Charles Sites Priorities for Protection

Environmental concerns took on new urgency in Charles County last week as two watersheds were named priorities for conservation in the Washington region, and former state senator Bernie Fowler again called on the county government to help clean up the Patuxent River.

The Port Tobacco River and Mattawoman Creek watersheds were among six sites on the Washington Smart Growth Alliance's 2007 regional conservation priorities list, which was released Wednesday. The alliance's representatives from businesses, environmental organizations and local governments deemed ongoing efforts to restore and preserve the two watersheds as among the most likely to improve the quality of life in the metropolitan region.

Lee Epstein, director of the lands program at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and chairman of the committee that created the priorities list, said the Port Tobacco River Watershed Action Plan is making progress addressing pollution and high bacteria counts in the river.

"There's lots of momentum, and we think it's a terrific area that deserves to be pushed over the finish line," Epstein said.

The Port Tobacco River Conservancy has had annual "wade-in" events and water-quality monitoring in recent years. It also has received grants for septic system upgrades and the installation of rain gardens at local schools, all efforts to help clean the river.

The conservancy's executive director, Tammy Vitale, said she hopes that recognition on the Smart Growth Alliance's priorities list will generate additional financial support and political will to continue the restoration projects.

"What it will do is keep us in front of grantors and the county and community members, and remind them that the work to heal a river is always ongoing," Vitale said. "And once you get it healed, you have to keep going forward to make sure you maintain it. Our work, much like a housewife's, is never done."

Epstein said the effort to conserve the county's Mattawoman Creek watershed in the face of development pressure deserves regional attention. The county has drawn plans to build a Cross-County Connector highway that would cross a portion of the watershed, and housing developments are booming in western Charles near the creek.

"Mattawoman Creek is really an absolutely wonderful tributary to the Potomac [River] and the [Chesapeake] Bay," Epstein said. "It really is incredibly productive, a nursery of various fish, home to a nationally renowned bass fishery, but the development that's going forward and potential highway plans are threats that need to be dealt with."

Jim Long of the Mattawoman Watershed Society said he wants the county and state governments to enact further protective measures to preserve the forested land around the creek.

"The creek is in fact at a turning point right now," Long said. "We would like to work with the county to reshape some of the growth policies."

Also on the priorities list are the Mall in Washington, the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve, Merrimac Farm in Prince William County and Four Mile Run in Arlington County.

On Wednesday, the same day the priorities list was unveiled, Fowler briefed the county commissioners on his decades-long crusade to clean up the Patuxent River. Warning that "time is not a luxury anymore," Fowler called on the elected officials to institute growth policies that would protect land near the river that divides Calvert and St. Mary's counties and feeds into the Chesapeake Bay.

"Growth is really the culprit that has put us on the ropes in terms of our water quality in the Patuxent and in the Chesapeake Bay," said Fowler, who lives in Calvert and represented the county in the Maryland Senate and served as a county commissioner. He said the Charles commissioners and other local governments should be more proactive in curbing pollution of the river.

"To do anything but move forward aggressively would be . . . hypocritical," said Fowler, who has championed the Patuxent for 37 years. "I think if we've failed anywhere, we've failed to raise awareness to the gravity of the risks."

"Let's not kid ourselves," he added. "Unless local government takes charge, unless local government digs its heels in, we're not going anywhere. We'll be spinning our wheels like we have the last 37 years."

All five commissioners thanked Fowler for his dedication to the cause and pledged to take action to protect the river. "It's our job to be caretakers of the environment, and we will," Commissioners President Wayne Cooper (D-At Large) said.

The board then presented Fowler with a framed picture of a blue heron, the official county bird, flying over the Patuxent.