PPRD staff also coordinate the County s participation in the Cooperative Reservoir Watershed Management Program. Baltimore County was a signatory to the 1984 and 1990 regional Reservoir Watershed Management Agreements, which provide for the implementation of annual action plans to control the eutrophication of the Loch Raven, Prettyboy, and Liberty Reservoirs. PPRD also reviews proposed State legislation and prepares comments on recommended County positions.
Watershed planning involves the preparation of comprehensive watershed management plans.
The program utilizes the watershed concept and local stream awareness to address the nature of the pollution problem and highlight what the government is doing as well as what citizens and communities can do to reduce pollution in local streams, drinking water reservoirs and the Chesapeake Bay. By design, the program is adaptable to varying ages, abilities, interests and time constraints. A major constituent of the Campaign is the Baltimore County Project Heartbeat , a volunteer stream monitoring program carried on at over 100 stream sites throughout the County. At each site, volunteers perform visual habitat assessments and collect benthic macroinvertebrates, aquatic insects without backbones that dwell on the bottoms of streams and are large enough to see with the naked eye. Other volunteers, working on their own time at laboratory spaces donated by local colleges and high schools, identify the creatures to Order and Family level taxonomy.