The Muddy Branch Alliance is working hard to protect the Muddy Branch stream for people and wildlife. Here’s what we achieved together between our annual meeting in June 2024 and our subsequent gathering in June 2025.
In July 2024, we did some exciting advocacy and outreach work. First, we wrote a letter asking the Montgomery County Council to fully remove the M83 highway extension from the master plans. M83 is in the Seneca Creek watershed, but Seneca Creek affects our drinking water the same way Muddy Branch does, so we have an interest in this. In February, the Planning Commission voted to remove M83 from the master plans. That was a major incremental win on this long-running campaign. We expect the County Council to vote this summer.
In July we also worked with a larger group of partners by publishing an op-ed in “My Montgomery County Media” about the Chesapeake Bay Agreement. The Agreement expires this year and the Bay states are not on track to meet all the objectives, so we asked the leaders of this initiative to update the objectives and renew their commitment to protecting our Bay. This was part of an effort coordinated by the Choose Clean Water Coalition, of which we are a member.
Meanwhile, in July our director Ben Salb led a photography workshop, which attendees rated as very successful. Ben was interviewed by Matt About Town for his related work.
And finally, in July the Potomac Horse Center closed. The Horse Center is a major landmark along our trail. We have been told that the Horse Center property will continue to be County park land, and there probably will be a public input process to determine what kind of park that area will be in the future, but we don’t yet know anything else about that.
In August we hosted a tour of our meadow at the Izaak Walton League, and we saw more changes to our watershed when Pleasant View Park opened. If you have not been there, you should check it out. It’s got stormwater management features, a walking path, a bicycle track, and Gaithersburg’s first community garden. Really a nice place.
On the subject of great things in our community, in October we had a busy weekend tabling at MoCo Epic and at Oktoberfest. And also in the fall, we built valuable connections with partners. Through these connections, we are creating new maps to help people find and enjoy our trail, and we were able to build on our work with HOAs to install a native plant garden in San Francisco.
In December we were recognized for all our good work when the Choose Clean Water Coalition wrote about us for their monthly Member Highlight. And we were celebrated again in April when we won a City of Gaithersburg environmental award for what we think is the 14th year in a row. This is what the mayor said about our work in 2024:
“The Muddy Branch Alliance continues its dedication to conservation, community engagement, and advocacy. Over the past year, it has expanded native plant restoration, invasive species removal, and water quality monitoring while strengthening partnerships. Key achievements include distributing 400 native trees, increasing native plant sales by 19%, doubling HOA collaborations, and expanding education programs, including a nature photography workshop and chloride monitoring for watershed protection.”
A shoutout to our allies: the mayor made a mistake and gave us credit for the tree giveaway. That is in fact an initiative of the Seneca Creek Watershed Partners.
The rest of the accomplishments the mayor mentioned are indeed ours. And we did not stop there. At the end of April we pulled off another plant sale. This year we sold 1,221 plants to 82 unique customers, not counting a handful of walk-in customers at our pickup event. Yes, that is fewer plants than we sold the year before. We deliberately scaled down our event this year, anticipating that our customer base would be hit hard by government chaos. That turned out to be an accurate prediction. The good news is we planned ahead well and did not have any problems with our plant sale this year.
In more surprising end-of-April news, the City of Gaithersburg concluded their Big Tree Hunt and announced that the two biggest trees in Gaithersburg are in the Muddy Branch watershed. The biggest tree is in Bohrer Park; we think it’s the one right in front of the farmhouse. The second biggest tree is at the Izaak Walton League headquarters, but we’re not sure exactly where.
In May, we joined a sign-on letter encouraging our state legislature to override the governor’s veto of a bill that would require Maryland to study the impacts of climate change on the state, so the state could then take action on the problem. That is, we supported Maryland doing something about climate change.
And in June, we signed a joint letter asking the Department of the Interior to not allow off-shore oil and gas exploration in the mid-Atlantic region.
That’s it for the chronological roundup, but of course we also have to mention the monthly weeding and trash cleanup events at Malcolm King Park, led by several of our directors. These events have engaged volunteers, freed trees from invasive vines, and pulled literal shopping carts out of our stream. We are very grateful for the efforts of that team.
A few other noteworthy items: We are involved with the City of Gaithersburg’s watershed planning initiatives, we have organized all the Wild Wanderers activity books into one easily accessible location on the website, and we now have outreach materials for our HOA project, which is recruiting another cohort of Green Teams who want to work with us to design sustainable landscaping.
All of this is possible because of our fantastic directors and volunteers. We want to thank our exiting directors, Martha Jaffe and Frank Foge, for their contributions over the past several years. Thank you also to everyone who showed up at the plant sale, the Weed Warrior events, the trash clean-ups, the tabling opportunities, and everything else the Alliance does throughout the year. You are the ones who make things happen.
Thank you for all that you do. Let’s keep doing great things together!