The Montgomery County Civic Federation regularly honors people and organizations from our community that are heroes -- taking time from their lives, and working hard to make the county a better place for all of us.
Little Falls Watershed Alliance is proud to be the March 2012 recipient of this award. Please join us at the MCCF meeting tonight, March 12 for presentation.
MCCF Monthly Meeting
Monday, March 12, 2012
7:45 p.m.
County Council Building - 1st Floor Auditorium
100 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, Maryland
Shout Out to Watershed Warriors!
Parkway Pick-up
Last Saturday, Feb. 11, we had 8 people o
ut for the monthly Little Falls parkway and creek clean-up. In an hour and a half, we were able to pick-up 5 bags of trash and three bags of recycling as well as one very new looking walker and a child size grocery cart. Thank you to everyone for participating. We look forward to seeing you next month too! Check the website for details.
Salt Spill Alert
A special shout out goes to Wesley Seminary for not only alerting us that the DC trucks had spilled a ton (literally) of salt on the road during the non-snow event, but for helping us shovel some 1,000 pounds into plastic bags so that it wouldn't be washed into the stormdrains and creek when in rained. And thank you to DC DOT for prompt pick-up of the bags and also for arranging to have the street swept. There were two big stripes of salt going all the down University
Ave from Mass to Quebec where it appears the truck's spreader malfunctioned.
10 Trash Resolutions for the New Year
Dear Neighbors,
Two thousand and eleven has been a very busy year for our trash removal volunteers, spending hundreds of hours picking up a thousand pounds of trash from the curbs, sidewalks, and parking lots along the streets in Friendship Heights and on Little Falls Parkway and River Road. We also have been contacting local merchants to encourage them to keep the areas around their business premises clean, and have been lobbying state and county officials to strengthen the enforcement and scope of solid waste laws.
Trash left on the ground creates a host of ills, including blighting the neighborhood, lowering property values, and damaging the environment. Rainwater washes it into storm drains that empty into the Little Falls Creek, and eventually farther downstream into the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay.
We hope for a better year in 2012. You can help. Please consider making and keeping one or more of the following resolutions for the new year:
1. I will dispose of trash and pet waste in a proper receptacle.
2. I will educate my children to do the same.
3. I will pick up at least 5 pieces of trash each day that I walk in the neighborhood.
4. I and members of my household will "adopt" a street block near my home and strive to keep it trash free.
5. I will educate myself about which materials are recyclable and deposit them in the appropriate blue recycling can (for mixed paper/cardboard) or bin (for mixed metals/plastic/glass) provided to me by the county. Please see: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/dep/solidwaste/collectionservices/curbside.asp
6. I will bind or contain loose papers before I put them in the blue recycling can, and bag garbage before placing it in my trash can, so as to minimize the chance of spillage upon collection by sanitation workers. I will clean up any spillage that does occur.
7. I will pick up from in front of my home any newspapers delivered there, and I will contact the circulation department of any newspaper that I do not wish to receive to cancel delivery. For:
The Gazette, please see: http://www.gazette.net/article/20110118/MISC01/110119990&template=gazette
The Examiner, please see: http://washingtonexaminer.com/examiner-stop-delivery-request
The Washington Post, please see: https://subscription.washingtonpost.com/subscriberservices/subscriber.portal;jsessionid=7GRmT43LdD1JBsf1hpJJsbny0kQ3j8PsrGSzJpYYQ2yFyTRFLkB0!-1166501001?state=faqs
8. I will volunteer to participate in organized trash pick-ups conducted by the Little Falls Watershed Alliance. Please see: http://www.lfwa.org/pick-up
9. I will call 311 to report violations of the Montgomery County Code provisions that require businesses to keep their parking lots and other grounds free of trash. Please see: http://www3.montgomerycountymd.gov/311/
10. I will instruct any lawn mowing services that I employ to pick up any trash before mowing, and to not mow over it.
We wish you all a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2012. Thank you.
Richard Yates
Vice President for Government Relations & Trash Abatement Committee Coordinator
Little Falls Watershed Alliance, Inc.
Mow, Don't Rake!
Mow Your Leaves for a Better Environment!
Big piles of leaves by the curb, a certain sign of autumn and lots of fun for kids to jump in. What could be wrong with that? Not to be the Grinch Who Stole Leaf Pile Jumping, but everything. Leaves in the gutter make their way to the creek where they decompose and cause nutrient bloom. Leaves in the gutter mean no leaves around the base of your trees where they provide an organic blanket for the trees during the winter. Leaves in the gutter mean you are wasting valuable nutrients for your lawn.
So, this year, take a tip from Winterthur, the spectacular DuPont gardens in Delaware and mow your leaves right on the lawn. From a Washington Post article
For more than 20 years, the gardeners at this expansive and famously leafy estate have been mowing leaves with (..) lawn mowers. The machines inhale the leaves, chop them into shreds and deposit them as the mower moves along. Engine noise is confined to the muted chug of the mower, not the incessant high-pitch whine of the leaf blower.
And there are no bags to unhook and drag anywhere, just a confetti-like litter left on the grass. Ripped into morsel-size pieces, the flakes melt away in two or three weeks as microbes and worms do their work of enriching the soil.
This process is endorsed by none other than the Scotts Fertilizer Company. On their website, they recommend you
Take the grass catcher off your mower and mow over the leaves on your lawn. You want to reduce your leaf clutter to dime-size pieces. You'll know you're done when about half an inch of grass can be seen through the mulched leaf layer. Once the leaf bits settle in, microbes and worms get to work recycling them. Any kind of rotary-action mower will do the job, and any kind of leaves can be chopped up. With several passes of your mower, you can mulch up to 18 inches of leaf clutter.
