Meeting on the State of the Streams

Big meeting next week. If you care about your Mo Co creek, this is one to go to and speak up:

DEP Seeks Public Input on State of the Streams
The Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will host a regional public meeting to discuss the state of the County’s streams. The public will be able to provide input on watershed-specific restoration plans that address stream pollution and meet new stormwater permit requirements. Residents are encouraged to attend the meeting that addresses plans for the watershed in which they are located. The meeting will be held on *Saturday, March 6 from **1 to 5 p.m. at Brookside Gardens (1800 Glenallan Avenue, Wheaton**)* to discuss plans for the Anacostia and Patuxent rivers and the Cabin John and Rock Creek watersheds.The public’s input is needed to assist DEP in devising plans to meet requirements. Read more at the DEP website.

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)

Reading the Snow with My Dog

Walking with my dog in the snow is a bit like suddenly being able to read Braille, except instead of understanding the little dots that appear in a line on a page, I understand exactly why my dog stops at certain locations and has a long sniff.

There are, of course, the areas that have been stained yellow by some other dog, which are pretty gross. There are also lots of dog paw prints she stops to inspect.

But there’s this other, much more subtle information being gathered, too. Dogs have amazing sniffers, able to receive far more information from their olfactory receptors than humans. I’ve seen the evidence of this all week now, as my dog stops to contemplate the strangest of footprints. I find myself watching her, but I can only guess who might have left them.

We found, for instance, a surprising number of raccoon prints one morning right after the snow had stopped. Like tiny little human hand prints, it was as if we were seeing the marks of little elfin visitors near my neighbors trash cans. Did they get the trash that day, or just got out for a snowy inspection?

Another day we found prints left by my dog’s biggest nemesis, that silly albino cat that lives one street over and stays outside all the time. I only know that those prints came from that cat because we saw them outside the door of the house where White Cat always waits to pounce on my dog in the evenings. I saw my dog bristle, like someone reading angry graffiti when we passed that spot. She paused, scanned the immediate horizon for the cat, and then moved on in a bit of a huff.

The bird prints, strangely, don’t interest my canine companion. I wonder-- is it because birds don’t leave strong smells behind when they hop, or is it because they just are boring to a dog? I know she finds them interesting to watch in the yard. But she flips past the footprints like a tv viewer flipping the fast remote past reruns.

There was one time she found some bird evidence interesting, though. One afternoon late last week we stumbled on to what looked like a wildlife crime scene. Small feathers were spilled in a large circle all around the base of one of the evergreens in our backyard. I scanned the sky for the hawk, but she or he was long gone by this point. We’ve seen that bird of prey often enough the last few months. Once during the peak of the blizzard we even saw it land haphazardly along the chain link fence, trying to gain a talonhold in the blustery winds. Its feathers were magnificent against the white of the snow.

Some people really mind the predator-prey relationship hawks have with the songbirds. I see it as just another link in the food web. I like the hawks as much as the song birds, and more over I think both play a valuable role in the ecosystem. Still, I was curious to know exactly what bird we had lost to the fight this time. I bent close to the snow and tried to figure out what bird had been gobbled up. There was no telling since the feathers were mostly gray and tiny. Maybe it was a mourning dove. Or a titmouse. My dog came and stood next to me, sniffing, too. I longed to have her fill in the missing details, like a fellow detective. It was one of the few times our nonverbal communication seemed inadequate; most of the time we bond pretty well without the need for words. But I really felt as if she knew more about the scene of this crime than I did.

Another day, we came upon evidence that the squirrels had been digging up nuts. They had been in hiding for the first few days after the blizzards, but then had reappeared suddenly one afternoon when the sun began to shine warm again. We then found little brown spots, where the squirrels had dug down into shallower parts of the snow near the trees, where the root zones were bringing up warm geothermal heat and the snow was beginning to thin out. Somehow, despite the sameness of the white blanket that covered everything, those little animals had located their winter stashes and been able to dig them out of the saturated ground, evidence, it seemed to me, that things were beginning to thaw out and soften up a bit under all that snow. A hopeful sign.

Wildlife in the Northwest Branch

On March 2 The Neighbors of the Northwest Branch will host a talk by Robb Gibbs about wildlife in their stream valley. Here's their email notice:

Without actually going out into the mud and slush of a stream valley losing its coat of snow, you’ll get a chance to see the wildlife that makes our park its home. You’d be surprised at what a very observant observer can find right in the Northwest Branch forest and stream. Would you believe otters? and kingfishers? What birds, amphibians, and reptiles live there, do you suppose? Rob Gibbs, Natural Resources Manager for Montgomery County Parks Dept. of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, will show and tell all.

