Anacostia Watershed: environmental note
J L Saba (saba@ARI.Net)
Wed, 27 Jan 1999 19:48:43 -0500
Kate Spencer asked me to post these two items. They are not directly
birding-related.
The first is a notice of a meeting. The second is an article she wrote
that appeared in the last issue of the ANS newsletter.
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Dear Friends and Neighbors of Indian Creek,
January 12, 1999
Please come to this public meeting to learn about the valuable Indian
Creek
wetlands and floodplain forest community at the Greenbelt Metro Station
area and
hear about the plans to completely develop it. Last October, when
concerned citizens
met in College Park, the question was whether there was enough
interest in the Indian Creek Valley to justify working to save it from
over-
development. The answer was an over-whelming "Yes!" We are meeting now
to
share what we have learned, and to discuss objectives. Concerned
parties need
to reach a consensus on goals, and to unite as a coalition.
When: Sunday, January 31, 1999, at 2:30 pm
Where: Greenbelt Community Center, at Centerway & Crescent Drives
(Old elementary school with lovely bas-relief next to the
library)
What: Slide Presentation on the Anacostia River Watershed &
the Indian Creek Subwatershed presented by Michael Judge,
College Park
Video walk through the Indian Creek "Core Area" by Doug Love,
Greenbelt
Discussion led by John Krouse, College Park
Sponsors: College Park Committee for a Better Environment &
Friends of Indian Creek (Greenbelt)
What to do: Give some careful thought to the discussion items below.
Consider how you can help support this endeavor.
Prepare information you wish to share, about other
organizations,
about prior experiences. (If you need room for a display,
please advise)
Questions? Call Joyce Kunz-Pearce (301) 345-9433 or E-mail:
xgooseherd@aol.com
Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to:
Acceptance of the size of the Environmental Envelope for the
Central Core
Area as defined by the Maryland National Capitol Park & Planning
Commission (MNCPPC)
The north-south roadway through the central core
Preservation of the existing braided creek bed and protection of
this
Central Core as a working eco-system for the plants & animals
that currently
reside there, i.e. beavers
Only passive recreation permitted in the central core, ie
walkways/bike
trails, observation sites with educational signs and
functioning
telescopes
A Nature/interpretive center to educate people of all ages
A Museum that celebrates the Prehistoric cultures which
frequented the
Indian Creek Valley (recorded as early as 8,000 BC)
As an adjunct to the Museum, an Auditorium Meeting Place for
Cultural Events
with an outdoor area in a natural setting also suitable
for meetings
(i.e. for Native American Gatherings)
The current footprint of development at the Metro Station &
Parking Lot not
to be further expanded for the intense development
State-of-the-art technology be used to contain stormwater and to
release it
slowly into the creek with minimal impact, from beneath
the intense
development planned for the Metro Station & Parking Lot
Site
All Wetland mitigation required to be on-site within the Indian
Creek Valley
Places to fish in a natural setting, perhaps where Narragansett
Run joins
Indian Creek
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An Anacostia Watershed Treasure RediscoveredŻand Imperiled
Kate Spencer
November, 1998
One of the wildest and most unique natural areas accessible by Metro is
also one of the most threatened. Just over the guard rail from the
Greenbelt Metro Station parking lot in Greenbelt, Maryland, the braided
channels of Indian Creek meander toward the
Anacostia River through the last remnants of historic Hollywood Swamp.
In 1919 the
Smithsonian documented the southern floodplain forest assemblage that
thrives today:
swamp chestnut oaks, massive red maples, and black gums still dominate
an understory of buttonbush, viburnum , smooth winterberry holly, and
sweet pepperbush (Clethera
alnifolia), which until this fall was thought to be lost from the D.C.
area. A walk in
Octoberrevealed that, despite the summer's drought, the creek's
channels support a
vibrant array of submerged and emergent aquatic vegetation, including
the rare cattail
sedge, and bog chickweed, a plant which had never before been reported
from the region. The pools, riffles, backwater meadows, and ponds are
habitat for many species of reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and
dragonflies. Deer, fox, and neighborhood children on nature expeditions
are common denizens. The floodplain teems with birds, from warblers to
red-shouldered hawks to wood ducks. In fact, when the Capital Beltway
was first built, it was here that the first bluebird nest inside the
Beltway was found.
