The Grass Might Seem Greener, but the Streams Aren't Always Cleaner

Every once a while you get a little piece of information that proves that even the glossier, more upscale neighborhoods struggle with environmental problems.

I got one of those earlier this week, from the Little Falls Watershed Association. The Little Falls is located right in the heart of Bethesda and Chevy Chase, where lovely luxurious homes border lush green streets and even the public school grounds look like private academy campuses to my eyes.

It would be easy to assume that the creeks there are very clean, if all you went on was the lack of litter or graffiti around the neighborhoods. I’m sure a lot of people do assume that the creeks there are completely clean, based only on such appearances.

But LFWA just got back the results from some water quality testing conducted by the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission last September, revealing that upstream in the Little Falls, the measurement of Enterococci (fecal) bacteria was 435; downstream 237.

To put this in perspective, the state standards are as follows:

All Areas: 33
Frequent Full Body Contact Recreation: 61
Moderately Frequent Full Body Contact Recreation: 78
Occasional Frequent Full Body Contact Recreation: 107
Infrequent Full Body Contact Recreation: 151
(All numbers are counts per 100 milliliters)


This is waste we are talking about here. Poop. Doo doo. Dung. Call it whatever. Its gross and its in our streams in very high amounts. Some of it comes from wildlife, some from pets. But a lot is also from human waste. (Detailed percentage breakdowns are available for those who are interested.)

One resident who responded to the email that went out from the LWFA called the numbers shocking. Another cautioned that everyone should wash very well if they visit the creek. Someone else said he found it appalling that any sewage could be found in the creek whatsoever.

Of course the Little Falls numbers still pale in comparison those taken in my own beloved Sligo Creek, which test in the 800s both upstream and down. (Those involved with monitoring water quality caution that the numbers may not represent a continuous flow of fecal pollution; rather, the sites were tested on one day and these were the results. A second test seemed to put the Sligo upstream numbers in the 600s.)

In general, when people find out about fecal pollution, they want to know where it comes from, and why it is there. In aging urban neighborhoods sewer pipes can form one potential source. The pipes are sometimes next to or actually under the streams, and as they age they begin to leak.

I guess it is just one more example of the fact that we all live downstream, no matter what neighborhood we call home. Even the places that look really nice need stewardship and attention.

(To see a detailed break down of the creeks which were tested in Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties in Maryland, visit the Friends of Sligo Creek’s page on Water Quality monitoring at: http://www.fosc.org/WSSCMonitoring20090921.htm)

Water Quality Sampling Next Week

Mike Smith, the volunteer who takes care of water quality sampling along Sligo Creek sends the following message:

Our upper Sligo Creek monitoring team will be carrying out macroinvertebrate monitoring on Thursday July 16th starting at 6 p.m. We meet in Wheaton, at the first parking lot on Sligo Creek Parkway south of its intersection with University Boulevard. You can see a map of the meeting location at http://www.fosc.org/GoogleMaps/MIMonitor.htm. The site is monitored as part of the Audubon Naturalist Society's water quality program.

Numerous stream creatures such as damselflies, crane flies, scuds, and even mayflies have been found at this site since we began monitoring it in 2006.

See http://www.fosc.org/ANSMonitoring.htm for a record of findings.

Please come out if you are interested. There is also a team monitoring a site in lower Sligo Creek since last year. For more information about that site check out http://www.fosc.org/SaveOurStreams.htm.

Testing the Waters of the Sligo with Mike Smith

(This is the second installment of a two part series that originally ran in the March 2009 edition of the Voice newspapers of Takoma Park and Silver Spring.)

People are often surprised to find out that Friends of Sligo Creek volunteer Mike Smith is not a biologist or a chemist. In fact, he’s a librarian at the Smithsonian’s Freer & Sackler museums, downtown. But he takes the water samples as a volunteer.

“I grew up near the Northwest Branch,” he told me recently. “To a kid, the most striking things around here are the streams. I used to run along the banks of the creeks and look for crayfish.”

Like many of us who love the streams and treasure them, Mike often wondered just how dirty the water was.

“I think as a librarian, you look for sources of information,” he said. Since not that many records existed, he got training from the Anacostia Watershed Society and began keeping the numbers himself in 2004. Now, no one knows more about that water than Mike, although he’d never be the one to brag about it.