WHAT: Wildlife of the Northwest Branch Steam Valley Park (in pictures)
WHEN: Tuesday, March 2, 7:30 – 9:15 p.m.
WHO: Rob Gibbs, Natural Resources Manager, Montgomery County Parks Dept.
WHERE: White Oak Library, 11701 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring

Details: Among other things, Rob supervises the Non-Native Invasive Plant Program and Deer Management Program in Montgomery County Parks. He has worked as a naturalist and wildlife ecologist in the county for almost 30 years. For this presentation he will use his own pictures and from other sources. He’ll reveal critters you really have to look for as well as some you’ve doubtless seen. And he’ll reveal some unique critters with a story to tell.

Please join NNWB March 2 at White Oak Library! Light refreshments will be available before the presentation while you socialize, and you can also mark your address with a little flag on our big watershed map.

Legislative Overview: What's In It for Our Watershed?

There’s a whole host of Bay-related action floating around out there this legislative season. Here’s a quick run down and some links for more info:

On the Federal level, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) have introduced the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009 (S. 1816, H.R. 3852 respectively). This proposed legislation been called “game-changing” many, many times. If passed, it would help strengthen the enforcement of pollution laws which already exist in the Bay region and make finalize what is loosely called the Bay’s pollution budget, which is also known as the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). States would have to create “Watershed Implementation Plans” to meet their TMDLs.

It is hoped that the Act would help to increase the regional approach to Bay pollution problems by increasing uniform enforcement measures. At one public meeting about the Bay in Annapolis this summer, for example, a citizen pointed out that if Maryland were to “stick its neck out and enforce the regulations already on the books,” they’d simply chase all the poultry producers next door to Delaware or Virginia. It is hoped that a regionally consistent approach would eliminate some of these problems. This law would likely also cause a shift from voluntary pollution reduction measures to mandatory ones, a shift that many say is desperately needed on all levels.

In a press release about the new bill last fall, Environment Maryland’s Tommy Landers explained it this way: “First, states would have to enforce limits on all polluters, including the developers and agribusinesses that account for the majority of the bay's pollution. Second, the EPA would have to withhold federal funding and finish the job themselves whenever polluters miss their marks.”


*****************************


On the state level, Bay advocates are gearing up for a fight with developers which would also target pollution, but in a whole different way -- by reducing stormwater run-off and strengthening efforts to better contain it.

First, there are rumors afloat that the Stormwater Management Act of 2007 may face sudden challenges from developers. Although it went into effect in three years ago,
most of the real impact of its policy changes won’t take effect until about the middle of 2010.

The Act requires developers to use a Environmental Site Design (ESD) to the greatest extent possible in construction of both new and redevelopment projects. ESD includes:

- Optimizing conservation of natural features, such as drainage patterns, soils, and vegetation;
- Minimizing use of impervious surfaces, such as pavement, concrete channels, roofs, and pipes;
- Slowing down and holding runoff to maintain discharge timing, increase infiltration, and allow evapotranspiration; and
- Other nonstructural practices and innovative technologies (e.g., impervious surface disconnections, rain barrels, green roofs, rain gardens)

In a mean game of “spin” some in the pro-development camp are saying that the Act could cause more suburban sprawl because, they contend publicly, the cost of making stormwater improvements in existing communities would be too large. (As an example, you can check out this article the Wash Post ran earlier this month.)


Anything that looks like it would encourage sprawl has become unpopular with voters in many parts of Maryland, and that kind of negative press work might just take a foothold with those who are unfamiliar with what the actual Act says and does. But this kind of argument also begins to sound pretty suspicious when you realize that these same development groups fought Smart Growth proposals so strongly and deliberately only a few short years ago. It is odd to hear many of these same groups “lament” anything that might add to sprawl.

(To read about a bill that has been introduced which would directly hit at the Stormwater Act, you can check out this update from the Associated Press, as printed in the Washington Times.)

To counter this negative attack, environmental groups in the lower, more urban watersheds of Montgomery and Prince George’s County have gone on the counter offensive, pointing out that ignoring updates in the older neighborhoods could become an issue of environmental justice. Many of the more urbanized watershed areas are already the hardest hit by stormwater flooding and pollution which occurs when new developments are made upstream. Poorly designed redevelopment on their own streets will only add to such problems.