This gem of untrammeled land, some of it even without footpaths, is at
the core of a
240-acre tract that Metroland Development Corporation, L.L.C., proposes
to develop into a 1.8 million square foot upscale mall, offices,
convention center, condos, retirement community, and a lake. Much of the
site is within the 100-year floodplain of Indian Creek. About 128 acres
or 43 percent of the site are wetlands (according to M-NCPPC. The
developers' wetland delineation map, completed in January, 1999, finds
about 20 acres), and woodlands cover 97 acres, about 32 percent of the
site (the developers' forest stand delineation was in progress in
January, 1999). The proposed development would require a new Beltway
interchange between Kenilworth Avenue and Route 1. The tract is a long
rectangle from the Beltway on the north to Greenbelt Road on the south,
bounded on the east by Cherrywood Lane and on the west by the CSX and
Metro train tracks. Greenbelt Metro Station occupies the northwest
corner of the site with an access road from Cherrywood Lane and a
partial Beltway interchange serving commuters from I-95. The 40-acre
Metro parking lot was built on wetlands against the objections of
environmentalists, and the development and purchase rights for the
parking lot were sold to Metroland in September, 1998. One of the key
partners in Metroland, A.H. Smith and Associates, owns the rest of the
tract. The residential communities of Greenbelt, College Park, and
Berwyn Heights abut the land. Across Cherrywood Lane at Greenbelt Road
sits Beltway Plaza, a rambling local mall in need of revitalization.
The southern end of the site has for nearly a century been used for open
pit gravel
mining and concrete operations. Many acres of wetlands have been
degraded or filled
completely, the braids of Indian Creek gradually channelized, and the
waters muddied by tons of unregulated sediment. In one place concrete
mixer trucks have been dumping
leftover concrete for so long that a mountain thirty feet high rises
from the creek
bank and spreads over acres, pouring a steady stream of alkaline silt
into Indian
Creek. A network of dirt motorcycle trails has flattened stretches of
streambank and
torn up the forest floor in some wooded areas. Downstream of Greenbelt
Road the Army
Corps of Engineers has channelized and in many places bermed and
deforested the
floodplain all the way to the Anacostia River.
Upstream of the mining area, though, the floodplain forest and wetlands
perform their
natural floodwater control function by slowing down and spreading out
rainwater and
harboring niches for native plants and animals that clean the water. The
channels of
Indian Creek and the silty forested floodplain are still recognizable as
the Hollywood
Swamp. In 1881 Smithsonian botanists surveyed the flora of the
Washington, D.C. area
for the first time and returned in 1919 to find many natural areas
disappearing under
housing develoments. But the Hollywood Swamp, once a connected series of
swamps
stretching from Hyattsville to Beltsville along the Indian Creek
floodplain, still held "much of interest." The swamp chestnut oak forest
represents a finger of a southern community that extends up the
Anacostia River and its tributaries. Southern leopard frogs at the
northern boundary of their range are common in these wetlands, while
northern species like the bog chickweed enrich the community. The
history of Indian Creek includes its use as an Indian trade route from
at least colonial times. The archaeological sites all along the creek
banks are considered significant.
Riding the Green Line Metro train south out of Greenbelt station gives a
good
orientation to the site. Just below the station beaver, turtles, and
herons grace the
two ponds and vernal pools right next to the tracks. Next, a huge field
of towering
Phragmites grass grows on a flat field and crowds around the rusting
gravel yard towers and conveyor belts. Across this field one can see the
line of trees where Indian Creek runs parallel to the tracks. A couple
of small office buildings and active gravel piles give way to a few
light industrial buildings and a power transfer station just before the
tracks pass under Greenbelt Road.
The variety of habitats makes the site great for birding, and one of the
best spots is
next to the Metro tracks just below the station in a dense stand of
buttonbush. Casual
birding throughout the site this fall has tallied Indigo Bunting; Blue
Grosbeak; Song,
Swamp, Field, Fox, White-throated and White-crowned Sparrows; Eastern
Bluebird;
American Goldfinch; Pileated, Red-Bellied, Downy, and Hairy Woodpeckers;
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker; Northern Flicker; Belted Kingfisher; Winter
and Carolina Wrens; many Eastern Phoebes; Hermit Thrush; Rufous-sided
Towhee; Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets; flocks of Palm and
Myrtle Warblers; Yellow-rumped Warbler; Blue-headed Vireo;
Red-shouldered Hawk; Great Horned Owl feathers; Merlin; American and
Fish Crows; Blue Jay; Northern Cardinal; Northern Mockingbird; Gray
Catbird; Dark-eyed Junco; American Robin; and, of course, Carolina
Chicadees and Tufted Titmice.
