The Western Branch
Watershed Restoration Action Strategy (WRAS)

Watershed Restoration Action Strategy

Fifty-eight watersheds in Maryland need restoration according to the 1998 Clean Water Action Plan. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) provides grants and technical assistance to counties to help develop a Watershed Restoration Action Strategy (WRAS). Watersheds not meeting clean water and other natural resource goals and are most in need of restoration actions.

Local governments lead the process to develop WRAS, which are comprehensive watershed plans that reflect specific goals and commitments to preserve and restore habitat and water quality. The WRAS targets specific sites within a watershed that would benefit from establishing riparian buffers, increasing impervious cover, reducing pollutant loading levels in a sub watershed, preserving existing open space and/or greenways, restoring wetlands. The overall objective of these goals is to revise comprehensive plans, and/or ordinance, policy or code to establishing zoning and permitting feasibility for low impact development and environmentally sensitive development practices that contribute to improved water quality.

The City of Bowie is included in two WRAS that identify local priorities to enhance water quality, living resources and habitat with the jurisdiction. By restoring, maintaining and enhancing the pre-development environs within the development sites with the incorporation of Low Impact Development, Green Building, renewable energy, and conservation landscaping techniques, and by implementing policies that encourage sustainable, responsible development, communities can effectively reduce overland runoff and diminish the erodible soils, nutrients, and metals being transported to the Patuxent River, and assist in improving-stream habitat and biotic communities.

Low Impact Development (LID) is a term describing over 100 environmentally sensitive stormwater management techniques. LID techniques serve to reduce or eliminate the amount of water running off rooftops and pavement, and reduce or eliminate surfaces impervious to rainwater. Rather than diverting all stormwater into retention ponds, LID techniques reintroduce natural hydrological systems throughout the project site, which will in turn allow the rainwater to replenish the ground table at that location. The most visible and widely used LID techniques include living roofs, cisterns, grass swales, bio-retention cells such as tree cells, weep walls, or rain gardens. Porous pavement and a variety of concrete or brick pavers are also becoming more common.

The Upper Patuxent and the Western Branch WRAS documents can be viewed at DNR’s WRAS Document Website.

The City of Bowie has several projects currently underway that are included in a WRAS that demonstrate LID, Green Building, conservation landscaping, and/or habitat restoration. Projects that offer public participation are included in the City’s GREEN Initiatives: Public Information Presentations.