Montgomery County’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has reactivated three storm water management projects that were previously suspended.
The county will move forward with plans to restore more than 1,800 feet of Old Farm Creek along Neilwood Drive in North Bethesda as well as more than 8,700 feet of the Grosvenor/Luxmanor Tributary in North Bethesda. The county will also resume progress on the Glenmont Forest Green Streets project— an effort to install raingardens along streets that cover a 243-acre area bordered by Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road.
The three projects were put on hold last year due to a change in DEP’s contracting approach.
Under the old system, projects involved hiring separate contractors for different phases of a project. But last summer the County Council approved a new method for awarding contracts that consolidates all of the design, building and maintenance work for each project under one contractor. The change was proposed by former County Executive Ike Leggett and was initially met with opposition from the council and DEP employees. The council first rejected Leggett’s proposal, only to have the county executive use his line item veto of the council’s decision to keep the old contracting method. The council eventually agreed to a cheaper version of Leggett’s proposal, with the county executive being required to give quarterly updates to the council.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Dan Schere over at Bethesda Magazine