On June 11, robot enthusiasts joined LFWA to learn about our autonomous water quality testing robot project. A talk on the development of the robots by John Crupi, Kick Robotics, was followed by an onsite demonstration of the robots in action.
Fecal Bacteria Levels in the Watershed
Little Falls Watershed Alliance is excited to announce that in June, we are re-starting our bacteria monitoring program for the Little Falls and Willett Branches. Check our events page for kick-off meeting date and details.
Bacteria Monitoring Program ISO Volunteers
Little Falls Watershed Alliance is excited to announce that in June, we are re-starting our bacteria monitoring program for the Little Falls and Willett Branches. Check our events page for kick-off meeting date and details.
New Plants for Green Acres Habitat Project
LFWA celebrated earth day by adding more native plants to the Green Acres Habitat Restoration Project. Volunteers planted ostrich ferns, wood poppies, white turtleheads, columbines, spiderworts, foamflowers, and more to join an earlier planting of redbuds and pawpaws as part of the ongoing project to restore the paper road at the end of Little Falls Drive, Bethesda, MD.
Minnow Mayflies are back!
Members of the LFWA Stream team were out in force April 8 for the spring monitoring of the Little Falls Branch. The exciting news is that a few minnow mayflies were spotted after a several seasons of absence. A large water main break in Westbard seems to have wiped out their population in Fall 2022, but we found four this spring. Hopefully, we’ll find even more in the summer. (Their numbers are usually in the in the dozens.)
Celebrating 15 years of Environmental Stewardship
Volunteers are the heartbeat of the Little Falls Watershed Alliance and on March 5, we honored them with dinner, music, awards and more. The Honorable Brian Frosh, former MD Attorney General, Senator and Delegate, was our guest speaker and he reflected eloquently on his years of public service and the need for environmental stewardship. Maryland House Majority Leader Marc Korman brought us up to date with environmental issues in the Maryland legislature. Sara Love, MD delegate from district 16, shared her hopes for the current legislative session.
LFWA Winter Monitoring
Saturday was our quarterly benthic monitoring of the Little Falls Branch. The winter monitoring always yield low numbers and this year was no exception. Visit our Macroinvertebrate page to learn about the results.
14 Years of Stewardship by the Numbers
We might be a small group, but we get a lot done! Here’s just some of what we’ve accomplished in the last 14 years.
Salt Testing Shows High Baseline Levels
Baseline readings of the streams in the Little Falls watershed showed high to chronic levels in three locations. Both the Little Falls and Willett Branches had levels above 200 ppm in our December baseline reading. The Willett Branch reading was 290 ppm, which is above the tolerance threshold for fresh water organisms
MoCo DEP to Investigate Source of Human Fecal Bacteria in Willett Branch
After so much bad news about the fecal bacteria levels in the Little Falls Watershed - especially the out of the ballpark numbers on the Willett Branch where it runs behind the Bethesda Pool -Little Falls Watershed Alliance is happy to share some good news.