On Friday, December 7, 2018, Garrett County officials met with representatives from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Deep Creek Lake Policy Review Board, the Deep Creek Lake Property Owners Association, the Friends of Deep Creek Lake and the Deep Creek Watershed Foundation at the Garrett County Offices in Oakland, MD to discuss developing the scope of work for a Deep Creek Lake Sedimentation Plan.
The group came to consensus that the new plan will build on “Goal 6: Prevent erosion and sedimentation to the greatest extent possible to protect water resources from increased sediment loading and associated water quality problems” in the existing Deep Creek Lake Watershed Management Plan, October 1, 2014, adopted with Amendments March 7, 2016; pp 22-24 https://www.garrettcounty.org/resources/planning-land-development/pdf/Adopted%20DC%20Watershed%20Mgt%20Plan.pdf.
The Watershed Management Plan, agreed upon by Garrett County, and the Departments of Natural Resources and the Environment, is the foundation for providing the direction for protecting, enhancing, and restoring the resources of the Deep Creek Watershed. The new sediment mitigation scope of work will help identify the causes and mechanisms of sediment erosion and sources of sediment impacting the lake. Funding for the new plan has been identified. The plan will be developed in 2019.
For specific questions about the Deep Creek Lake Sediment Mitigation Plan or the process, please contact Kevin Null, Garrett County Administrator at knull@garrettcounty.org, or Bruce Michael, Director, Resource Assessment Service at bruce.michael@maryland.gov.
