Eyes of Paint Branch

Call to Action

How you can help protect the Paint Branch

Comprehensive Protection

• Upper Paint Branch Special Protection Area
  The designation of the entire upper portion of the watershed as a Special Protection Area (SPA), with requirements on soil disturbance such as water quality plans, and a limit on the area covered by impervious surfaces;
  
  
• Parkland Expansion
  The designation and acquisition of more than 330 acres of new parkland to provide riparian buffers and to protect seeps, springs, wooded areas, and other natural features that form and sustain the stream system in the sensitive headwaters; and
  
  
• Environmental Overlay Zone
  The creation of an innovative Environmental Overlay Zone to prohibit activities that could potentially result in environmental damage throughout the headwaters, and also limit the area covered by impervious surfaces.
  
  
• Restoration, Storm Water Management Retrofit, and Stream Monitoring Programs

A History of the Watershed
Protection Efforts to Date

The Paint Branch watershed is home to a unique ecological system with a rich, naturally occurring biological diversity, including a number of rare and threatened species. Paint Branch is perhaps best known as the home of the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area's last remaining long-term self-sustaining brown trout population. The Paint Branch wild trout serve as an indicator species, like a canary in a coal mine, telling us that conditions in this watershed remain good for humans.

Efforts to preserve, protect, and restore the Paint Branch watershed date back more than three decades, and total an investment of nearly $30 million from federal, state, and local governments. Significant protective measures were implemented in response to strong public concerns. Despite these efforts, the long-term viability of the Paint Branch is at risk, and further efforts are needed now to ensure that these resources will remain for generations to come. See the Call to Action for information on how you can help.

Background on the Comprehensive Protection Plan

In response to concerns about declining conditions in the mid-1990s, the Montgomery County Council and Planning Board implemented a program to provide comprehensive protection for the Paint Branch watershed. A seven-agency Upper Paint Branch Technical Work Group representing local, state, and regional government evaluated conditions and provided specific recommendations. This protective program is based on four major parts: (1) designation of the headwaters as a Special Protection Area, (2) the use of parkland to protect critical parcels of land, (3) the creation of an Environmental Overlay Zone to preclude potentially damaging activities, and (4) a comprehensive restoration and storm water retrofit program.

A key element of long-term protection for the upper Paint Branch is the area covered by impervious surfaces, such as roads, parking lots, rooftops, driveways, and sidewalks. Research shows a direct relation between the percentage of impervious surfaces in a watershed and the severity of environmental impacts on sensitive ecological systems. While conditions vary greatly, degradation becomes significant as the area covered by impervious surfaces increases above 10 percent. High levels of imperviousness inevitably result in the breakdown of ecological systems and the loss of biological diversity.

The plan to provide comprehensive protection for the Paint Branch focuses on the most sensitive and most important parts of the watershed, the headwaters area. The Paint Branch headwaters are roughly defined by Fairland Road on the south, New Hampshire Avenue on the west, Spencerville road on the north, and Old Columbia Pike on the east. The streams in the headwaters area provide the spawning and nursery areas for the entire trout fishery, which extends below the Capital Beltway. The sub-watersheds in the headwaters include the Good Hope, Gum Springs, Left Fork, Right Fork, and Main Stem, as shown in the figure above, along with their respective tributaries. These streams form an interdependent system of tributaries, each of which contributes complementary characteristics that are needed for this ecological system to remain viable and healthy. For example, the Right Fork has the highest water quality and flow, which are needed for habitat downstream.

Additional objectives of this program include providing a mechanism to make the special character of this area readily apparent, and providing a blanket of protection for the entire area against environmental damage.