EMAIL NOW: Save the GEICO trees/Save Brookdale Park

Mature trees lining the GEICO parking lot along Willard Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD. The developer, EYA, has asked for permission (a variance to the Montgomery County Code) to remove all of them.

Send an email Here

The 27-acre GEICO campus in Friendship Heights is being redeveloped by EYA. Not only did the 27-acre property house the GEICO headquarters, but it also includes the small Brookdale park tucked in the neighborhood behind the main buildings. While the Park will be conveyed to Montgomery Parks when the new development is complete, EYA is in charge of it until that point.

There are over 585 trees on the site--some over 100 years old, and most well over 30 years old, planted in the 1960s when the property was first developed. Thirty-six of these trees are large specimen trees: oaks, maples and tulip poplars with enormous canopies that shade the area and provide habitat for birds, squirrels, butterflies, and other wildlife.

All of these trees are protected by  Chapter 22A of the Montgomery County Code. 

However, EYA has asked for permission from the County (i.e. a variance) to remove almost every specimen tree on the property.  (They don’t need permission to remove smaller trees under 24 inches in diameter—and it looks like they are removing most of them too.)  

This includes trees in Brookdale Park. Along with trees being demolished to make way for the housing, and other building, EYA is proposing removing all the specimen trees fron the Park itself in order to construct numerous amenities, including an amphitheater.  The introduction of these amenities will seriously damage the lovely shady spaces the park currently provides, while the large equipment and ground compaction that accompanies the work will destroy adjacent trees and root systems.

EYA prides themselves on their commitment to “green living.”  They even make an “environmental promise” on their website.  These trees are an important part of the environment and what makes Friendships our livable and walkable community.  They make Friendship Heights a Green Community.

Help Us Save these Trees

Please send an email to the Planning Board and staff and the County Council

Elza Hiesel-McCoy: elza.hisel-mccoy@montgomeryplanning.org
Amy Lindsey:  amy.lindsey@montgomeryplanning.org
Montgomery County Council: county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov
Planning Board: mcp-chair@mncppc-mc.org

USE THIS LINK TO EMAIL DIRECTLY, or cut and paste the text below:

To:
elza.hisel-mccoy@montgomeryplanning.org, amy.lindsey@montgomeryplanning.org, county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov, mcp-chair@mncppc-mc.org

Subject:
Save the GEICO trees/Save Brookdale Park

Message:
The mature trees at the GEICO property in Friendship Heights are an irreplaceable benefit to our community.  Yet, the developer, EYA, wants to remove almost all of them to build townhouses and apartments and add amenities to Brookdale Park. Please deny their request for a variance that allows them to destroy these invaluable specimen trees. 

The proposed enhancements for Brookdale Park guarantees wholesale tree removal from the Park itself.  The construction of these amenities will seriously damage the lovely shady spaces the park currently provides and destroy adjacent trees and root systems.

The Friendship Heights Sector Plan requires that every effort be made to keep the mature trees.  This is so important that it is mentioned in more than 10 places in the plan.  EYA can do better.  Shifting some green space to include an existing tree, locating amenities proposed for the Park in one of the pocket parks in the residential complex would be a win for everyone and for green living.

Please save our trees. Save our Park.

Thank you for your work on this,
{Your Name}
{Address}

Brookdale Park

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What's Blooming!

Spring has come to the the Little Falls watershed and our habitat restoration projects are blooming! The Virginia Blue Bells are mostly done, as are the Red Bud trees, but we have Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea), Golden Alexander (Zizia Aurea), Bluestar (Amsonia), and Woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata) and even some Paw Paws (Asimina triloba) in full glory. The ferns are out, and the grasses are greening up. It’s still early spring, so there will be lots more to report.

Falmouth Road Habitat Restoration Project

The Falmouth Road project, master-minded by Celia Martin, began in 2022 as an attempt to restore native plants to the intersection of Falmouth Road and Massachusetts Avenue in Bethesda with the permission of the Maryland State Highway Administration. Lauren Greenberger, Daybreak Farms, developed the landscaping design and supervised the planting. Hundreds of volunteers have kept up the project, weeding, removing bamboo, and watering. Learn about the project HERE.

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Green Acres Habitat Project

Located along the banks of the (unfortunately) channelized Little Falls Branch, the Green Acres project is celebrating its tenth year! What started as a simple pollinator garden on the paper road between Wakefield and Yorktown in Bethesda, has grown to include trees, a woodland wildflower habitat, and a huge invasive removal effort freeing not only trees, but Rough horsetail, one of the oldest plants in Maryland. You could find it during the Carboniferous period (280-345 million years ago). Learn about the project HERE.

