September 2007
Contents
Upcoming Events
· Links to Friends of Sligo Creek’s Website
· Committee Meetings – Stormwater, 5th; Outreach, 10th
· Takoma Park Folk Festival – September 16th
· Fall Sweep-the-Creek – September 29th and 30th
· Sweep Celebration – October 7th
· RIP (Removing Invasive Plants) - Ongoing
· Stormwater Decaling Program - Ongoing
News and Announcements
· Changes to the Sligo Golf Course
· RIP News - Knotweed
· Maryland Bottle Bill Coalition
· Sligo Community Selected for RainScapes Implementation.
· A New Bench in the Park Honors the Lee Family
From the Board of Directors
Upcoming Events
Links to Friends of Sligo Creek’s Website
Here are some links to Friends of Sligo Creek’s colorful and informative website!
Our Home Page
Up to the minute information about the events described in this newsletter can be found on the calendar. We encourage you to visit the calendar to check for any late changes to event times or places.
If you have trouble reading this Newsletter, it is also available on the website, along with past editions, on our Newsletter Archive web page.
Also, many of the articles below have individual links to more information.
Committee Meetings
The Stormwater Committee will meet Wednesday, September 5th at 7:30 p.m. The committee is looking for new members. We have some exciting projects waiting in the wings, but need some help if we are to put them on stage. We will meet at Ed Murtagh's house, 1904 Ventura, Silver Spring, MD 20902. For information or directions call Ed at 301 649 7266 or email him at . All welcome!
- Special Note: Come see Ed’s Rain Gardens in bloom! We are looking for people interested in working with neighbors, schools, and other community organizations in protecting Sligo Creek by installing and maintaining RainScapes practices. See the RainScapes article below in this newsletter to see how Friends is supporting the county-wide Watershed initiative and other RainScapes initiatives this fall.
The Outreach Committee will meet September 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Ann Hoffnar's house, 100 Hodges Lane, Takoma Park, MD 20912. We are gearing up to execute outreach responsibilities for three events--the Takoma Park Folk Festival; The Fall Sweep; and the Sweep Celebration. We would love to have new committee members to help us plan and carry them out.
We also need someone - perhaps an editor type - to work with the appropriate Friends "expert" in drawing up flyers for the Display Boxes - announcements, photos, or informative natural histories.
For more information or directions contact Ann at or 301 585 8891.
Takoma Park Folk Festival
September 16, 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Friends will have an information table at this big music/craft/food event. The festival always draws a good crowd, and we will be sharing table space with lots of environmental, political and community organizations. Come, enjoy the festival and help our volunteer efforts - we get a split of the proceeds for each hour of volunteer time our members provide. We'll be taking on Trash & Recycling but any job you volunteer for will net us cash if you sign up with us. For more information contact Jim Baird at or 301 587 3249.
Fall Sweep-the-Creek
Saturday, September 29, 2007 from 9-11 a.m. (Note that section 4, from Wayne Ave. to Piney Branch, will hold its cleanup on Sunday, September 30, from 1:30 to 3:30.)
Friends will hold its Sixth Annual Sweep-the-Creek all-creek cleanup, in conjunction with National Public Lands Day. The clean-up will be held at many spots along the creek from Wheaton to Prince George's Co. - check http://www.fosc.org/SweepTheCreek.htm for info on clean-up sections near you. This event is rain or shine.
We are still dealing with a lot of litter and dumping along our favorite Creek, and volunteers are needed to pitch in and bag it! Last April we had a record number of volunteers—more than 620—so help us to top that number. Our section leaders will be scouting out the trash hotspots. We also want to encourage more adult volunteers with waders and high rubber boots to participate and get to the settled trash in the Creek bed itself. The clean-up is a terrific opportunity to teach youngsters environmental values, and older students can earn service hours by helping out.
We are also looking for a volunteer who might not be able to pick up litter but wants to contribute, to drive and stop in at the lower sections of the Creek during the Sweep and check in with the section leaders about any supply needs. They could also take a few pictures.
Sweep Celebration
On Sunday, Oct. 7th from 4-6 pm at the Dennis Ave Recreation Center, Friends will hold the second annual Sweep Celebration.