On spring nights a magnificent chorus of spring peepers welcomes
commuters when they
return to the station. In floodtime the creek fills the woods with muddy
water from
Cherrywood Lane to the parking lot, leaving islands and pools for the
frogs when the
water recedes. On the streambank one can find fresh green raccoon scat
full of tiny
fish bones and crushed crayfish shells. On late nights a beaver might be
seen tracing
Vs across the overflow pond in the parking lot, where it must climb
through a grate to
reach the cattails and saplings inside the chainlink fence. This year a
doe raised twin fawns on the lush grasses of hidden meadows, and
Killdeer, Redwing Blackbirds, and Canada Geese serenade the summer. The
forest life seems to spill out over the parking lot as if trying to take
it back.
One might wonder why there isn't already a nature center for the
neighborhood children, but development appears to have been in the
planning for years. The whole tract is zoned I-2, or heavy industrial,
and a law passed in April by the Prince George˘s County Council amends
the uses allowed in industrial zones to include a Metro Planned
Community of at least 150 acres. The law spells out in exhaustive detail
the number of parking spaces, condos with vaulted ceilings and marble
entryways, fitness gymns, offices, and specific upscale retail stores
required to qualify as a Metro Planned Community. The developer must
show a letter of intent from at least one prestigious department store
before submitting a plan. The other commercial and residential elements
follow.
Nevertheless, the Prince George's County Maryland-National Capital Parks
and Planning
Commission held four charrettes, or public planning meetings, between
April and October of 1998, to involve citizens in amending the Greenbelt
Metro Area Sector of the County˘s zoning plan. The charrette
participants overwhelmingly voted to adopt the
greenest of four proposed land use concepts for the 240-acre site, which
would preserve a 138-acre environmental envelope around the most
sensitive parts of Indian Creek and limit development primarily to the
Metro parking lot and the downstream industrial sites. Language in
M-NCPPC˘s literature about the site and the planning process states that
"stewardship of the Chesapeake Bay and the land is a universal ethic"
and emphasizes "environmentally sensitive development and
redevelopment."
At Metroland's October 15, 1998 press conference citizens learned that
Metroland has
not incorporated the charrette˘s land use concept into its own vision
(yet) even though its representative had participated in every
charrette. Their drawings indicated the entire site would be bulldozed,
Indian Creek would be relocated, and the wetlands would be submerged by
a lake. The developer˘s publicity packet touts "magnificent recreational
facilities highlighted by Indian Creek Park. Named for Indian Creek,
which flows through the property, this beautiful stream valley park will
run the length of the development. With tree-lined waterfront promenade,
biking and jogging trails, walking paths, paddle boating and a pier,
Indian Creek Park˘s design and facilities will maintain the integrity of
the natural drainage of the existing floodplain and satisfy requirements
for the preservation of the natural environment."
Yet none of Indian Creek's own channels would remain, its course would
be moved for the convenience of buildings, and a diverse, historically
documented habitat would be
replaced by another artificial lake. Even the name, Indian Creek Park,
is co-opted from an effort by local citizens to protect Indian Creek˘s
remaining natural channels and wetlands above the Beltway.
Metroland promises to follow regulations on wetland and floodplain
mitigation, but a
fragmented wetland or mitigation pond cannot replace a mature floodplain
forest or
support picky plants that rely on the whole ecosystem for their
well-being. They
propose an environmental education area "to teach kids about the
Anacostia watershed
and what we can do to restore it," but the best way to restore it is not
to destroy
another inch of the Anacostia˘s vital wetlands and functioning, historic
floodplain
forest. What the Anacostia watershed and its residents don˘t need is to
lose the last
piece of the Hollywood Swamp inside the Beltway and sacrifice the
natural beauty of
Indian Creek.