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westbrook Elementary School Habitat Restoration

Our oldest project located at the corner of the Westbrook Elementary School grounds was installed in 2010 by Lynnwood Andrews with the help of fourth grade students from the school (and a lot of other volunteers). Lynnwood was concerned that the wildflowers that she knew as a child were disappearing, so she removed the grass and invasive vines along the Little Falls Branch and planted hundreds of native flowers, shrubs and a few trees that the students grew from seed. In 2023, a water main burst in the middle of the project destroying much of the area. But in spring of 2024, WSSC did a beautiful job replanting and the garden is blooming again. Learn about Lynnwood’s efforts HERE.

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These projects were made possible by donations from our members and thousands of hours of labor by our volunteers who plant, who water, who weed, and more. We are also grateful to the support of local businesses who contributed materials - fencing, mulch, and more and to the Chesapeake Bay Trust who awarded us a small grant in 2010 to buy plants for the Westbrook Elementary School project. We are particularly grateful to our partners - Montgomery County Public School, MDOT, and SHA who give us permission to work on their lands.

LFWA Plans Walks of the GEICO Redevelopment

Things are moving along for the redevelopment of the 26+ acre GEICO Campus in Friendship Heights. EYA is expected to submit site plans sometime this month. Proposed redevelopment include condos and townhouses with heights varying from 4 story (town homes) and 7 storied (condos fronting Willard Avenue). Most of the mature trees are marked to be removed and the percentage of green space will be significantly reduced replaced by buildings and roads. The ballpark that was included in the 1998 site plans approved by the Planning Board in 1998 is not included in this plan.

In order to education the public on the plans and highlight the environmental impact of the proposed development, LFWA will be offering regular walking tours of the environmental conditions of the current GEICO site and our concerns with the proposed development. Please check our event page for the schedule.

Final Approval is Scheduled for Fall

The planning board approval process is an an accelerated process that combines the Sketch, Preliminary and Site Plans and will go before the Planning Board for final approval this Fall. So there will only be a few months for the community to learn about the plan and submit comments.

The LFWA Board, and our Advocacy Committee, is following the process, researching the plan’s impacts on the Little Falls watershed, requesting meetings, etc. and will work to keep the community informed.

Happy Birthday, LFWA!

Little Falls Watershed Alliance celebrated 18 years of stewardship at their birthday party, Sunday March 8.  The festivities include volunteer recognition, a talk on native bees, as well as food and music by the Little Falls Ramblers. 

Special volunteer recognition went to Jack Deutsch and Bobby Pestronk for their effort in habitat restoration and water quality monitoring.  Our salt monitoring team was recognized for their efforts this year in testing our local waterways for road salt pollution.  County Executive Marc Elrich, in his last term, was thanked for his contributions to the environment.

Jack Deutsch is one of LFWA’s first volunteers, helping to construct the meadow at Westbrook Elementary School in 2010.  In 2016, he joined the team of volunteers who transformed the paper road between Wakefield and Yorktown in Green Acres to a native plant sanctuary.  Most recently, he is a regular in two local parks, working to remove non-native invasives and restore native plants. 

While he has only been a member since 2022, Bobby Pestronk contributed over 100 hours as the eyes and ears of the Little Falls Branch in Friendship Heights keeping watch over the creek where it runs through the Willard Avenue Neighborhood Park.  In the summer, he does fecal bacteria testing in this popular park, and in the winter, he keeps track of the salt pollution.  And in 2024, he formed a neighborhood group to removed non-native invasives from the Park.  The group meets once a month and has cleared more than 2 acres from weeds that were crowding out the native plants. 

Exploring native bees, beneficial insects, pollinator-friendly planting, and how each of us can help Maryland’s 400+ bee species thrive was the focus of our key note speaker, Maureen Jais-Mick’s fascinating talk. Highlighting the importance of saving native was a perfect fit for our habitat restoration work.   Maureen’s handout with resources is HERE.

The annual party is also our annual membership meeting.  We are happy to welcome Peter Chessick and Lisa Marcus to the board, and sad to lose Karen Thornton, who served as president for the past four years.  Karen has moved to Rhode Island, so our lose is their gain. George Wyeth is our new president, and Lisa Marcus has taken over as treasurer.  John Drake remains as Vice president; Sara Robinson remains as secretary.  Returning members Mikel Moore, Emily Simone, and Jack Sobel round out the board. Meet the Board HERE. 

Thank you to David Batson and friends for their music.  As the leader of the Little Falls Ramblers, David has been entertaining at LFWA events since 2011 when we celebrated Norwood park with a party and clean-up.   Thank you also to Maurie Kathan for organizing the food set-up, serving and clean-up.  Not only is Maurie competent in all things food, but they are a former board member.  Thank you to David Kathan for his opening slide show.  Thank you to our Executive Director Sarah Morse for her baking talents and providing the yummy desserts. Woody Stanley made the Salt movie (with the help of AI) which will be available for public viewing on our website soon.

And finally, thank you to the Westmoreland Church for allowing us to use their beautiful social hall, again. 

UPDATE: March 19, 2026

The Creek’s Silent Cry is available on our website for viewing HERE.