I tagged along a couple of weeks ago, to see what his work involves. Arriving at the parking lot I still felt bleary-eyed, but he was full of energy. Although it was February, the air was not cold and it seemed as if the day would be warmer than usual. As we made our way to the first of the three sites he’d be checking, Mike chatted about what he’d be looking for, and what information he’d be collecting.

“We had that snow storm a few days ago,” he said. “That might make the readings interesting today.” Although he didn’t rub his hands together in anticipation, I could hear the excitement in his voice.

This particular morning, we’d be collecting information for the chemical monitoring program, and we’d also be taking measurements of the water’s pH level, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, and temperature. (Friends of Sligo Creek, the organization for which Mike volunteers, also has a biological monitoring program, where volunteers are trained to take surveys of aquatic life and bacteria on a regular basis.)

As we drove into Prince George’s County and passed Rosa Parks Elementary School, Mike explained that this is where the main stem of the Sligo flows. It is, I must confess, the section of the park that I know the least. In fact, I was shocked when we got out of the car; these were fields I had never seen. I write about the creek, tell people that I know almost every section. I had no idea this spot even existed, and it was lovely.

A solitary jogger making his way through the early light nodded towards us in a friendly way. I could see the swirls of his breath wreath his face as he went by. We carried Mike’s small brief case of equipment past the empty athletic fields, through the trees and onto the banks. We had to climb over a lawn mower, abandoned and leaking oil into the creek.

“We’ll be getting that on the way back out,” Mike said, tapping it with the toe of his sneaker. “I see trash here a lot, but that is new. ”

There were cans, and bags and some pieces of old metal that could either be from other mowers or from cars. Even so, the creek burbled along calmly and because we were far from car traffic it was wonderfully quiet. While I watched Mike set up his measurements, I listened for early morning bird song and wondered where the bridge behind us led. This was one of those areas of the creek that is so far from the trails and roads that no one really bothers the animals that live there. Paradoxically, this is one of the most urban neighborhoods along the creek and yet probably the best one for wildlife viewing if you happen to come out in the early morning like Mike does.

“Sometimes I see herons,” Mike commented.

I watched as he gingerly made his way out onto a rock to fill a small vial of water, which he’d take home to test. Next, he opened a device that looked vaguely like a thermometer you’d use on an elephant. This device, called the YSI 85, is used for measuring the creek’s temperature, the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water, and its conductivity, or its ability to conduct an electrical current, which on this particular day measures 2399. For urban streams, a good measurement would be below 500, but even in the summer the number is often higher in the Sligo.

“In the winter, road salt can also make the conductivity go up, sometimes twenty times higher than it should,” Mike explained. After storms, the creek is often full of salt due to stormwater run off.

Mike also noted that the Montgomery County Department of the Environment is investigating conductivity in the Bennington Branches (near Burnett Avenue) and Brashear’s Run (also known as the Maple Avenue tributary), where the numbers have been unusually high. Later he explained that these two tributaries seem to have the most pollution discharges.

As we made our way to the next site, just of East-West Highway, I realized we’ll be collecting data just below speeding traffic. Even though it was early on a Saturday, busses and trucks made their noisy way down the road a few feet away.

This site, he tells me, tends to have higher nitrates and higher dissolved oxygen. “It makes me think maybe from sewer leaks,” he commented. There are never fish at this site, he noted with a grimace, although he often sees them elsewhere in the creek. This time around, though, the dissolved oxygen at this site was good, probably because of the cold weather.

It’s sad and a bit shocking to think that so many of these areas were swimmable and even drinkable not all that long ago. Nearby Spring Park in Takoma, Mike told me, was once a place where residents could help themselves to tasty bottles of clean water. Now I am loathe to even get my hand wet at the our creek’s banks.

We packed up the supplies for the second time that morning and step over frozen, brown brambles. On the way out, my foot caught on the dry, bone white skull of a dead deer. I show it to Mike. Oh yeah, he said, that was there for months, decaying. A truck downshifts on the road next to us and we climb back into his car.

Mike was trained by Masaya Masada, an ecologist working at the Anacostia Watershed Society. The water from Sligo Creek eventually drains into the Anacostia River, and by taking measurements of the smaller waterways, a snaphot emerges about where the river’s problems originate.

