Stormwater Committee Minutes
June 5, 2005

ATTENDEES

Ann Hoffnar
Ed Murtagh
Kathy Michels
Jenny Reed
Jane Osburn
Robert Goo
Alison Gilespie
Sally Gagne
Ali Khalilian, Takoma Park City Engineer (guest)

Potential Work with City of Takoma Park

Mr. Ali Khalilian, Takoma Park City Engineer attended our meeting. He is very interested in using various LID measures to deal with Stormwater in the City. He is thinking about curb cuts and various other street-scaping devices. He is particularly interested in building some raingardens. Takoma Park has not made much use of LID practices up to now. This would be a good opportunity to help turn Takoma Park into a showcase for LID practices in older high density communities that were built before modern stormwater management practices were required.

A raingarden: Ali has several sights in mind and will discuss the project with others in DPW and other departments before he settles on the site for the first demonstration raingarden. We all agreed that the outreach and education feature would be the most important. Takoma Park would provide the heavy lifting manpower and machinery—and much of the material. We discussed ways our committee might work with him including:

  • Writing up an agreement like the one we developed for the raingarden at Eastern, including Friends of Sligo Creek, the City of Takoma Park, perhaps the County DEP and the local neighborhood association.
  • Developing a talk to give to the neighborhood association and perhaps the Takoma Park Garden Club.
  • Making contact with DEP for technical support and educational signage.
  • Helping select plants and build the raingarden and taking major responsibility for maintaining it for the first year.

Committee members took on tasks: Ed will adapt the Eastern agreement and send it to all for review. Jenny will call garden clubs to book a talk for next year. The committee needs to form a group of interested individuals in the Takoma Park area that are committed in seeing this project succeed.

In the future:The Stormwater Committee would like to make a Friends Program Meeting. We may plan to present our work with Takoma Park at a program meeting next year and give the same program to the Native Plant Society. Alison will write articles. She is working on one now.

Future project with Takoma Park: Before Ali left, we had a brief discussion about one of our future goals: to upgrade the Takoma Park Stormwater code so that it contains incentives and disincentives which encourage home owners and local businesses to keep their water on their property rather than piping it to the street. Ali was receptive but cautions that the City Council would need to explore the issue. All agreed that major public outreach and education would have to be part of the project, and the raingarden and other projects will help on that score.

Ed to Talk to Friends of Sligo Creek Board

At the next board meeting, Ed will talk about our ongoing work, and our goals and objectives. The Board wants to make sure that our organization’s Strategic Plan reflects what we are really doing and plan to do. Main changes include running a Program Meeting, preparing articles for submittal to local publications and exploring a possible partnership with the City of Takoma Park.

Ed Gave us Brief Updates on our Ongoing Projects

  • Northwood’s Green Roof is getting closer to reality. The original site was too expensive, but MCPS found a possible alternative location that would be less costly.
  • Alison will write articles on our two working raingardens – Eastern and American Elm Park – for local gardening magazines and other newsletters, magazines and newspapers.
  • We decided to consider a follow up grant for Eastern Middle School (adding a second rain garden) and maintenance money for the American Elm Park raingarden.
  • We will have a part to play if the Anacostia Watershed Society proposal for an EPA grant goes through. The Board agreed to be a partner and our part would be LID projects. The grant is not likely to be funded, but we should have plans ready to go because there will other grants. If we get this grant, we should try to coordinate this with our other on-going efforts.
  • Our attempt to get the raingarden into the Eastern Middle School curriculum has not progressed very well. We agreed that we should ask Jill Coutts at Northwood High School for advice on how we should approach the curriculum question. (Update: Ed Murtagh met with Jill Coutts on June 10th see update of meeting below)

Updates on items not included in committee meeting due to lack of time:
Awards and Certificates: Eastern Middle School submitted the paperwork applying for the State of Maryland Earth Day Certificate which Maryland awards. Alison also added a bird house by the Eastern Middle raingarden. At this point we should apply for the National Wildlife Federation certification.

Brief Synopsis of June 10th meeting with Jill Coutts:
Northwood High School Opportunities. Northwood High School’s Environmental Academy is doing very well and expanding. One of its focuses is on local ecological issues, including stormwater management. The academy staff would like to explore partnerships with the stormwater committee. During June 10th meeting with Ms. Coutts, she expressed interest in participating in our efforts to implement LID practices in Takoma Park. There is a possibility of our committee also participating with Northwood High School in efforts in implementing LID practices in the Wheaton CBD. The Environmental Academy staff has been using our outreach material for their studies of stormwater management. They would like our assistance in developing over the summer a curriculum for stormwater management and green buildings. The academy has already installed one small raingarden on the school site. They would like to do additional LID projects on site with Friends of Sligo Creek

Notes prepared by Ann Hoffnar and Ed Murtagh