LFWA Celebrates 17 years of Stewardship with Gala Event

March 9 was our birthday and we celebrated with music, dinner, birthday cake and special recognition for super volunteers.

Maryland State Delegate Marc Korman joined us as our key note speaker and delivered a talk on recent environmental bills in Annapolis. Korman was also honored with a LFWA Bacteria Monitoring Team t-shirt in recognition of his role in helping to solve the fecal bacteria problem on the Willett Branch.

Five super volunteers were recognized for their many hours of service. These volunteers had the most hours of any volunteers who are not in a leadership position. Julie Steinberg is one of LFWA first volunteers, showing up in our data base in 2009. She has volunteered 99 hours. Colette Cowey is another long time member and volunteer joining LFWA in 2012 or maybe earilier. She has 156 hours hours. Averill Simone was the youngest volunteer to be recognized. She joined LFWA in 2022 and has already volunteered 82 hours at 42 events. Sally Winthrop joined LFWA in 2021 and has volunteered at 60 events for a total of 90 hours. Emily Cordas also has 90 hours participating in 77 events since joining LFWA in 2020.

Super Volunteers 2025 with LFWA Director Sarah Morse: from left: Sally Winthrop, Emily Cordas, Averill Simone, Sarah Morse, Julie Steinberg, Colette Cowey.

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LFWA board members, from left: Emily Simone, Sara Robinson, Karen Thornton, Jack Sobel, George Wyeth and Mikel Moore. Not pictured is John Drake.

The evening ended with the election of a new board. We are happy to have Karen Thornton back as President, John Drake is Vice President, George Wyeth continues as Treasurer and Sara Robinson is our long time Secretary. Emily Simone, Jack Sobel, and Mikel Moore comprise the rest of the board. Board member Josie Gabel has retired. We are grateful for her service and leadership.

thank yous

Thank you to Pete Papageorge for the fabulous music and to Westmoreland Church for use of their beautiful space. To Julie and Karen for helping serve the food. To Keith for the delicious bread, to Sarah Morse for the delicious birthday cake and desserts, to everyone who put away tables and chairs at the end, and, of course, to all the volunteers who make LFWA possible. We cannot do it without you.

LFWA Volunteers Make a Difference for Native Plants

LFWA Weed Warriors finishing up a work day along the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda Chevy Chase area. Volunteers spent more than 450 hours saving trees along the trail in 2024. This on-going monthly event is done in partnership with the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail.

Native plants can breath easy thanks to the efforts of 584 Weed Warrior volunteers who work in parks in the Little Falls watershed removing non-native invasive plants. Watershed volunteers freed more than 1,200 trees and put in 1,784 hours to remove bush honeysuckle, porcelainberry vines, English ivy and other plants that are threatening our native trees and shrubs.

Little Falls Watershed Alliance Executive Director Sarah Morse leads the pack for the second year for the most hours recorded by a Weed Warrior supervisor. Weed Warrior supervisors have special training and are allowed to lead community workdays that are open to the public. Sarah led 32 workdays on Park land in 2024 supervising 1,056 man hours. Sarah also leads workdays on State Highway land, in DC Parks, and in the Montgomery County Public Schools Forest Conservation Land for a total of 49 events in 2024.

Weed Warrior Supervisor Celia Martin also had an impressive year, leading 25 events in the Little Falls watershed for 603 supervisor hours. Celia’s team focused on removing bamboo along Massachusetts Avenue to save the native trees and planting encroaching on the Falmouth Habitat project.

We also have 26 Certified Weed Warriors working in the Little Falls watershed. Certified Weed Warriors have attended the Montgomery Parks Weed Warrior training and are allowed to work unsupervised in the Parks. More about how you can become a certified Weed Warrior is HERE.

What did the Little Falls Weed Warriors do?

According to the Parks data, we freed 1,217 trees from strangling vines and smothering bushes.

LFWA Volunteer using a weed wrench to pull out bush honeysuckle.

Our most popular plant to conquer was porcelain-berry vines, followed by English ivy, and then bush honeysuckle. We also removed oriental bittersweet, Japanese honeysuckle, creeping euonymus, garlic mustard (in the spring), wine berry, winged euonymus, leatherleaf mahonia, Japanese knotweed, mile-a-minute, Italian arum, bamboo, privet, multi-flora rose, chocolate vine, pachysandra, and more.

where did we work?

Sarah works primarily along the Capital Crescent Trail and in the Little Falls Stream Valley Park above River Road. Celia hosts her work days below Massachusetts Avenue in the lower part of the Little Falls Stream Valley Park, in Westmoreland Hills Local Park and along the Capital Crescent Trail. But we have other certified weed warriors working at sites all over the watershed.

According to Park data, work sites in the Little Falls Watershed by the number of hours are:

LFWA Weed Warriors finishing up a day of non-native weed removal at Norwood Park in Bethesda.

• Boundary Park NCA: 24 hours

• Capital Crescent Trail: 460 hours

• Little Falls SVU 1 (South of River Rd): 429 hours

• Little Falls SVU 2 (North of River Rd): 486 hours

• Norwood LP: 100 hours

• Westmoreland Hills LP: 45 hours

• Western Grove Urban Park: 71 hours

• Willard Avenue Neighborhood Park: 130 hours

Join the Mission - Get Certified, Participate in a community event

It’s against Montgomery Parks rules and regulations to remove plant material from a park unless authorized. That’s where the Weed Warrior Program comes in. By training and certifying citizens to remove non-native invasives from parkland, Montgomery County has a robust program that allows residents to help save our forests.

Sign-up for an Event: You can join one of our community workdays by visiting our events page and registering. We provide all necessary tools and gloves as well as instructions. Our workdays are open to everyone, but students under 14 must be accompanied by a supervising adult. No experience or previous training necessary.

Book a Private Event: We host dozens of workdays for office groups, civic groups, scouts, or just any group looking to make a difference. We provide tools, gloves, and a supervisors, you provide manpower. These days are arranged at mutually convenient times. Contact us at info@LFWA.org for more information.

Become a Certified Weed Warrior: Montgomery County certification program trains individuals to identify and remove non-native invasives. After receiving their “green card”, the weed warriors can work anywhere in the Park system without supervision. There is online training as well as in person training days. More information HERE.

Source of "murky" water found

Little Falls Branch where it comes from under Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda. Residents have been documenting and reporting the murky water since mid-December.

The Little Falls Branch has been murky for the past 3 weeks and the source is found - sediment coming from construction at the Chevy Chase Club golf course. The site was inspected this week and while, the clubs has a sediment control permit, “multiple failures of the system” were discovered. A citation has been issued and the contractor is required to fix the system.

sediment pollution

Dirt flowing off construction sites is a major sources of sediment pollution for our creeks and for the Chesapeake Bay. The sediment buries the habitat of the organisms who live on the bottom of creek beds; it makes the water cloudy so light cannot get through for the vegetation growing in the water; it can coat animals living in the creek and clog fish gills; it impedes the natural flow of the water; and much more. While there is some sediment from natural erosion, the EPA estimates that 70 percent of the sediment is from man-made causes.

report sediment pollution when you see it.

You can report sediment pollution by calling 311. Sediment control is required on all construction sites in the area. Any project the disturbs the earth - a new house, an addition, a new park, a building - must have a sediment control plan and a permit. If you see mud in the creek or running off a construction site, you are seeing sediment pollution and a failure of the sediment control system. By reporting the site, you are helping to keep our creeks, the Potomac River and the Bay clean.

More on Sediment control in Montgomery County is HERE.

Thank you to the folks at DEP who investigate the 311 reports and more times than not find the pollution source!