Arcola Avenue Green Street Project

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

Montgomery County received a new National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit in 2010. The new permit requires the County to meet established Waste Load Allocations (WLAs) and add stormwater management to an additional 20 percent or 4,300 acres of the county’s impervious surfaces that currently do not have stormwater management to the maximum extent practicable (MEP). The Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Watershed Restoration Capital Improvement Program (CIP) is aggressively implementing projects occurring prior to current stormwater management requirements. Implementing Low Impact Development (LID) or Environmental Site Design (ESD) projects is an important focus of DEP’s strategy. Many of the urban areas in Montgomery County have limited opportunities outside the County’s right of way to capture and treat stormwater runoff. Integrating stormwater management within the right of way treats the pollutants directly at the source and improves the landscape aesthetics along County roads. The Arcola Avenue Green Street Project, located along a heavily traveled arterial road in Silver Spring, Maryland, treats 1.85 acres of impervious uncontrolled runoff draining to Sligo Creek, a tributary of the Anacostia River. The Arcola Avenue Green Street project was initiated in March 2011 as a pilot partnership between the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (DOT). The partnership’s goal was to develop a streamlined design-build process for constructing stormwater management practices along Montgomery County roads.