This event is to thank Sweep-the-Creek volunteers and celebrate another successful Sweep. Everyone is welcome, even if you missed the Sweep! If you came last year, you know the event was a lot of fun for kids and adults alike. We'll have great food (including grilled meat and veggie hot dogs), entertainment, and educational opportunities.
And there will be great door prizes.
Here’s a preview:
· Nathan the Jazzy Juggler - back by popular demand!
· Critters from Brookside Nature Center and naturalist talk for kids
· Native fish tank and educational talk from M-NCPPC
· Water quality monitoring demonstration – look for bugs (macroinvertebrates) in the creek
· Winners of Friends’ Second Annual Photo Contest (see http://www.fosc.org/PDF/FOSCPhotoContest.pdf for contest details)
· Native Plant/Seed Exchange
· Recycling and composting info, and free compost bins
We have many sponsors who are donating food and door prizes. They include Mark's Kitchen, S&A Beads, Park Florist, and American Craft, all of Takoma Park; Strosniders Hardware of Silver Spring, Lebanese Taverna Cafe, A Calmness Within Massage Therapy, the Wild Bird Center, and the Woodmoor Pastry Shop; all from the greater Silver Spring area.
RIP Summer Program
Each RIP Leader is cutting back any Japanese Knotweed in their section, for Park spraying in fall.
· We held an organizational meeting in Long Branch on Aug. 25, and removed Japanese Knotweed from the largest known site in Sligo (see article below).
· RIP Leaders are keeping track of where tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus) grows, for the Park to control in fall.
· The RIP committee is considering producing an informative post card on Japanese Knotweed.
· This fall RIP will hold major events in active sections on two dates. Put them on your calendar! Saturday, October 27, which is Community Service Day throughout the County, and Sunday, Nov. 11.
For more information about the RIP program please visit the Friends website or email .
Stormwater Decaling Program Ongoing
It’s not too late to get involved with Friends’s stormwater drain decaling program to help raise awareness about keeping hazardous waste and litter from being washed from streets down the storm drains. See this link for further information and contacts:
http://www.fosc.org/DrainDecals.htm
News and Announcements
Changes to the Sligo Golf Course
The Montgomery County Revenue Authority - which leases and operates the county airpark, golf courses and other self-supporting facilities for public use - is proposing to add to the Sligo golf course a lighted, 70-station, double-deck driving range with associated netting, one or possibly two miniature golf courses with lighting, and extend the operating hours until 10:00 pm.
The Friends of Sligo Creek Board supports the continued presence of the golf course. It opposes expansion, however, for these reasons:
· A poor precedent is set in allowing any publicly owned land surrounded by forest cover to be essentially destroyed by removal of its trees and shrubs. Park land is public land, and degrading this scarce down-county resource in exchange for profits should not be allowed.
· The proposed late-night lights and noise would undoubtedly disturb the woodpeckers, hawks, foxes, and other wildlife known to have inhabited the course in recent years, and we believe could cause most to leave.
· Adding impervious surfaces for parking, a larger restaurant, the driving range and associated sidewalks, is counterproductive to reducing stormwater in Sligo. The additional stormwater sent to the creek not only adds pollution but also increases the annual erosion of Sligo's banks. The additional sediment clogs fish gills and covers grasses when it reaches Chesapeake Bay.
According to the current plans, a majority of the trees and shrubs which help retain water would be removed from the expansion areas. The unusual, older evergreens in the center would be replaced by a driving range, and those at the edges - perhaps including the rare-for-Sligo yellow pine - would be cut down.
The golf course presently doubles as a site for recreation, a site for park-users to walk when the course is not in use, and a site for wildlife habitat. We see no compelling reason to lose these assets.
We are asking our members to weigh in with their opinions on the proposed plan. The Park and Planning Board, County Council and County Executive need to hear from the public. Background information and details are at http://www.fosc.org/Advocacy/GolfCourseProject.htm. Please take a few moments to look at this site.
You can write to the County Council or County Executive expressing your concerns, questions and feelings about the proposed changes. Contact information for the Montgomery County Council can be found at
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/elections/ElectedOfficialsList.asp . You can also send emails to the Revenue Authority at .
You may contact Friends’ Jill Mullins at for more information on this subject.
This proposed expansion will impact the environment of Sligo Creek for decades to come. The time to get involved in keeping the park tree-friendly is now.
