Join the Healthy Streams Frederick County Project

DOWNLOAD THE APP HERE

Healthy Streams Frederick County – Observe, Report, Restore

There is a watershed-wide push to clean up the Chesapeake Bay through the federally mandated “pollution diet.” Frederick County is unfortunately a large contributor of nutrients and sediment to the streams in the watershed, but not doing a whole lot to change that. In response to the local need to be better stewards of our streams, we are engaging citizens to document stream pollution in our county.

Take pictures and collect data using your smart phone

The project FoFC has developed begins with citizens using an app on their smart phones to photograph and give basic information on a problem he/she sees at a Frederick County stream site. For example, do you see a place where people are dumping trash or chemicals into a stream? Do you see cows in a stream? Do you see manure piles near a stream? Do you see barren ground on construction sites? Do you see eroded stream banks without any vegetation?

If you see something that might look bad, call up the app, take a few photos (your phone will record your latitude and longitude), answer a few questions, and send it off. The information will go to the Chesapeake Commons database where experts from Potomac Riverkeeper can analyze it. When deemed actionable, we’ll pass along the observations we’ve gathered to aid and enforcement agencies on the city, county, state and federal level.

There two ways to submit an observation (detailed here):

On your smart phone download the mobile phone app (follow the instructions on this training website)
Or use the “Submit Observation” link on the training website to use the online form (no smart phone required)**

** Note: your observations through the online form are submitted anonymously. If you want to be contacted about the result of your submitted observation, send us an email at friends@friendsoffrederickcounty.org or call 240 529 1655.

Adopt a grid

Probably the best way to decide where to drive to look at the streams is to adopt your very own grid. We ask that you drive the roads in the 5×5 mile grid in the fall, winter and spring – and note any issues you see with the streams in that grid. Grids up for adoption are found here.