Montgomery Planners, Parks Staff Plant New Forest with Environment Fund

SILVER SPRING, MD – Last week, staff from the Planning Department and Department of Parks translated cash into a new streamside forest at Reddy Branch Stream Valley Park as part of a mitigation program that requires property owners to contribute to a forest replacement fund.

The Reddy Branch stream feeds into the Rocky Gorge Reservoir, one of two drinking water lakes on the northern border of Montgomery County. Restoring streamside forest will help improve Reddy Branch, long identified as having marginal water quality, as well as create valuable habitat.

The planting was paid for from a forest mitigation fund established when the Forest Conservation Law went into effect in 1992. When Montgomery County property owners request approval to subdivide or develop 1 acre or more, the Planning Board requires them to protect or plant forests on site, in keeping with the conservation law. 

Property owners who can neither save nor plant forests because they are limited by density and location pay into the fund, which has grown steadily. The Reddy Branch planting demonstrates how the fund will be used in other environmentally sensitive areas around the county.

The one-acre forest created last week was planted with native trees and eventually will total 6 acres. High school students will be enlisted as part of the Department of Parks Weed Warriors program to remove invasive vines and other plants that threaten tree survival. Members of the nonprofit group Patuxent River Keepers plan to continue maintaining the site with volunteers to ensure the forest will survive and thrive. The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission helped coordinate the volunteer groups.