Special Protection Areas (SPA) overview
The streams in Montgomery County, including those found in
your parkland, on private property, or elsewhere in your neighborhood,
are an important part of the natural resources of our county.
A healthy stream provides recreational, natural, and aesthetic
benefits. Over 1500 miles of streams in our county provide
habitat to our rich and diverse aquatic life and water-dependent
wild life. A healthy stream contributes to good drinking
water and helps protect the Chesapeake Bay.
We all play a part in keeping our streams, and the surrounding plant and animal life, strong and vital. Streams are greatly affected by the various land uses ad land development activities that occur in the watersheds. One of the ways that the county protects our streams is by designating a part or all of a watershed a Special Protection Area (SPA). A SPA is an area where streams, wetlands, and related natural features are of very high quality and where special measures (over and above standard environmental laws, regulations, and guidelines) must be applied to land development and to certain land uses in order to protect the high quality conditions of these natural features.
Who is affected by the SPA
The SPA regulations and guidelines are intended to incorporate stringent water resource protection measures in new and expanded land development projects. They are not intended to be applied to properties with existing single family residences or other legally, existing land uses if such uses are not changing or expanding.
Keep in mind that if you own or purchase a single family home in a SPA and you plan to keep it a residential use, the SPA regulations will not affect the use of your property.
The following types of land-disturbing activities and land development projects are subject to SPA regulations and guidelines. In the Upper Paint Branch SPA, the environmental overlay zone also applies:
- Land disturbing activity on publicly owned property should conform to SPA requirements and guidelines.
- For
privately owned property, the following types of development
projects are subject to the provisions of the SPA law:
- Proposed land disturbing activity which requires approval of a new or amendment to a development plan, diagrammatic plan, schematic development plan, project plan, special exception, preliminary plan of subdivision, or site plan.
- The SPA law provides for exemptions and grandfathering. Certain land uses on small properties that will result in amounts of impervious surfaces are exempt. However, in the Upper Paint Branch and the Upper Rock Creek SPAs, there are no exemptions or grandfathering for activities that disturb more than 5000 square feet of land.
How the SPA works
The
SPA law, regulations, and guidelines focus on putting stringent
watershed protection measures in new or expanded land development
projects. To ensure that proper measures are properly designed,
installed and functioning, local environmental regulatory
agencies and the land developer have various responsibilities:
Local Government
- Stream monitoring before, during and after development to document the health of the streams over time.
- Multi-agency review process of land development projects that requires developers to work closely with local environmental agencies to minimize adverse environmental impacts.
- Conservation plan for each SPA to describe the conditions of the major streams and identify critical features that need to be protected.
- Annual report summarizing current and past land development activities and results of stream monitoring data.
Land Developer
Land development projects must include the following measures to help protect nearby streams and natural areas:
- Design and construction of engineered mitigation structures in series. Sediment and erosion control structures are temporary; they are built before the land is cleared and graded to minimize runoff of fast-flowing, sediment laden water that leaves the site or enters a stream during construction. Stormwater management facilities are permanent; they help remove some of the pollutants that are found in surface water runoff as it moves through developed land (e.g., roads, building rooftops, lawns, etc.) and help slow the water as it leaves the site so that it does not cause erosion in a nearby stream channel.
- Provision of long-term protection of natural area buffers around streams, wetlands, seeps, springs, and floodplains through creation of conservation easements or park dedication. These buffers, known as environmental buffers, are wider for SPA wetlands than those outside a SPA.
- All environmental buffers are planted at an accelerated pace, where planting of forest is required and where non-wooded buffers are present.
How you can help protect our stream resources
Even if the SPA regulations and guidelines do not apply to your property, you can still play an important role in preserving the health of the streams and the natural features of the SPA watershed:
- You may have a conservation easement (coming soon: revision process) on part of your property. You can determine this by checking the record plat for your property. If so, it means there are natural features on your land that are fragile and very important in keeping the SPA streams healthy. The natural features in the conservation easement may be existing native trees and shrubs that are part of a forest, newly planted native trees and shrubs that will become part of a forest one day, wetlands, floodplain, and/or even one of the SPA streams themselves. It is very important that a conservation easement area remain undisturbed so the natural features in it can continue to provide groundwater recharge, continuous cool water in the streams, and habitat for native plants and animals.
- Preserve
or plant native trees and shrubs along your neighborhood
streams. Trees and shrubs shade and cool the stream water,
tree and shrub roots keep the stream banks stable, and leaves
and small twigs are food for various stream-dwelling animals.
Avoid or minimize the use of herbicides and pesticides, especially near streams and wetlands. - Use fertilizers wisely.
- Always take hazardous household wastes (motor oil, antifreeze, etc.) to a county collection site. Don t dump such wastes into storm drains, streams, or on the ground.
- Be aware of unusual changes in your neighborhood streams and report these changes to DEP, Watershed Management Division (240-777-7780).
Montgomery County Planning Department