Stormwater Committee Minutes
October 4, 2006

ATTENDEES

Ed Murtagh
Alessandra Sagasti
Beth Chaisson
Kathy Michels
Jenny Reed
Diane Cameron
Alison Gillespie

Discussion of Meetings and Events

Much of the meeting was devoted to a PowerPoint Presentation/Strategizing Session on Stormwater Management by Diane. This presentation/discussion was used to explore various stormwater management issues and to get feedback on the Stormwater Presentation Diane is scheduled to give on Oct. 17 for the FOSC Program Meeting. Many, many issues and points were discussed. Two particularly engaging topics were the Stormwater Management and Social Justice connection, and contour landscaping as a technique to manage stormwater. Social Justice – much of the trash and other pollutants that wash from the streets and properties of Montgomery County is deposited along the Anacostia communities. It was noted that the latest Stormwater magazine has an interesting article on Trash TMDLs and a watershed restoration effort in Watershed 263 in Baltimore. See www.gradingandexcavating.com/sw_0609_watershed.html for article on watershed 263 and www.gradingandexcavating.com/sw_0609_taking.html on the article called Taking Out the Trash
Contour landscaping is a practice that considers how contouring the land can help retain/slow down runoff. We can make simple modification to our tree planting techniques that can result in increasing retention of stormwater runoff.
Interesting fact noted was that 5,000,000 gallons of petroleum products enters the Chesapeake Bay every year from non-point sources; more than from oil tanker spills.

Project Updates – The Northwood High School Joint Project is still on schedule for Oct. 14. Diane and Ed went to the school yard this afternoon and walked the site documenting potential locations for environmentally beneficial landscaping techniques. Jill Coutts was going to come tonight to talk about the school project, but had to postpone due to her travel plans the next day. She was going to instead meet with some of us on Wednesday Oct.11. In addition to our rain garden workday, Northwood is planting 50 trees with the Forestry Board. DEP is installing 2 rain gardens in the School courtyard at the end of Oct. Jill reported also that this morning she met with David Vismara, the Director of Brookside Gardens, and they are interested in joining our Partnership. It appears that they are willing to provide internships for the students. Mr. Vismara is preparing the MOU on exactly what they are willing to provide.

Eastern Middle School Rain Garden Workday is still set for Oct. 7. Kathy needs help. Neither Ed nor Jenny, who usually help run the workday, will be available.

Forest Park Rain Garden Project is still scheduled for Oct. 11. This is a small wrapping up planting project with Girl Scouts. Need to wrap up the project. Final report is due at the end of the month.

Alison noted that she is gathering information on houses of worship in our watershed. We are hoping to engage some of the congregation to start using environmentally beneficial landscaping techniques. Alison asked that we send point of contact information.

Outreach and Advocacy

Diane noted that Valerie Ervin contacted her recently. Diane asked if we (in the stormwater community) could meet with her to discuss stormwater issues. A meeting has been set up for Oct 17 at 11 at the Myorga Coffee in Silver Spring.

The Sept 9 Brookside Gardens Plant Sale Outreach went well. The next outreach effort will be on Oct. 8 at the Sweep the Creek Celebration. Diane and I will be at the site discussing stormwater management techniques homeowners can use and to encourage people to write to MDE. The site includes DEP’s pilot bio-retention systems which we will use as part of our outreach.
Letters to MDE – Friends of Sligo Creek and the Stormwater Partners Coalition have begun a letter writing campaign to MDE encouraging MDE to strengthen to stormwater permit. The current permit is inadequate to protect our waterways. The FOSC web site is being used as part of this effort. An Advocacy Alert has been posted on the website with direction on how to write to MDE.

The Stormwater Committee web-pages need up dating. The current layout is confusing and provides little in the way of introductory information. Alessandra is working on ideas to revamp the committee’s web-page.

Notes prepared by Ed Murtagh