Brunett Avenue Tributary

On October 11th, 2008, Friends of Sligo Creek members Chris Victoria, MaryLee Haughwout, Liliana Riva-Clement, Joseph Riva-Clement, Robin Schafer, and Mike Smith met at the parking lot on Sligo Creek parkway near Kennebec Avenue in Takoma Park and fanned out to do water quality testing in the subwatershed. MaryLee rode her bike up Sligo Creek Parkway to test sites in Silver Spring. Using the conductivity tester she recorded very high conductivity at the Bennington Tributary (1160) and Brunett Avenue Tributary (820) in comparison to the baseline provided by the main stem of Sligo Creek (an average of 540).

On October 29th, high readings were again recorded at both the Bennington Tributary (1001) and Brunett Avenue Tributary (755) by Mike Smith. While problems are being monitored with the Bennington Tributary thanks to the vigilance of Anne Vorce and other citizens, the Brunett Avenue tributary also seems to be a problem. On November 5th, Mike Smith called the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection to report the problem and talked to Environmental Health Specialist Supervisor Steve Martin about it.

Mr. Martin explained that the drainage area for the Brunett Avenue Tributary extended outside of the Beltway and specific violations that had been recorded years ago. He forwarded a map of the tributary's drainage area. It is unknown whether the Brunett Avenue tributary's high conductivity is due to a specific source or some more general problem.

Update by Steve Martin, Environmental Compliance Supervisor,
Montgomery County DEP
Nov 6, 2008

Based on high conductivity readings measured by FOSC, we decided to perform our own monitoring over a ten week period. We are monitoring once per week at the two outfalls and the main stem of Sligo above the confluences with these two tributaries. I now have four sets of monitoring data.

Preliminary analyses shows results similar to what your folks were obtaining with respect to elevated conductivity readings at the Bennington and Brunett outfalls. So far the conductivity readings at the Bennington outfall have been higher than at Brunett. Also, we have measured higher levels of detergent at the Bennington outfall. Other chemical parameters have been below detection limits and pH has been in the normal ranges.

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