Stormwater Committee Meeting
May 15, 2008
Attending:
Ed Murtagh (Chair)
Alison Gillespie
Ann Hoffnar
Jim Fary
Kit Gage
Holly Olson
Kathy Michels (on phone)
Budget Issues
This year we will rely primarily on DEP and money from the Friends of Sligo Creek general budget to build residential and maintain public raingardens. We discussed Ann’s documents outlining the planned raingardens in neighborhoods to justify a $2,000 FOSC budget line for Stormwater. Ed will make changes and Ann will forward to the board.
We reviewed the DEP MOU which would get us through this year. The rainscapes rebate option for raingarden (with modified excavation depths) will not likely be ready until next year.* Ann will send the MOU to Bruce because he has to sign. We agreed that the MOU asks little of us that we are not already doing. The monitoring of rain events with crest gages (provided by DEP) is something we have not done but would like to do.
*Jim will apply to DEP Rainscapes for a rebate for pervious pavers for his driveway.
Raingardens
Neighborhood gardens: We expect to start work on raingardens in June, focusing first on the community raingardens in Holly’s and Kit’s neighborhoods. We will start on Kit’s first, probably beginning June 6.
monitoring: Each home owner will have a crest gage to evaluate the effectiveness of his or her garden. The gage will also help us evaluate the use of various depths of gardens (they vary from 18 inches to 2 1/2 feet).
plants: Kit and Holly will organize the ordering, probably using Environmental Concerns for shrubs and Babikow and/or North Creek for plants. They will look at the Rutgers website for deer resistance. They may use Sarah Tangren’s list as well.
soil mix: We will probably buy from Pogo.
outreach: We talked about video taping the building a raingarden process from start to finish to show on Utube.
Greening Wheaton
We have been following the process with interest and we worked last year with the Northwood High School students and the University of Maryland who did a survey. Now the Wheaton sector plan is out. Khalid Afzal (Georgia Ave Team Leader) mentioned that he was willing to talk to us about it. We don’t have to “sell” anything. The planners are already working on outreach.
Minutes prepared by Ed Murtagh and Ann Hoffnar