Posts in News
President's Message & Recap of 2025 Highlights

As we review FOTMC’s work and activities over the last couple of years, we are reminded of why our mission to serve as guardians of Ten Mile Creek and its watershed began. We remember the urgent need to protect what has been called “the last best stream” in Montgomery County by protecting the forests, tributaries, and wetlands of the Ten Mile Creek watershed. Ten Mile Creek is the 2nd largest, and the cleanest, tributary flowing into Little Seneca Reservoir, the back-up drinking supply for 5 million people in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area.

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Little Seneca Lake Reservoir

The mission of Friends of Ten Mile Creek and Little Seneca Reservoir is to serve as guardians of Ten Mile Creek and its watershed, preserving and protecting this unique place and ensuring that Ten Mile Creek continues to provide clean drinking water to Little Seneca Reservoir – a backup drinking water supply for the Washington, DC Metropolitan region and an important recreational resource. Ten Mile Creek is the cleanest of three main streams – Little Seneca Creek, Ten Mile Creek,  Cabin Branch – that feed into the Reservoir.

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Monitoring Water Quality

Since 1997, volunteers with Nature Forward have been monitoring two sites on Ten Mile Creek four times a year to assess the health of the creek. One site is on the “mainstem” of the creek just upstream of the ford on West Old Baltimore Road, and the other site is on the tributary that runs alongside West Old Baltimore Road.

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Eyes of the Creek

FOTMC members are always working to keep the Ten Mile Creek area trash-free. As a participant in the  “adopt-a-road” program, we regularly haul away trash dumped along West Old Baltimore Road, and our hardworking volunteers also remove a lot of trash from the Creek at the stream ford… 

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Action Alert: Speak up for the forests, streams, and clean drinking water of the Little Seneca Reservoir at the hearing on the Clarksburg Gateway Sector Plan, September 25, 2025

Since 2023, FOTMC members have been actively participating in the formulation of the Clarksburg Gateway Sector Plan. Our goal has been the preservation of forests, protection of streams and wetlands, and safeguarding the water quality of Little Seneca Lake Reservoir, the region’s back-up drinking water supply.

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Action Alert: County Council to hold hearing on Planning Board recommendation to allow increased impervious surfaces, weakening Clean Water protections

Update 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.

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2022 Year-End Recap

It 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.

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Conservation Montgomery Annual Meeting

Conservation Montgomery will honor Claire Iseli at their annual meeting with the Joe Howard Environmental Award and will feature Montgomery Countryside Alliance Executive Director Caroline Taylor as the guest speaker. Claire Iseli is a special assistant and environmental adviser to County Executive Marc Elrich, who has supported his long time efforts to protect Ten Mile Creek. Below is more information from the Conservation Montgomery announcement. You can register to attend here.

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Events, NewsCommander Salamander
Annual Potluck and Fundraiser: Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 12:30-1:30pm

Please save the date of October 24th and let us know if you would be willing and interested in attending our normally "annual" outdoor/in person potluck, and fundraiser, at the Cinque Farm - on this google form, no later than October 3rd, so we can plan accordingly. In light of the still circulating Covid-19 variants, and depending on your responses, it could instead be a webinar. But either way, you won't want to miss it!

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Ten Mile Creek Relies on Ephemeral Streams

SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND - Friends of Ten Mile Creek will testify before the Montgomery County Planning Board on Thursday June 13, in support of proposed updates to the Guidelines for Environmental Management of Development in Montgomery County.

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Pulte Lawsuit

In November 2014, Pulte Homes, one of the primary developers in the Ten Mile Creek watershed, filed a lawsuit against Montgomery County and the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission over the Ten Mile Creek Limited Master Plan Amendment alleging that the County Council and planners illegally limited construction on its property. Read more in this Washington Post article.

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