Surface Water Quality Monitoring Program Town Center Monitoring Project

In order to understand impacts related to development activities in the Odenton and Parole Town Centers, OECR performs regular surface water quality monitoring.  Development can impair water quality in two basic ways. First, water quality impairments can be related to direct pollution runoff from impervious surfaces like rooftops, parking lots, and roads. It is well known that materials such as oils, greases and heavy metals from cars, or soil washed away from farm fields and construction sites are carried by runoff into the County’s streams. These different chemicals can either have a direct and often lethal effect on aquatic organisms or they may persist at levels that have adverse impacts on the general health and reproductive abilities of these organisms, resulting in depressed and low quality

biological communities. Second, impairments to water quality can occur due to the disturbance of a stream’s discharge patterns, resulting in unstable stream channels. Overall runoff quantity typically increases due to development. Additionally, the frequency of floods with erosive flows also increases dramatically. As both the amount and frequency of runoff increases, the receiving stream adjusts to handle the increased water flow, resulting in dramatically accelerated stream channel erosion compared to natural rates, which causes both water quality and instream habitat impacts to receiving streams, and can often result in a depressed or destroyed biological community. The Town Center Monitoring Project attempts to quantify the impacts of both of these stressors using a variety of assessment and monitoring techniques.

Currently, to understand water quality conditions in these areas, OECR has stormwater and base flow monitoring stations on Weems Creek (Parole) and on a tributary of Picture Spring Branch (Odenton) and base flow monitoring stations on Broad Creek (Parole) and a second tributary of Picture Spring Branch. Storm and base flow samples are collected monthly. Annual and seasonal pollution loading rates are calculated. In addition, annual and seasonal storm event mean concentrations and base flow concentrations are also derived. Water quality assessments have also been performed in Towsers Branch (Parole) and Franklin Branch (Parole). Using this information, overall water quality conditions are evaluated for each drainage area.

To understand the impact of discharge disturbance on water quality and stream stability, a variety of special studies have been undertaken in the parts of the watersheds that drain the Town Center areas. These include stream stability studies and biological condition evaluations in Picture Spring Branch, Broad Creek (Parole), Gingerville Creek (Parole), and Saltworks Creek (Parole). The main purpose of these studies has been to collect baseline information on these streams. Reaches currently showing signs of instability or degradation are then targeted for restoration or stabilization activities in order to improve water quality and habitat conditions. 

• Baseline Biological Assessment of Streams Draining the Parole (MD) Town Center. June 1998.  Prepared by Tetra Tech, Inc., for the Department of Planning and Code Enforcement. 

• Biological and Stream Stability Assessment of Picture Spring Branch Watershed, February 2000.  Prepared by Tetra Tech, Inc., for Anne Arundel County Department of Planning and Code Enforcement.

• Parole Town Center Ecological Assessment. March 2001. Prepared by Tetra Tech, Inc., for Anne Arundel County Office of Planning and Zoning, Environmental Division.

• Weems Creek Watershed Water Quality Assessment: 2000-2001. December 2002. Prepared by Anne Arundel County Office of Environmental & Cultural Resources.

• Towsers Branch Stream Water Quality Monitoring Report.  August 2002.  Prepared by Whitman, Requardt, and Associates, LLC, for Anne Arundel County Department of Planning and Code Enforcement.