Gaithersburg, MD -- As part of Green Month, the City of Gaithersburg recognizes individuals and organizations demonstrating outstanding environmental stewardship in the Gaithersburg community with Environmental Awards. Mayor Jud Ashman and members of the City Council presented the awards at a ceremony at City Hall on Monday, April 3, 2023.

A proclamation designating April as Gaithersburg Green Month and April 25 as Arbor Day in the City of Gaithersburg was presented to Environmental Affairs Committee (EAC) Chair Janette Rosenbaum during the Mayor and City Council meeting following the awards ceremony.

The EAC selected six Certificate of Appreciation winners and seven Achievement Award recipients. Collectively, the winners are growing our local green economy, improving their business models with sustainable initiatives, working within their neighborhoods, and inspiring a new green generation. 

Individual Achievement Award Winners

Karl Van Neste

Karl Van Neste’s passion is reducing the amount of road salts that wash into our streams and eventually end up in our drinking water. Whether he is outside with a test kit after a winter storm, advocating for legislation changes at the state and local level, providing interviews or gathering petition signatures, Karl is working to improve our natural environment and health outcomes for all members of the community.

Corky Logsdon

Corky Logsdon has been a resident of Shady Grove Village since it was built in the 70s and has always been a great resource for the community. In 2022, he went above and beyond by planning, installing, and maintaining a pollinator garden in the HOA common space for everyone to enjoy. He also purchased and planted a native red maple as the first step of re-establishing Shady Grove Village’s historic tree canopy. Corky continues to provide guidance for future plantings and assessing trees for the neighborhood.

Individual Appreciation Award Winner

Kevin Misener

Kevin Misener is instrumental in protecting the natural environment in and around Gaithersburg. He has been leading stream monitoring initiatives, organizing cleans up, serving as a weed warrior, and maintaining the native plant meadow and the Izaak Walton League Headquarters. Kevin was also noted as being extremely pleasant to work with while improving the social and environmental aspects of the community.

Organization Achievement Award Winners

Muddy Branch Alliance

In 2022, the Muddy Branch Alliance promoted a fun program for young families called the "Wild Wanderers." The self-guided program encouraged families to explore the watershed and to identify specific interesting local plants. What this involved was downloading a simple booklet from the Alliance’s website to fill out while out on walks. The combination of artwork and simple language made the program very user-friendly. The program encouraged families to get outside and be active in a healthy way during the pandemic while learning more about the park and wild plants.

Shady Grove Village HOA Landscaping Committee

The Shady Grove Village HOA Landscaping Committee was established in 2021 after the community expressed concerns about maples trees being removed. The committee got to work and achieved a great deal in 2022, including residential outreach, tree surveys, soil assessments, community beautification projects, and a monthly public trash pick-up around the neighborhood. The more residents saw the clean-ups, the more who joined in.

Gateway Commons HOA

In 2022, the Gateway Commons HOA partnered with Sustainable Maryland to establish a community Green Team and a Green Team Action Plan. With support from City staff, architects, engineers, and landscapes designers, the team was able to find a solution to stop several backyards from flooding during heavy rain events. By constructing a swale drain, they were able to redirect the water and stop flooding the backyards and drowning the mature trees. All this was done in time for the upcoming spring planting season.

Lakelands Community Association

The Lakelands Community Association partnered with Urban Ecosystem Restoration to rethink an approach to stormwater management. A stormwater basin made up of stone rip rap and non-native grasses was designed to capture water and slowly drain it, untreated, until it enters the Muddy Branch. In 2022, the space was transformed into an eco-functioning area that improves the stormwater management and biodiversity of the space. It also promotes human health through immersive education and playful experiences in nature.

AstraZeneca

In 2022, AstraZeneca’s Gaithersburg campus made significant strides in its ambitious plan to achieve carbon neutrality. In just one year, energy use was reduced by 24%, scope 1 and 2 emissions by 10%, and water use by 2%. While donating 6,000 pounds of food and composting more than 450,000 pounds of material, a waste audit was conducted to help identify opportunities to achieve Zero Waste Certification in the future. The facility also received a Conservation Certification from the Wildlife Habitat after a several year effort to eliminate non-native invasive species from the property. Staff volunteers collected more than 200 gallons of trash during clean-up events and planted 34 trees at Malcolm King Park.

Organization Appreciation Award Winners

St. Martin of Tours School and Church

In October of 2022, St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church and School took the first major steps in formalizing its environmental stewardship with the establishment of a Green Team. After attending a training from the Interstate Partners of the Chesapeake, the group was formed to increase awareness of the church and school’s role in restoring the Chesapeake. Initiatives include educational activities that inspire students and staff to recycle, plant natives, waste less, and be overall better stewards of the environment. The team plans to do a tree planting this spring.

Gaithersburg Community Museum

The City’s very own Community Museum is receiving an appreciation award for proving that sustainability is embedded in everything they do. In addition to staff being stewards of the environment themselves, the Museum held a dozen events specifically focused on sustainability last year.

Asbury Methodist Village

Asbury Methodist Village understands that you can’t simply do a project or implement a program without monitoring and ensuring it is achieving its intended goals. In 2022, Asbury was able to expand its food waste composting initiative and enhanced its recycling program with a shredding event and scrap metal recycling. Asbury also continued monitoring the stream restoration project to ensure the integrity of the project.

Watts Branch Alliance

In 2022, the Muddy Branch Alliance partnered with the Watts Branch Watershed Alliance and expanded local efforts to raise awareness of salts impacting our streams and drinking water. The City of Gaithersburg contains headwaters of both streams. Both groups assisted in training the City of Rockville Watershed Committee in monitoring local streams for chlorides using the methods promoted by the Izaak Walton League. Similar issues are facing both streams and this partnership and work is important to promote healthy and sustainable water resources for Gaithersburg and Rockville residents. There are now five monitoring sites collecting and reporting this data.

Fitzgerald Auto Mall

Fitzgerald Auto Mall continues to be the only Green Certified Automotive Dealer in Montgomery County. Eighty-four percent of the energy needed to power the facility is generated on site by its solar facility. The remaining energy comes from wind energy. The clean energy facility also continues to recycle everything they can as they work toward a cleaner and greener future for us all.

This year’s Green Month includes a variety of activities that celebrate and improve the environment. Offerings include park clean ups, a free screening of the documentary Trashy: A Zero Waste Film, an Arbor Day celebration, a community shredding event, a Fix It Fair, and much more. Explore all Green Month activities here.

For more information on the City of Gaithersburg’s environmental programs please contact the Environmental Services Division at 301-258-6370 or e-mail [email protected].