So, give your rake a rest, save the local government some money and help the environment all by mowing your leaves. It works for the Winterthur Estates and it will work for you. When spring arrives, you'll see great results. The leaf litter you mowed this fall will have disappeared. And your grass will look greener than ever.
And if your children need a pile to jump it, rake them one and when they are jumped out, put those leaves under your trees and around your shrubs. Free and beautiful mulch!
Norwood Park Day, 2011
Check out these photos from David Kathan of Norwood Park Day. Little Falls Ramblers were there to entertain as we removed vines from the trees and tackled the bush honeysuckle. Big thanks to everyone who came out for this annual event. We'll see you next year.
AU First Years Help Watershed
On August 24 and 25, Little Falls Watershed Alliance was honored to work with 14 new students from American University as part of their Freshman Service Experience. The students are all taking a Sustainable Earth class and, as part of the class, elected to spend two days volunteering in the watershed. On day one, they spent the morning labeling over 120 stormdrains around AU and passed out over 500 door hangers to the neighbors. The afternoon was spent in the Little Falls Stream Valley Park removing invasive porcelain berry vines from trees. The morning of day two was spent (in the rain) doing meadow restoration work near Westbrook Elementary School. A creek clean-up was scheduled for the afternoon, but severe thunderstorms ended the day early.
Thank you to Kayla Ma, AU student, resident adviser and TA for the group for organizing the work days. And thank you to the AU students for their hard work. It's amazing how much a group of people can get done in just a few hours. The trees in the park are grateful for the efforts. For pictures of students in action, visit our
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/lfwa/. Look for the Freshman Service Experience set.
Please contact us at info@LFWA.org if your group is interested in doing a special project. We have lots of places that need work.
Westbrook Meadow in Full Bloom
Westbrook Meadow in Full Bloom
If you haven't gotten a chance to visit the beautiful restored meadow at Westbrook ES, take some time and go down there. It is in full bloom and some thing to see. I have never seen so many butterflies, bees and other pollinators in one place.
The meadow is the brainchild LFWA Vice President Lynnwood Andrews. She and her team of volunteers worked much of last summer and fall to remove the lawn that was along a tributary to the Little Falls Branch and replace it with native flowers, grasses and trees. Only Phase One is completed. In the fall, we will work on Phase Two, where we will plant trees and shrubs in the area close to the stream and also expand the planted area further down the stream.
Thank you to Westbrook ES school children, their parents and AU students who were among the many volunteers who worked on the project. A special and belated thank you to Becca Dozier and Sam Konig who interned for us last summer and did a lot of work on the project. The project was funded in part by a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust.
Also in the works at Westbrook Elementary School is an outdoor classroom. We have already finished the first phase - labeling the native trees. The project is on hold until the Westbrook renovation is completed, but you can wander the campus and discover the names of the native trees. Look for the labels on Hackberries, Catalpa, Oaks and more!
Online Searchable Native Plant Database!
In the works of a fellow environmental steward -
"This is what we've all been waiting for!"
www.nativeplantcenter.net
From the press release:
The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, in partnership with and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Image Matters LLC, unveils the online Native Plant Center for the Chesapeake Bay Region. The online guide allows for the identification and selection of native plant species for habitat restoration in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, an effective method for reducing pollution in the Bay. Replacing portions of lawn areas and typical landscapes with native plants that suit local conditions reduces or eliminates the need for fertilizers and pesticides which wash into our streams, rivers and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay. Once in our waterways, these pollutants fuel the growth of excess algae, which clouds the water and threatens the health of fish, crabs and the entire Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.
Users to the portal, www.nativeplantcenter.net, can search for native plants by name, plant type, sun exposure, soil texture and moisture, and even find native plants with the same shape, color, size or other characteristics as some of their favorite non-native plants. The portal also includes a geo-locator feature to identify plants suited to a user’s specific location. An online network for interacting with other Chesapeake Bay stewards is planned.
I have nothing more to add, except use it!
Sarah Morse
You Can be a Watershed Hero: Youth Summit
If you were at Sandy Point State Park on June 3, you would have seen 3,700 k-12 kids all engaged in learning about environmental issues. And at one of the environmental learning stations, you would have found four LFWA representatives deep in conversation with students about how they can be a watershed hero.
The students were there for a Youth Summit hosted by Maryland Green Schools, a MAEOE program that has certified over 190 schools in Maryland as "Green" for their commitment to environmental education at all levels of the curriculum and to changing their school environment to be a model of environmentally responsible behavior.
We focused on three areas at the LFWA learning booth. Toby and Abby Kathan had plant samples and talked about conquering alien and invasive plants. (Toby also designed two very cool watershed hero action figures for our display boards.) Greta Swanson had a hands-on trash sorting demonstration. Just by recycling, composting and donating used clothing, kids were able to reduce the bag of household trash from a huge bag to very small box full. And I presented a demonstration on how bay friendly landscaping controls stormwater run off. We made it rain on a impervious surface and then added sponges to simulate landscaping. We then made it rain again and squeezed the water out of the sponges. We were able to contain 75 percent of the run-off on the property.
btw, we have three Green Schools in our watershed - Westland Middle School and Westbrook and Bethesda Elementary Schools. Learn about the program at the MAEOE website - www.maeoe.org/greenschools/overview/index.php
I just got trained to be a Green School Leader so LFWA can mentor other schools in the watershed through the process. We're hoping that Somerset Elementary School will complete the application process next year. If you know of a school that is interested in applying, please have them contact me - stormwater@LFWA.org and I can help them get started.
Thank you to Toby, Abby and Greta for coming out and to Maryland Green Schools for inviting us.
Sarah Morse
Co-President