Box turtle relocation. Ten thousand new trees. Crushed crab shells that strip mud out of waste water.
These are some of the moves being made to balance out the environmental impact of building the colossal Intercounty Connector toll road, much to the chagrin of some residents who say not enough is being done to protect their neighborhoods.
Nay-sayers like Zabrosky are partly right, said Michael Baker, the environmental construction manager of the ICC.
That's because all the latest and greatest green technology can't make up for the fact that an 18-mile, six-lane highway will plow through much of the county, said Baker, who answered questions about the highway's environmental-mitigation plan at an open house Saturday morning at the National Capital Trolley Museum in Colesville.
At the meeting, ICC officials countered criticism by touting their environmental program as one of the most comprehensive of any major highway project in the nation.
But in the dispute between environmentalists and ICC officials, "the answer probably lies in the middle,'' Baker said.
The ICC had to be one of the most environmentally friendly highways ever built or the Martin O'Malley administration would never have approved it, he said.
That's because the ICC has been on the request list for every Maryland governor for the past 50 years, rejected each time largely on grounds of environmental concern, Baker said.
"We had to go above and beyond," Baker said. "If we didn't commit to that, we wouldn't get the permit."
However, the highway is coming and "it's impossible to say there will not be an impact," he said.
The ICC will eventually connect I-270 in Gaithersburg to I-95 in Laurel at a cost of $2.4 billion. By next fall, the first portion of the highway should be complete in the western part of the county.
"The decision has been made, the road is being built," Baker said, adding that it's time now to focus on what can be done to ease its environmental impact.
So what can be done?
Baker said the ICC boasts the largest mitigation package in the country, with $100 million slated for offsetting its environmental burden.
Much of that money will improve neighborhoods in areas that won't even be affected by the ICC, said Rob Shreeve, the ICC's environmental manager.
Many neighborhoods near the Paint Branch and Northwest watersheds were built in the 1950s and 60s with minimal storm-water management, Shreeve said. The ICC — with its massive environmental mitigation budget — provides the perfect time to improve those drainage systems, he said.
Shreeve said his team is targeting low-impact development, "the new vogue term" in environmental planning that consists of creating rain gardens, installing rain barrels and planting trees and shrubs. Even though the work won't directly offset the ICC, it's going to have a big impact in the long run, he said.
"We're going to have a lot of new neighbors," he said of the ICC's potential to create growth. "Let's find a way to make these neighborhoods better."
But "better" isn't enough for residents such as Zabrosky, or for residents Roy Peck of Rockville and Arnie Gordon of Olney, who were at Saturday's meeting to let ICC environmental officials know that the only thing they're mitigating is the truth.
Rain gardens won't do anything about the massive air pollution the highway is going to create, Zabrosky said. Better drainage in neighborhoods won't alleviate traffic jams on Georgia Avenue, Gordon said. And even the box-turtle fences posted to keep the turtles out of construction sites aren't efficient, Peck said.
"It's a dog and pony show," Zabrosky said of Saturday's meeting.
