Tag Archives: Stormwater

Forest Estates (Wheaton) Green Streets Help to Restore Sligo Creek

Streetside bioretention holds stormwater rather than sending it through pipes into regional stormwater ponds

Just south of downtown Wheaton, the Forest Estates is a single-family-home residential neighborhood tucked between Dennis Avenue and Sligo Creek Parkway. This neighborhood is the site of a “green streets” roadway rehabilitation project, where landscaping installed along the curb helps to control and treat rainfall runoff. The small landscaped areas use plants to trap pollutants carried by the first flush of rainfall runoff (i.e., runoff from the first inch of rainfall–the amount of the majority of rainfall events in this…

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When it rains on Arcola Avenue…

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Ansu John

The Arcola Avenue Green Street Project integrates environmentally friendly landscaping right into the street design to treat and absorb rainfall runoff from the street.

Rainfall runoff (or stormwater) from the street carries with it automobile fluids, petroleum products, oil, pet waste, trash, and other debris. Along Arcola Avenue, curbside swales, rain gardens and curb extensions with plants filter the runoff through a mixture of highly permeable soils (sand, mulch, compost), then store the water in an underlying gravel bed from…

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The Potomac is the “most endangered river” in the U.S. Really?

The Potomac River is the nation's "most endangered river". Really?

Ansu John

Do you kayak, fish, or enjoy walks by the Potomac River? Did you know that if you took a shower today it was probably from Potomac water? Do you know that most people in the County get their drinking water from surface water intakes on the Potomac River?

A report published by the nonprofit advocacy group “American Rivers” ranks  the Potomac River as the “most endangered river” in the nation.

Did you get alarmed by the May 15 Washington Post story…

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National recognition for Sligo Creek’s successful restoration of aquatic life

Weir introduced in Sligo Creek as part of restoration project

Ansu John

Montgomery County’s Sligo Creek is getting national recognition for improvements in aquatic life resulting from extensive stormwater pollution control and management in the watershed. EPA has published a case study on Sligo Creek as a Section 319 Success Story. Success Stories are used by EPA to request and justify continued funding from Congress for grant monies (known as Section 319 grants) ear marked for controlling nonpoint source pollution which carries pollutants from urban surfaces and agricultural lands into waterbodies…

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