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Trash Data to be Proud of

Little Falls Watershed Alliance takes second place in Montgomery Parks for the number of volunteers engaged in picking up trash - over 1,000 hours of service by 392 volunteers! Only one other watershed group in the County reached the 1,000 hours mark.

We picked up 5, 863 pounds of trash, including 2 tires and 419 pounds of oversized trash (a couple of shopping carts too.) And hosted 19 clean-ups. These include our monthly clean-ups at Little Falls Branch and two “all watershed clean-ups” at various sites around the watershed.

Most impressive is that we did this all despite being the smallest of the County watersheds. Montgomery Parks tracks the trash reduction efforts of five watershed groups in the county. The watersheds they steward range from small, at 9.5 square miles the Little Falls is the smallest, to quite large - the Rock Creek watershed is over 34 square miles in Montgomery County. And while we didn’t pick up the most trash, in the 18 years that we have been tracking our trash clean-up efforts, we have totaled more than 75,000 pounds. That’s trash data to brag about!

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We Win! Most Hours by a WW Supervisor goes to Executive Director Sarah Morse

Sarah Morse leading a group of weed warriors along the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda. Sarah has been leading monthly workdays along the trail since December 2022 in partnership with the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail.

Native plants can breath easy thanks to the efforts of more than 675 Weed Warrior volunteers who work in parks in the Little Falls watershed removing non-native invasive plants. According to data just released by Montgomery Parks, watershed volunteers freed more than 1,722 trees and put in 2,031 hours to remove bush honeysuckle, porcelainberry vines, English ivy and other plants that are threatening our native trees and shrubs.

Little Falls Watershed Alliance Executive Director Sarah Morse leads the Montgomery Parks Weed Warrior pack for the third year for the most hours recorded by a Weed Warrior supervisor. Weed Warrior supervisors have special training and are allowed to lead community workdays that are open to the public. Sarah led 30 workdays on Park land in 2025 supervising 1,119 man hours. Sarah also leads workdays on State Highway land, in DC Parks, and in the Montgomery County Public Schools Forest Conservation Land for a total of 33 events in 2025.

Weed Warrior Supervisor Celia Martin also had an impressive year, leading 17 events in the Little Falls Stream Valley Park for 527 supervisor hours. Celia also works on MDOT land removing bamboo along Massachusetts Avenue to save the native trees and planting encroaching on the Falmouth Habitat project - another 14 workdays in 2025

We also have 38 Certified Weed Warriors working in the Little Falls watershed. Certified Weed Warriors have attended the Montgomery Parks Weed Warrior training and are allowed to work unsupervised in the Parks. More about how you can become a certified Weed Warrior is HERE.

What did the Little Falls Weed Warriors do?

According to the Parks data, we freed 1,722 trees from strangling vines and smothering bushes.

Our most popular plant to conquer was porcelain-berry vines, followed by English ivy, and then bush honeysuckle. We also removed oriental bittersweet, Japanese honeysuckle, creeping euonymus, garlic mustard (in the spring), wine berry, winged euonymus, leatherleaf mahonia, Japanese knotweed, mile-a-minute, Italian arum, bamboo, privet, multi-flora rose, chocolate vine, pachysandra, and more.

where did we work?

Sarah works primarily along the Capital Crescent Trail and in Parks above River Road. Celia hosts her work days below Massachusetts Avenue in the lower part of the Little Falls Stream Valley Park, in Westmoreland Hills Local Park and along the Capital Crescent Trail and on MDOT land. But we have other certified weed warriors working at sites all over the watershed.

According to Park data, work sites in the Little Falls Watershed by the number of hours are:

• Capital Crescent Trail: 513 hours

• Little Falls SVU 1 (South of River Rd): 851 hours

• Little Falls SVU 2 (North of River Rd): 131 hours

• Norwood LP: 170 hours

• Western Grove Urban Park: 70 hours

• Willard Avenue Neighborhood Park: 247 hours

Weed Warrior work data for the Little Falls Watershed from Montgomery Parks, 2026

Join the Mission - Get Certified, Participate in a community event

It’s against Montgomery Parks rules and regulations to remove plant material from a park unless authorized. That’s where the Weed Warrior Program comes in. By training and certifying citizens to remove non-native invasives from parkland, Montgomery County has a robust program that allows residents to help save our forests.

Sign-up for an Event: You can join one of our community workdays by visiting our events page and registering. We provide all necessary tools and gloves as well as instructions. Our workdays are open to everyone, but students under 14 must be accompanied by a supervising adult. No experience or previous training necessary.

Book a Private Event: We host dozens of workdays for office groups, civic groups, scouts, or just any group looking to make a difference. We provide tools, gloves, and a supervisors, you provide manpower. These days are arranged at mutually convenient times. Contact us at info@LFWA.org for more information.

Become a Certified Weed Warrior: Montgomery County certification program trains individuals to identify and remove non-native invasives. After receiving their “green card”, the weed warriors can work anywhere in the Park system without supervision. There is online training as well as in person training days. More information HERE.