), we are able to grade the health of the creek. Despite having some bio-diversity, our creek consistently rates poor, the lowest grade. Learn about our program HERE.

Salt Monitoring: Winter salting can cause the salinity of creek to rise, making the waters toxic to life. Since 2019, LFWA has participated in the Izaak Walton Salt Watch program. Results are HERE. In the winter of 2021/2022, the salt levels spiked to lethal twice after snow storms.

Mass Ave at Falmouth Road is going Native

Native Plants are Coming!

Bottlebrush Buckeye

We are excite to announce that we are starting a new habitat restoration project along Massachusetts Avenue at the intersection of Falmouth Road. Non-native invasives plants on either side of the intersection will be replaced by native flowers, grasses, trees and shrubs. With native plants established, the area will come alive with bees, butterflies and other insects so necessary for pollinating and as food for song birds and other animals.

Planning for the project began in January with discussions on what could be done to remove the non-natives choking out native plants at this intersection and along Mass Ave. It was clear that our efforts to hand-remove the vines and bush honeysuckle were not enough to allow the native plants to re-establish themselves. We decided that the area would be best served by hiring people to remove the non-natives and replant with native shrubs, grasses and flowers. Volunteers could then be engaged to water, weed and tend to the area. After getting permission from the State Highway Administration (SHA) to do the restoration, we were on our way.

Woodland Ruby Anise Tree (Illicium ‘Woodland Ruby’)

Landscape designer, Lauren Greenberger, Daybreak Farms, has been hired to design the project and oversee the work. SHA has agreed to removed non-native mulberry tree on the south side. We will be working with local landscaping company, Pineapple Landscaping, to remove the non-natives from both sides of the intersection.

We expect the new plants to be installed by the end of April, so please visit the site and watch the progress.

Many thanks to Celia Martin for taking on this effort, to the Westmoreland Civic Association for their support and the MD State Highway Administration for partnering with LFWA on this important job.

Habitat Restoration area marked in green.

Plant list

Along Mass Ave and along entrance way:

• 90 Bouteloua gracilis, ‘Blonde Ambition’ (Blue grama grass); or Calamintha nepeta (catmint)

• 60 Sporoboulus hetereolepsis (Prairie Dropseed – summer bloom, bee host)

Under existing trees:

• 5 Aesculus parviflora, Bottlebrush Buckeye (summer bloom, fall color)

• 10 Illicium, ‘Woodland Ruby’ (Anise Tree – color in spring, evergreen winter)

• 5 flats Packera aurea, (Golden Ragwort -deer resistant groundcover, daisy-like flowers, semi-evergreen)

• 3 flats Dennstaedtia punctilobula (Eastern Hay-scented Fern)

• 2 flats Polystichum acrostichoides (Christmas Fern)

• 2 flats Matteuccia struthiopteris (Ostrich Fern)

• 3 flats carex rosea (curly wood sedge – deep green, semi-evergreen)

• 3 flats carex albicans (white-tinged or oak sedge – showy tips/flowers)

North Side:

• 4 hammamelis virginiana (witch hazel – fall blooming, multi-trunked)

• 4 Hamamelis vernalis (Ozark witch hazel – drought tolerant)

• 7 Aesculus parviflora (Bottlebrush buckeye)

• 24 ilex glabra, ‘strongbox’ (Inkberry Holly – evergreen, smooth leaf)

Woody Stanley Named Winter Salt Watcher of the Month

Congratulations to Woody Stanley, LFWA Salt Watch Team Leader, for being named the Izaak Walton League Winter Salt Watch monitor of the Month, February 2022. LFWA is proud to partner with Izaak Walton in their winter salt watch program.

From the Izaak Walton Website:

Woody Stanley is the Salt Watch coordinator for the Little Falls Watershed Alliance in Bethesda, MD. While LFWA had a Salt Watch team, Woody took the program up a notch this year and recruited, organized and trained 16 volunteers to monitor three streams in the watershed at seven locations.

The volunteers test monthly (since November) to establish baseline readings and before and after snowstorms with Woody’s support at every step. He’s always available to answer questions, clarify the reading procedure and even meet volunteers creek-side to walk them through the app and testing procedure. Further, Woody is the inventor of the Tomato Stake Scooper – a really handy way to take a sample while safely standing on the creek bank, eliminating the risk of falling into the creek.

Woody also maintains our database, compiling all the information and producing graphics that are posted on our website and on community listservs.

Because of Woody’s efforts in organizing this initiative, LFWA now has a good idea of how much salt is being used during storms and how it is affecting the creeks. We have already used the data in our advocacy for more judicious salt application. And at least one local municipality is seriously rethinking their salt policy because of this increased data. Further, because Woody presents the information in a clear graphic form, public awareness of the problems with salt has increased and we are hearing from people who want to know who they can call to clean up excess salt. 

Learn about the LFWA Salt Watch Program HERE.

B-IBI for Creek remains POOR

LFWA Stream Team members were back in the Little Falls Branch for their winter monitoring February 6. Again, the weather was beautiful, the creek looked good, but it still is rated poor for its biological health. Only pollution tolerate organisms live in our creek and only 6 different species. And like winter 2021, the team did not find the required 100 organisms needed for a complete assessment.

They found 39 organism as follows:

Aquatic worm -2
Aquatic sow bug - 7
Midges - 11
Black flies - 5
Crane fly - 2
Common net spinner cadisfly - 12

The organisms are each assigned a number and to compute the Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (B-IBI) score. The score for this monitoring was 1.3, at the low end of POOR. The creek has experience very high levels of salt in the past 6 weeks. This might be contributing to the low numbers as salt is toxic to these organisms. Learn about our salt testing program HERE.

Welcome new team members

LFWA is happy to welcome three new members to our monitoring team - Julie Miller, Phillip Mariscal, and Pauline Smith. They join team leader Frank Sanford, who along with 19 make up the LFWA Stream Team.

how do we monitor?

Our team does a quarterly benthic macroinvertebrate census of the creek. We use a D net to sample 20 spots along about 75 yards of the Little Falls creek below Massachusetts Avenue in Bethesda. The nets are emptied into tubs, and team members sort through the debris to find the organisms. We follow the protocol used by the Audubon Naturalist Society, our partners in this endeavor and report our data to them.

Benthic macroinvertebrates are the little bugs that live on the bottom of the creek, on the rocks and in the leaf packs. They are the link between the lowest level resources to higher trophic levels, including fishes. We monitor them as they are diverse, generally sedentary, responsive to environmental alterations, and are good indicators of ecosystem productivity and health.

More information about our monitoring program is HERE.