College Park, June 14, 2017. Clean water activist Marian Dombroski, of Cheverly, is the 2017 recipient of the Prince George’s Sierra Club’s Walter “Mike” Maloney Environmental Service Award. The award is presented annually to a County resident for excellence in environmental leadership.
The award recognizes Dombroski’s leadership in engaging communities along the Anacostia River and its tributaries on clean water and stormwater runoff. “What stands out about Marian’s leadership is her ability to reach out and work with the community, to help make the link between healthy rivers and quality of life, to engage the community as activists who take ownership of clean water and are stewards in the long run,” said Martha Ainsworth, Chair of the Prince George’s Sierra Club Group, in presenting the award.
Dombroski is the founder of the Friends of Quincy Run Watershed (FQRW). The stream flows from headwaters in Cheverly, through Bladensburg to the Anacostia River. About a mile of the stream is above ground. Although the area is known for its high density of people and industrial parks, there are patches of natural and historic areas along the length of the waterway.
Efforts to restore Quincy Run have become a rallying point to educate and mobilize local residents about the importance of the Anacostia Watershed to the health of the community. In collaboration with residents and municipalities, FQRW, led by Dombroski, has organized annual trash clean-ups, removal of invasive species, improvements of infrastructure, reduction of impervious surfaces, tree planting, and construction of rain gardens, to reduce runoff, improve water quality, and improve the quality of life in the community.
Dombroski is the Project Manager for Rainworks, whose objective is to identify, design, and implement on-the-ground projects to reduce damage to streams and rivers caused by rainwater runoff from private property. With the Friends of Lower Beaverdam Creek as its financial agent, the Chesapeake Bay Trust and the Prince George’s County Stormwater Stewardship Program awarded the project a $115,000 grant in late 2015, for funding projects in the Quincy Run and Moss Run watersheds. “This is a great example of our stormwater fees at work,” Dombroski says.
Rainworks is being implemented in partnership with the “B5” initiative – Building a Better Bladensburg Block by Block and Business by Business. Working with block captains, Dombroski has helped identify and find solutions to citizens’ stormwater problems and connected citizens and businesses with resources to encourage water conservation while improving private property. Because runoff also damages the properties that generate it, candidate projects are not hard to identify. She has also worked with apartment buildings to address their runoff problems by constructing rain gardens. Rainworks projects will involve both Bladensburg and Cheverly.
Although her home is located near a steep slope, longtime Bladensburg resident Garrine Laney had never had water in her basement until recently, when stormwater came pouring in “like a waterfall” through a basement window. Dombroski not only helped diagnose the problem and bring resources to bear, “she took out her shovel!” says Laney. The problem was solved and Laney is now one of many resident clean water activists. "Marian reaches out to residents to get them involved in ways that her projects become their projects. She is an inspiration, a hands-on doer who sets up workshops and goes yard to yard," said Dan Smith of Cheverly, founder of Friends of Lower Beaverdam Creek.
Throughout her life, Dombroski has been drawn to rivers. She launched her first river cleanup – along the Potomac -- when she was in high school in 1970, two years before passage of the Clean Water Act. After her studies, raising a family, and working at the University of Maryland as an architect, she wanted to use her knowledge and skills on green infrastructure and low-impact development for good in the community. In 2010, with financial support from the Friends of Lower Beaverdam Creek, she enrolled in the Watershed Stewards Academy. She founded the Friends of Quincy Run Watershed in 2012.
The award was presented to Ms. Dombroski on Sunday, June 11, at the annual Prince George’s Sierra Club picnic at Watkins Regional Park in Upper Marlboro.
The Prince George’s Sierra Club Group established the annual environmental service award in 2005 to honor the late Walter “Mike” Maloney—a civic activist, County Council member, and attorney dedicated to the rights and the quality-of-life of everyday people. Nominees are County residents who have shown excellence in local environmental leadership. Previous winners include Thomas Dernoga (2005), Fred Tutman (2006), Imani Kazana (2007), Carmen Anderson (2008), Paul Pinsky (2009), Kelly Canavan (2010), Bonnie Bick (2011), Dan Smith (2012), Vernon Wade (2013), Jacqueline Goodall (2014), Mary A. Lehman (2015), and Lore Rosenthal (2016).
The Sierra Club is the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the nation. Its mission is to explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the Earth.