“What Mike is doing is a very tough thing,” Masaya told me recently via email. “Monitoring a stream in a chemical manner is actually a demanding task. We have to go to the stream regularly whatever the weather condition.” But it is also very important, Masaya continued, because you might not be able to find any pollution from a single visit. He says, for example, that Mike has documented very high conductivity in Sligo Creek in concentrations that could kill amphibians.

In addition to the work of the AWS and FOSC, there’s a US Geological Survey gauge near Queen’s Chapel Road at the confluence of the Northwest Branch and the Sligo that records data every fifteen minutes. Mike checks those readings against his which were made at the same time period. The numbers are charted on the web by the FOSC webmaster, and put into easy-to-read graphs and charts. Mike also writes descriptions of what he sees happening in the creek’s water.

“I try to make it like a USA Today version of the Sligo’s water quality,” he joked.

The water quality program has four goals:

- To make the governments aware that we are watching the creek.
- Provide data to anybody who wants it.
- To see if there’s any discharge which can then be reported
- To see if the creek is getting better or worse over time.

At our third stop, called the Wheaton Branch, the creek felt different. Quieter, for sure, and less trash. This might be because we were farther upstream and the trash has all travelled down southward. Or, it could be because the neighbors here are cleaning up more regularly. As we leave the car near Forest Glen Road and cross a bridge over some small ponds, we are startled to see a beaver cross the water. Later, while taking measurements, we find beaver tracks in the sand, too.

It would be easy to assume that the water in this area is cleaner, based on these appearances. But Mike and I discussed the nearby storm water ponds which were installed by the county many years ago to reduce flooding and pollution problems.

The sites near the ponds, he notes, usually have lower nitrates and lower conductivity than the others, but also lower dissolved oxygen and higher turbidity. Later, in an email, Mike explains that the ponds do a good job of removing nitrates and pollutants from the Wheaton Branch of the creek, but at the cost of lowering the oxygen and leaching sediment. He says they also store up a lot of road salt after snow storms. Bacterial also counts remain high in these areas, although Mike doesn’t regularly take measurements of those. So it might look prettier, but the water here is still very unhealthy.

So is the creek getting better or worse over time? I wondered about this as I said good bye to Mike and headed home for a big breakfast. I remember those people Mike described, gathering water at local springs to drink. Each year, more and more things seem to imperil the health of our local environment. It doesn’t seem to be getting better.

But when I asked Mike later in an email he replied: It is too soon to see a trend. Like any librarian… like any good citizen scientist… like any good record keeper… he wants more data, which means he’ll probably be gathering those numbers for years to come, and training others to do the same. In the meantime, he’s watching carefully, and reporting anything that is really unusual to elected officials, creek lovers, and government agencies.

I remain hopeful that the numbers will motivate more people to act and do what they can to improve the creek’s quality. As someone who cherishes the ability to report hard facts about the creek to anyone who will listen, I am thankful for all of the volunteer data keepers. As it struggles and burbles along, winding its way through our crowded, urban area, the Sligo provides me with a sense of immediate peace and renewal, and for that I am also very grateful.

(This story originally appeared in the March 2009 edition of the Voice newspapers. As usual, all rights reserved, and you may not use any of this text with out written permission from the author.)

Water Quality and Dogs

I recently adopted a dog from an animal rescue group. Pet adoption has to be one of the nicest forms of “recycling” on earth. I love to walk along Sligo Creek in Silver Spring with her, even on bitter cold days. The woods are so lovely, the water so peaceful and we both enjoy taking in our favorite views (and smells) while we exercise.

But like a lot of dog lovers, I’ve often wondered how to handle the most indelicate issue of dog waste. Poop is not good for a creek, but wasn’t until I was “at the helm” of a leash once again that I really began to think and research the issue closely to figure out my approach to being a responsible dog owner and good watershed resident.

Cleaning up after a dog is not fun, and a lot of people only do it if they think someone is watching them. Maybe they figure that if the dog goes under some bushes, off the main path, that it is better to leave the droppings there because poop is natural and it will break down pretty quickly if we leave it out in the open air. They might think dog poop is no different from deer poop, or bird poop, or fox poop. (By the way, I think that might break some kind of record for use of the word poop in one sentence by someone who is over the age of five.)

