In 2014, the Montgomery County Government and the Chesapeake Bay Trust established a partnership to offer the Clean Water Montgomery Grant Program to support watershed restoration and outreach projects throughout Montgomery County, Maryland. This program aims to promote initiatives and projects which will improve water quality in Montgomery County’s local streams and waterways through public engagement, education, and on-the-ground restoration.
For a list of previously funded projects for this program, click here.
BY THE NUMBERS
100
Projects Awarded
4.5
Million in Approved Awards
1.3
Million in Matching Leverage Funds
1.4
Million in Dollar Value Provided to the County by Volunteers
1,455
Trees Planted
10,430
Students, Teachers, and Volunteers Engaged
36,123
Sq. Ft. of Impervious Surface Removed
Project Highlights
Public Outreach and Stewardship
Project Information
Project Title: Si se Puede!: Growing a Community of Empowered Environmental Leaders in Long Branch
Award Amount: $20,836
Year Awarded: 2021
Description: This award supported the expansion of the “!Sí Se Puede!” project through the following activities:
• conducting additional outreach to recruit families to participate in the MWEE,
• conducting four community outreach events targeted toward the Latine and other immigrant groups in the Long Branch community, and
• preparing a case study of our organization’s community-based work in Montgomery County and other parts of the Washington, DC Metro región.
Project Information
Project Title: Stakeholder engagement at Glenville Road and Grand Bell II
Award Amount: $20,000
Year Awarded: 2015
Description: The Montgomery Housing Partnership ran three green club sessions, planned and installed three conservation gardens, conducted a number of community cleanups, and provided resident education on watershed
stewardship to residents, and youth, at Grand Bel II and Glenville Road communities.
Throughout the project, MHP staff worked closely with Grand Bel II’s Property Management Company and the Condominium Association Board of Directors, and the residents at Glenville Road. Activities included:
- Strengthen the already established Glenville Road Green Club, using a curriculum that strives to meet best practices for environmental education. The Glenville Rd. Green Club continued in 2016, with a continuing focus on furthering the youths understanding of the watershed and environment around them, in addition to maintaining their vegetable garden. A sampling of topics and activities includes: human and animal habitats; hanging home-made bird feeders; trees, tree life cycle, and the role of trees, tree life cycle walk; deforestation; the water cycle; modeling filtration of water contamination by soil; soil erosion; insects; recycling activity; local crop calendar; and eagle hunting rabbit hide and seek.
- Establish a new Green Club at Grand Bel II condominium complex by July 2015. The Green Club was established in May 2016. Twenty-nine 90-minute sessions were led by two instructors every Monday and Wednesday, from May through September. Eleven young people ages 6-12 joined the
Club. - Provide targeted community outreach to both Glenville Road and Grand Bel II to strengthen the communities’ understanding of the role they can play in watershed restoration and stewardship via expert speakers (reducing pet waste, clean ups, and native plantings).
Project Information
Project Title: Growing Caring for Creation along the Northwest Branch: Sacred Grounds Phase 2
Award Amount: $49,953
Year Awarded: 2021
Description: The National Wildlife Federation engaged five congregations under the Sacred Grounds banner to Care for Creation by taking actions to reduce stormwater runoff in the NW Branch watershed. This included recruiting two new congregations and continuing to work with three previous congregations that participated in the first year of this work. The specific action was to plant native plants at congregation members’ homes as an entry into the larger need to replace lawns with conservation landscaping and rain gardens. This was essentially an introduction to RainScapes and how people at home can help supplement the public investment in slowing the flow of climate-induced stormwater inundating our region and causing flooding and greater pollution.
Community Based Restoration
Project Information
Project Title:Land, Water, Spirit/ Tierra, Agua, Espiritu
Award Amount: $90,000
Year Awarded: 2021
Description: The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay completed a bi-lingual, Spanish and English stormwater implementation and outreach project at St. Catherine Laboure in Wheaton, MD. The installed practices consist of gardens covering a total of 2,113 sq. ft., two rain barrels and a cisterns capturing over 600 gallons of water per rain event, and seven trees. This reduction in stormwater will not only alleviate strained stormwater infrastructure, it will also keep contaminates from roofs and lawns out of the local streams. The project has supported the church’s efforts to increase environmental awareness for both English and Spanish speaking parishioners through stormwater education and hands-on activities.