RIP News – Knotweed
Twelve committed souls in Long Branch ignored the humidity on Saturday August 25, and cut ALL the Japanese knotweed in the largest area we've discovered in Sligo. It took only an hour! The group made plans to organize several fall events in Long Branch.
Maryland Bottle Bill Coalition
A coalition of watershed and environmental groups supporting a 2008 Maryland bottle bill had its second meeting on August 30th. A deposit on one-use beverage bottles and cans would significantly curb littering, help keep toxins out of the water, and increase the recycling recovery rate while complementing a curbside recycling program. See the link to the first meeting report in July: http://www.fosc.org/BottleBill2008.htm. See also how the bottle bill works in Michigan for consumers and supermarkets: http://www.fosc.org/HowBottleBillWorks.htm. Read this report for a good background on bottle bills: http://www.container-recycling.org/assets/pdfs/tci/The10-Cent-IncentiveWeb.pdf
Contact Wendi Schnaufer for more details.
Sligo Community Selected for Targeted RainScapes Implementation
In May 2006, the County Council voted to provide $500,000 in cost sharing incentives to homeowners and other private landowners to implement RainScapes techniques. These practices control stormwater runoff close to the source. The $500,000 was part of a
$1,250,000 Clean Water Initiative, financed by the county’s Water Quality Protection Charge, and administered by the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP.) The Clean Water Initiative is intended to emphasize RainScapes techniques, particularly in older, more urbanized neighborhoods that were developed without modernized stormwater management systems.
According to Pam Rowe, DEP’s RainScapes Program Coordinator, DEP is planning on implementing the initiative using both an open countywide rebate program and targeted efforts in several subwatersheds throughout the County. DEP has formed an “ad hoc” RainScapes Implementation Team with representatives from Friends of Sligo Creek and other citizen groups.
DEP is getting ready to begin work on the targeted implementation program, including one in the headwaters of Sligo’s Long Branch. DEP is hoping to maximize the level of implementation in the targeted areas in order to study and document the benefits of widespread project implementation. In the target subwatersheds, DEP will be using a contractor to work with residents on detailed assessment of the landscape to identify potential project sites. If there is enough interest, DEP will utilize installation contractors to put the projects in the ground. DEP will initiate a contract to conduct the detailed assessments in the Glen Echo Heights area first. This will be followed up with assessments in Long Branch and six other subwatersheds in the County.
For more information contact Ed Murtagh at .
A New Bench in the Park Honors the Lee Family
There is a new park bench in Sligo Creek Park, just south of University Blvd. It honors the memory of James & Mary Lee who lived on Chestnut Ridge (right above the park) from 1741-1764. They raised their 12 children on the hill and are buried near Glenhaven Elementary School at the top of said hill.
The Lee ancestral homestead by Sligo creek below University Blvd goes way back to the 1700s and there is some possibility that the name Sligo comes from this family. They were Irish, and the crossroads at old Silver Spring was called Sligo presumably after a location in Ireland. It has been assumed by some that this is where the name for Sligo Creek comes from. If any history buffs in our audience know more, please let us know.
In any event, back in the late 18th century in Sligo, each day some of the kids would be sent down to the creek to fetch pails of water for daily chores and cooking. If there was time and they were lucky, some small fish might be caught to meet the needs of their evening meal. They managed to raise some tobacco to help them get by. At their deaths, the property passed to their two youngest children, John and Rachel Lee. Both married and raised their families on the ridge.
Rachel married John Lashley and had three children. After she died around 1782, John carried on and lived at the edge of the ridge on property she had purchased while single. You can almost imagine the sound of children running up and down through the woods and down to the creek on a hot summer's day for a refreshing sip of water.
Part of the property remained in family hands until at least 1836 and perhaps a bit longer through the Lashley family line. A small contingent of this Lee family lived a bit further north and one cemetery can be found near Stoneybrook, still protected to this day.
A book was written about this Lee family and their lives as lived beginning with the death of James Lee. It is called: "Leaves of Chestnut Ridge" and is available (for reading) through the Montgomery Co. Historical Society in Rockville. A file is also available therein complete with updates on this entire family.
- Notes from Robert E Lee Jr. (10th generation progeny to James & Mary Lee)