Protect Our Maryland Streams

The below links provide additional information on "stream restorations" and the issues with the Lake Elkhorn project and the proposed Umbrella Mitigation Banking Instrument (UMBI).

Background Info

1. Sierra Club Wetlands Policy
2. "Stream Restorations," The Inconvenient Truth (presentation)
3. Pictures

Industry Stormwater Best Management Practices

1. Upland Best Management Practices for Pollution Control
2. Accounting for Stormwater Wasteload Allocations and Impervious Acres Treated (2021), Maryland Dept. of the Environment
3. What Is Green Infrastructure? - EPA
4. Green Streets - Montgomery County, MD
5. Implementing Best Management Practices and Restoring Streambanks Improve Water Quality in Goose Creek

Property Owner Actions for Stormwater Management

1. National Menu of Best Management Practices (BMPs) for Stormwater - Public Education
2. Rainscapes - Montgomery County MD Department of Environmental Protection Program

Scientific Resources

1. Scientific background for An Inconvenient Truth presentation
2. "Stream Restoration for Legacy Sediments at Gramies Run, Maryland: Early Lessons from Implementation, Water Quality Monitoring, and Soil Health," by Katie Mattern, Alyssa Lutgen, Nathan Sienkiewicz, Grant Jiang, Jinjun Kan, Marc Peipoch and Shreeram Inamdar, Water, 2020.
3. “Quantifying the ecological uplift and effectiveness of differing stream restoration approaches in Maryland,” by Robert H. Hilderbrand et al., Final Report Submitted to the Chesapeake Bay Trust for Grant #13141, 2020.
4. "A National Model for Urban Stream Restoration" by by Dr. John Field, PG, and Peter Carney, RMS Journal, Summer 2020.
5. "Ecological Restoration of Streams and Rivers: Shifting Strategies and Shifting Goals" by Margaret A. Palmer, Kelly L. Hondula, and Benjamin J. Koch, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 2014.
6. "Why You Should Pay Attention to Stream Mitigation Banking" by Rebecca Lave, Morgan M. Robertson and Martin W. Doyle, Ecological Restoration, 2008.
7. "Evaluating ‘natural channel design’ stream projects" by Greg Nagle, Hydrological Processes, 2007.

8. "Stream Restoration for Legacy Sediments at Gramies Run, Maryland: Early Lessons from Implementation, Water Quality Monitoring, and Soil Health" by Katie Mattern, Alyssa Lutgen, Nathan Sienkiewicz, Grant Jiang, Jinjun Kan, Marc Peipoch, and Shreeram Inamdar, Water, 2020.

Media Coverage

1. What’s proposed for Elkhorn is not stream restoration, Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun (Feb. 25, 2022)
2. Stream Restoration Techniques Draw Pushback (bayjournal.com)

Specific Projects

• Lake Elkhorn
  • State Prospectus
  • Sierra Club Comment Letter
  • Patuxent Riverkeeper: A Call to Action
  • Chesapeake Bay Foundation Comment Letter on Lake Elkhorn Project
  • Chesapeake Bay Foundation Comment Letter on the Proposed Umbrella Mitigation Banking Instrument
  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Testimony
  • "Lake Elkhorn dredging to resume, but runoff is larger problem," by Larry Carson and the Baltimore Sun, 2011.

Action Campaigns You Can Support

1. Sierra Club Action Alert and Letter to Maryland Dept. Environment/US Corps of Engineers re: Lake Elkhorn Stream Restoration and Mitigation Bank
2. Pending letter to Maryland Department of the Environment and EPA regarding MS4 Permits authorizing stream restorations

Please let us know about projects you hear about at lily.fountain@mdsierra.org.

Groups Pushing Back Against the Lake Elkhorn Project and Proposed UMBI

• Protect Our Stream Long Reach (and 185 local resident petition signers in Columbia and Maryland)
• Chesapeake Bay Foundation
• Sierra Club Maryland Chapter
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
• Patuxent River Keeper
• Elder Climate Action
• The project was opposed as proposed by 4 State Senators, 9 State Delegates, and 3 Howard County Council members

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