Project Information
Project Title: Bannockburn East Side and Glen Echo
Award Amount: $50,000
Year Awarded: 2021
Description: The focus of this project was the removal of an eroded impervious asphalt road on the grounds of the Clubhouse of the Bannockburn Community Club (BCC) and its replacement with a conservation landscape. The old road was channeling runoff from our property into a storm drain on the corner of West Halbert Rd and Bannockburn Drive. This impervious surface, about 310 linear feet and about 10 feet wide, was removed in May 2021. The upper portion of the road, about 215 linear feet, was replaced with eighteen 10’ wide, 12’ long modular sections with conservation landscaping, dry wells, weirs, and stepping stones, resembling a walkable stream path. The remaining lower portion of about 90 linear feet was seeded and six native trees were installed there. The four feet wide strips on both sides of the stream path were graded and seeded.
Project Information
Project Title:Public Outreach and Stewardship and Community-Based Restoration for Pleasant View Historic Site
Award Amount: $25,000
Year Awarded: 2016
Description: LDS Earth Stewardship designed, installed, and maintained conservation landscaping while educating the public on sustainable gardening practices and stormwater management at historic Pleasant View over a two-year period. They planted 27 native trees and created three sunny native shrub/perennial beds totaling about 3,600 square feet. They hosted more than 330 volunteers through the 16 volunteer events that were held at Pleasant View. They also hosted three public education events that featured simple ways for homeowners and others to improve local water quality.
Project Information
Project Title: Community-Based Restoration at Carolyn Condominium
Award Amount: $60,061
Year Awarded: 2021
Description: The Friends at Sligo Creek designed and implemented a 10,000 sq.ft. Bioretention facility to replace existing turf landscape at the Carolyn Condominium. The facility captures runoff from the condominium lot and redirects it in order to prevent flooding of adjacent lots. Alongside the bioretention facility, they planted 1109 native plants that are intended to act as a rain garden to capture salt runoff from the adjacent parking lot.
Tree Planting and Reforestation
Project Information
Project Title: Trees for Sacred Places Montgomery County
Award Amount: $31,256
Year Awarded: 2015
Description: The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay served as a technical partner by providing the congregations taking part in “The Trees for Scared Places” project with planting design plans, native trees, tools, and planting supervision. The Trees for Sacred Places project in Montgomery County aimed to engage faith communities to put their faith into action through environmental stewardship by participating in tree planting projects. The tree planting projects on congregation grounds also equip members to apply this knowledge to their daily lives on their home properties. Trees for Sacred Places has also been shown to be a “gateway to action” for congregations and faith-based institutions to take further steps to broaden their environmental ministry.
Project Information
Project Title: Improving the Environment and Outcomes for At-Risk Youth
Award Amount: $70,000
Year Awarded: 2018
Description: Our House contracted a tree service to remove 5,000 sq.ft. of invasive pear trees from the Our House Property. The removal also includes plans to replace the invasive trees with an equal or greater amount of native plant species.
Project Information
Project Title: Montgomery County Tree Planting Initiative
Award Amount: $75,000
Year Awarded: 2021
Description: In the fall of 2021 Casey Trees planted 99 native trees throughout Montgomery County, including Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Rockville, and Silver Spring. Then in early winter 2022, they planted another 145 native trees across the county. Alongside the planting Casey Trees team members left informational door hangers on nearby homes to encourage homeowners’ participation in the care of the trees.
Litter Reduction
Project Information
Project Title: Litter Reduction in the Anacostia Watershed Using Trash Traps: Montgomery County
Award Amount: $250,000
Year Awarded: 2020
Description:
The Anacostia Riverkeeper installed a Bandalong Litter Trap in a highly visible area in a neighborhood just off the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River. The trap removes litter and provides quantified data for total pounds removed as well as an ongoing characterization of the types of materials and products making up the litter. It also creates educational outreach opportunities for County residents to learn about how stormwater moves trash into their waterways, and how the County is reducing the impacts of trash and stormwater.
