Vision
Montgomery County, Maryland’s waterways are clean, pollution-free, and resilient to the climate crisis, providing healthy, equitable, safe, and thriving green spaces for communities, families, and wildlife.
Mission
We are a coalition that advocates for clean water, protecting and improving our watersheds in ways that are equitable and ecologically sensitive, improving community resilience to stormwater impacts such as storm-driven flooding, and connecting communities to their backyard waterways.
Our Members
*Represented on the SWPN Steering Committee
“Every inch of pavement turns rain into pollution... forever.”
Eliza Cava | Audubon Naturalist Society | Network Co-Chair
Connecting Communities
Our member organizations and individuals are champions in their communities, reaching out to neighbors and showing them the beauty and importance of their local streams. They host outreach and education events, festivals, watershed walks, workshops, demonstration projects, and more.
Watershed Restoration
Many of our member organizations operate hands-on to improve their watersheds. They install rain barrels and rain gardens, plant beautiful and water-retaining conservation landscapes, launch pet waste cleanup campaigns, clean their streams, and leverage their expertise to advise local landowners, HOAs, religious institutions, and more to do the same on their properties.
Policy & Advocacy
The Network strategically coordinates and amplifies member voices to advance our common goals for Montgomery County. We engage public and private stakeholders at the local and state level responsible for, and working on environmental, transportation, and emergency management on priority issues identified by our Steering Committee or membership. We strive to advance policy efforts to restore damaged watersheds and waterways and protect healthy watersheds and waterways throughout Montgomery County, with an emphasis on County government and policies.
The Issue
What’s a Watershed?
How Watersheds Work: Everything on the land ends up in the water. Graphic by Michigan Sea Grant.
A watershed – the land area that drains to one stream, lake or river – affects the water quality in the water body that it surrounds. Like water bodies (e.g., lakes, rivers, and streams), individual watersheds share similarities but also differ in many ways. Every inch of the United States is part of a watershed – in other words, all land drains into a lake, river, stream or other water body and directly affects its quality. Because we all live on the land, we all live in a watershed — thus watershed condition is important to everyone.
Watersheds exist at different scales, like nesting dolls. For example, the Northwest Branch watershed is part of the Anacostia River watershed, which is part of the Potomac River watershed, which is part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed!
The Problem
Polluted runoff drains off our streets and directly into streams.
Polluted stormwater runoff “whooshes” off our paved areas (parking lots, streets, rooftops, and more), erodes our streams, and contaminates wildlife habitat and drinking water sources.
Polluted runoff brings bacteria, sediment, nutrients, trash, excess road salt, plastic particles, and toxins.
Two-thirds of our streams are unhealthy, in whole or in part.
The Solution
Rain gardens are an example of green infrastructure that filters polluted runoff and removes pollution before the water reaches streams.
Through science, planning, engineering, and neighborhoods working together, we can stop stormwater pollution at its source. The best solution is to use green infrastructure throughout our watersheds.
Green infrastructure is a cost-effective, resilient approach to managing wet weather impacts that provides many community benefits. While single-purpose gray stormwater infrastructure—conventional piped drainage and water treatment systems—is designed to move urban stormwater away from the built environment, green infrastructure reduces and treats stormwater at its source while delivering environmental, social, and economic benefits.
When rain falls in natural, undeveloped areas, the water is absorbed and filtered by soil and plants. Stormwater runoff is cleaner and less of a problem. Green infrastructure uses vegetation, soils, or other elements and practices to restore some of the natural processes required to manage water and create healthier urban environments. At the city or county scale, green infrastructure is a patchwork of natural areas that provides habitat, flood protection, cleaner air, and cleaner water. At the neighborhood or site scale, these stormwater management systems mimic nature, infiltrate, evapotranspirate, and/or beneficially reuse water.
Learn More
History
The Stormwater Partners Network mobilized to Save Ten Mile Creek in 2014.
The Stormwater Partners Network was founded in 2005 by a group of watershed advocates who came together to support Montgomery County to renew its commitment to local clean water protection. The original set of roughly a dozen watershed, civic, and environmental groups saw an opportunity to partner with the County and the Maryland Department of the Environment to prepare a revised and expanded stormwater permit under the Clean Water Act.
Over time, the Network has grown its membership and inspired the creation of new watershed groups in Montgomery County and indeed, all around the greater Washington, DC region. We continue to advocate for and support implementation of a strong stormwater permit, and we also push for sound land-use laws and policies that protect our watersheds, drinking water source protection, wastewater treatment and sewer line repair, and much more.
Our members led the successful Save Ten Mile Creek campaign and have fought for tree preservation, green infrastructure on county properties, and the pesticides on lawns bill. Other achievements include: supporting private land rain gardens and tree plantings through the RainScapes Program, Montgomery Parks' stormwater program and funding, the County's Green Street regulations, and the strongest redevelopment stormwater requirements in Maryland.
Ready to help?
Join Us
Any individual or organization with an interest in our mission and vision in Montgomery County, MD, is eligible for membership. To join the Network, please review our Network Framework Document and then affirm that you accept our structure and principles by signing yourself on as an individual or as an authorized representative of your group. We will add new members to our mailing list, list organizational members on this website, and include you in meetings and informational communications.
