Updated 10/10/2024: The Friends of Ten Mile Creek and Little Seneca Reservoir will hold our Annual Meeting on October 19 at 1 pm in the Gothic Dairy Barn at the Linden Farm in Dickerson (20900 Martinsburg Road, Dickerson, MD 20842). It will be a Potluck, and there will be live music....
Read MorePoolesville Day is just around the corner, September 21, from 10:00 - 4:00. Poolesville Day is a one-day, family-friendly FREE event in the agricultural reserve. Friends of Ten Mile Creek and Little Seneca Reservoir will have a booth with members available to describe who we are and what we do and brochures with more details.
If you have never attended Poolesville Day, there is an excellent description, with photos and map, online.
For more details, visit the official website, https://www.poolesvilleday.com/
Save the date:
The Friends of Ten Mile Creek and Little Seneca Reservoir will hold their Annual Meeting on October 19 at 1 pm @ the Cinque Farm. It will be a PotLuck. All are welcome! More to come.
The Friends of Ten Mile Creek & Little Seneca Reservoir will be leading a Watershed and Wildflower Walk on Saturday April 13th from 12:00 to 4:00 pm. If it’s raining, we will postpone it to Sunday April 14th at noon.
Read MoreAs earth moving begins on Pulte's Creekside at Cabin Branch development the stream is likely to become cloudy after rainstorms and sediment will be most visible to the public at the stream ford. FoTMC members have also noticed more instances of illegal dumping at the ford and along West Old Baltimore Road. Read more for links to report any violations you might witness.
Read MoreVery important meeting!! Please try to come and SAY NO to more highways in Clarksburg!
Please come—and help show that the political winds are not all in the direction of pro-highway advocates. These highways, including M-83 and Observation Drive Extended will have huge costs to the creeks which flow into the Reservoir.
Designed by the world-renowned master architect Cesar Pelli, COMSAT Laboratories was an early example of the type of building that dominated research corridors in Montgomery County and across the United States.
Read MoreWe are very concerned about the extent of the development of the 200-acre historic COMSAT property, as well as proposals to build new roads, including the Clarksburg By-pass, the extension of Observation Drive, the extension of Little Seneca Parkway, and plans to construct a new I-270 interchange.
Read MoreAll are welcome to come to our annual meeting. It will be held on Oct 14 (rain date, the 15th) at the Cinque Farm (22300 Slidell Rd, Boyds) at 1:00pm.
Read MoreBoth Ten Mile Creek and Little Seneca Reservoir are located within Seneca Creek watershed, Montgomery County’s largest watershed and a designated drinking water supply. The major threat to these waterbodies is urbanization (a.k.a. sprawl) from proposed development projects. During urbanization, developers take down forests and farms, then they grade, compact and pave-over the land; the resulting runoff over time erodes streams, and silts-in lakes and the Chesapeake Bay with sediment.
Read MoreWhen a conceptual development plan was submitted to the County Planning Board in June 2021 it did not abide with the recommendations of the 2014 Plan.When the Planning Board did not heed our advice, FoTMC wrote to the County Executive expressing the same concerns. As a result, Executive Elrich directed the Department of Transportation to adhere to the 2014 road plan. We thank the Executive Elrich for acting in a timely manner.
Read MoreWater, the elixir of life, is an essential component of our existence. It is a fundamental resource that sustains all forms of life on Earth. Indeed, we can live without a house or clothing for months, we can live without food for weeks, but to live without water is measured in terms of days and hours.
Read MoreTen Mile Creek is teeming with life. As you peer into its waters, you might see fish, perhaps some small darters or sculpin. In the spring, larger fish swim up from Little Seneca Lake to spawn in its quiet pools.
Read MoreFoTMC testified on behalf of the Ten Mile Creek watershed at Montgomery County Planning Board hearings in December 2020 and again in September 2021. Nevertheless, the Montgomery County Planning Board approved the Pulte plan, in violation of the language, intent, and spirit of the Ten Mile Creek Area Limited Amendment adopted in 2014.
Read MoreOn Sunday, April 16th thirty-four eager adventurers attended our first Ten Mile Creek wildflower walk. We began the hike from the Cinque Farm on Slidell Road walking downhill through Ten Mile Creek Conservation Park to a tributary - one of seven main tributaries of Ten Mile Creek - of Ten Mile Creek. RG Steinman and John Parrish pointed out wildflowers and other plants along the way.
Read MoreThe Friends of Ten Mile Creek will be leading a wildflower walk on Sunday, April 16th at noon. We hope to see such early spring wildflowers as Trout Lilies, Bloodroot, Hepatica, Dwarf Ginseng, Wood Anemone, Rue Anemone, Toothworts, Spring Beauty, Early Saxifrage, and Violets! Another highlight of our walk includes uncommon County trees – the Eastern Hemlock and Shagbark Hickory. In the event of heavy rain, our rain date is Sunday, April 23rd.
Read MoreUpdate 1/26/2023: On January 24, 2023, the County Council voted unanimously to withdraw ZTA 22-12.
On January 17, 2023, the Montgomery County Council will hold a hearing on a Zoning Text Amendment, ZTA 22-12, that would exempt the impervious surfaces of master-planned bikeways from being counted toward the impervious limits that protect the Ten Mile Creek watershed. Please email members of the Montgomery County Council and ask them to reject this ZTA, which vio/
lates the Ten Mile Creek Limited Master Plan Amendment and its main enforcement regulation – the limits to imperviousness established in the Clarksburg Environmental Overlay Zones.
Read MoreIt has been another busy year. As we await a day in court which will determine whether the Pulte Plan for development in the Ten Mile Creek watershed will need to adhere to the 2014 Ten Mile Creek Amended Master Plan, we take this opportunity to provide you with a recap of what has been made possible with a little help from many of you, the Creek’s Friends.
Read MoreThe Miles Coppola development plan was revised to comply with the Ten Mile Creek Master Plan recommendation for an alternate alignment of the MD 355 Bypass in order to avoid impacts on a large wetland in the headwaters of Ten Mile Creek, reduce forest loss, grading of steep slopes, and direct impacts of new infrastructure.
Read MoreThis chronology provides a more detailed history of events affecting Ten Mile Creek and the Little Seneca Reservoir beginning with water supply studies and the record drought of the 1960s. However, as told by FoTMC Board member Norman Mease, the ford at Old Baltimore Road was known at least as far back as agricultural settlement as a place where there was always water, even in times of serious drought. Friends of Ten Mile Creek, formed in 2014, are proud to carry on a long tradition of citizen efforts to protect this watershed, which is part of our critical natural infrastructure and a lifeline of the lifeline water infrastructure that serves the entire Washington Metropolitan Area.
Read MoreJudge upholds the Montgomery Planning Commission's approval of the Pulte development plan in Ten Mile Creek's two most sensitive sub-areas.
Friends of Ten Mile Creek sought to strike down Pulte's site plan; they will appeal.