It is kind of weird to bag up dog poop in some ways. You have to carry the stuff until you find a trash can. Some joggers and trail users will tie their dog poop bags to trees or bushes. My friend thinks that these people really mean to return later and do the right thing and take that poop to a can. They don’t like to run with the bag and they plan to get it on the way out, she claims. But I sometimes find those bags hanging from those same trees weeks later, like odd Christmas ornaments left by an extra mean Grinch.

And then you wonder if you do bag the stuff and throw it away… is it really better to have these plastic bags full of poop sitting around forever in our landfills?

Hunting around on the internet brings up some interesting research on the topic. Seems that landfills are not ideal, but almost everyone who has given water quality and soil sanitation any thought seems to agree that scooping poop is far superior to leaving it alone to decay.

For one thing, the intensity of dog ownership is astounding. In any watershed you can find millions of dogs. In fact, there are 74.8 million of them living in the US right now, according to the US Humane Society’s accounting.

But it only takes a small number of them to make an impact, because the bacteria levels in dog droppings can be very high. One gram of dog waste can contain as much as 23 million fecal coliform bacteria. Dog waste can also harbor Giardia, Cryptosporidium, Leptospira and Salmonella.

When you leave the feces along the creek -- or even on the sidewalk or lawn – storms can quickly carry those nasties to Sligo Creek, then the Anacostia River, and then onto the Chesapeake where they can pose serious health risks to both humans and wildlife. The EPA noted in some research conducted in the mid 1990s, for example, that if a twenty-square mile coastal bay watershed was home to only 100 dogs, two to three days worth of dog droppings would contribute enough bacteria and nutrients to temporary close that small bay to swimming and shellfishing.

Mike Smith has been testing the water quality of Sligo Creek as a volunteer with the Friends of Sligo Creek every other week since 2004. Most of his tests focus on things other than bacterial counts, such as temperature, ph, conductivity, nitrates, turbidity and dissolved oxygen. The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) and the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS) both do test regularly for bacteria, however, and Mike says their numbers show that dog waste is a big problem, and that generally around 15% of all the bacteria that is in the Sligo has been found to come from dogs.

“Bacteria is a major reason why a creek like Sligo doesn’t meet the Clean Water Act standards. Its supposed to be swimmable and fishable and bacterial contamination -- including dog waste -- is a big contributor,” Mike notes.

Besides bacteria, the release of excess nutrients from dog waste promotes algae and weed growth in watersheds, which can limit light and stop aquatic plants from growing. This can reduce the amount of oxygen, which fish and other aquatic animals need to survive.

Bagging poop for disposal in municipal landfills is not ideal. Plastic doesn’t break down over time and can accumulate quickly in dumps. You can help by using biodegradable bags, instead of those heinous newspaper bags we all wish didn’t pile up in the kitchen cabinet. If it really grosses you out you can even buy all kinds of contraptions which will make clean up easier and a bit more tidy.

Some owners also choose to use bagless scoops which completely contain the waste until it can be flushed in a toilet. I think this is really impractical and really gross. But hey, if you feel like doing it, go for it. Flushing will move the waste into municipal sewer systems where it can be handled just like human waste. (Homeowners with septic systems should avoid this method, since the systems can quickly become overwhelmed by the hair and ash often found in dog feces.)

Some municipalities also allow residents to bury pet waste, but this could also cause water pollution, and the amount of waste created by the average dog would make this quickly impractical in most Silver Spring and Takoma yards. Commercial digesters which are sold to break the waste down have not proven to be environmentally beneficial, and in many cases may not work any quicker than regular ground burial. (Queries about whether someone could bury waste in Montgomery County, MD did not turn up any specific laws or regulations. If anyone out there is aware of one that pertains, please let me know.)

Although it might be tempting to put dog waste into your compost bin, don’t ever do it. The fecal bacteria will not break down in the average backyard pile. Using compost that contains pet waste of any kind can pose serious health risks to people that visit your garden or eat your home grown veggies.

Its important to note, of course, that not all water quality problems come from dogs, and although dog owners can make a big difference by cleaning up after their pets, there are a lot of other ways we could improve the quality of our local creeks and streams.

(This story originally appeared in the February edition of the Takoma Park and Silver Spring Voice newspapers. As usual, all rights are reserved and you cannot use it without permission.)