In response to the negative media and some anticipated attacks on the already established watershed Act, more than a dozen environmental organizations have also asked their members to contact their state legislators to say they support tough stormwater regulations. Such support, it is hoped, would cover any attempts to knock at the Stormwater Act of 2007 while also showing support for what has loosely labeled the “Good Stormwater Bill.”

This so-called “Good Stormwater Bill” is being championed by Senator Jamie Raskin (D- Montgomery County) and Delegates Tom Hucker (D- Montgomery County) and Jon Cardin (D-Baltimore County). Using a system similar to what is already in effect in Montgomery County and many smaller municipalities in the state, the new law would mandate that all counties in Maryland adopt an impervious surface fee. The money collected would then be used to address an estimated $20 billion dollar backlog of water-related infrastructure needs. It might also encourage a reduction in impervious surface, which has grown exponentially throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed in the last few decades.

I’ve already blogged in the past about the Bag Bill, which was introduced by Al Carr. There’s a similar bill now being worked through the Virginia legislature. Public support seems to be growing for particular idea of charging a fee for disposable shopping bags in my part of Montgomery County, although it is unclear to me how it will fare with leaders from other parts of the state and over in the Old Dominion.

A new litter bill has also been introduced this week by Al Carr, which would essentially make reporting litter violations easier. Several small watershed groups which have worked tirelessly on reducing trash in the Potomac and Anacostia watersheds immediately voiced support.

Ever Worry about the Parks?

I have a little list of what I would call "worries" about my favorite parks in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Most of those worries involve funding, but some also involve priority setting. We have a responsibility, I believe, to keep those streams clean and healthy. Historic landmarks also deserve to be tended. Green open space needs to be protected and honored.

I guess I'd put it this way: I like to make sure that some of the less profitable but extremely important things don't get cut from the budgets each year, and I like to see that sports and roads don't override the entire system. I like sports just fine; a lot of the people in my family enjoy playing on many of MNCPPC's fields. But I don't want the system to ever forget that things like hiking, nature walks and trees are important, too.

It kind of set a twinge of worry through my head, for instance, to see that golf was so heavily emphasized at the MNCPPC booth at the MoCo county fair last year, for example. (I was hoping they'd emphasize some of the other stuff, like the great Nature Centers. But I guess golf makes more money than snakes and birds do.)

Anyway, that list of concerns sits around in my brain and often causes me to do things like write letters, make blog posts and attend public meetings. So the following email really got my attention:

"Come to a public meeting and help shape the future of Parks and Recreation in Montgomery County. The Department of Parks and the Department of Recreation are holding two public meetings in February to hear about your future needs and priorities over the next 20 years to help us develop a long term strategic plan and guide public spending in these tight fiscal times.

Meetings will be held: Downcounty- Tuesday February 23, 2010 from 7-8:30 pm in the MNCPPC Montgomery Regional Office (MRO) Auditorium at 8787 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, MD 20910. . Upcounty- Wednesday February 24 from 7-8:30 pm in the large meeting room of the Up-County Government Center, 12900 Middlebrook Rd., Germantown, MD 20874. Please pass this notice on to others that you think may be interested. "

I plan to attend one of these meetings, with my little list of worries in hand.

If you plan to attend or have questions, don't send them to me. Send them to:
Vision2030@montgomeryparks.org

For additional information on Vision 2030, and in case of inclement weather, please visit: www.VisionMontgomery2030.org.

Talk on Mapping Invasive Species this weekend

From the Sierra Club:

Since 1995, Jil Swearingen has worked as an Integrated Pest Management and Invasive Species Specialist for the National Park Service's National Capital Region, Center for Urban Ecology in Washington DC. Mapping is fundamental for planning control projects, tracking management efforts, and identifying new introductions. Nearly 300 invasive plant species occur in the mid-Atlantic region. Jil will talk about the new Early Detection Distribution Mapping System that helps invasive plant workers report and track invasive plant infestations.

The talk will be held on Sunday, Feb. 21 from 2pm-3:30pm at the Rockville Library, 21 Maryland Ave., Rockville.

Free and open to the public.

RSVP events@maryland.sierraclub.org or 301-351-6985.

Directions and parking at http://maryland.sierraclub.org/montgomery/