A Montgomery County project to capture pollution from downtown Bethesda before it hits Rock Creek will be honored at “the Academy Awards of the engineering industry” in April.
The county’s Stoney Creek Stormwater Management Pond, a 1.3-acre pond that captures runoff from 204 acres of the Bethesda Central Business District and NIH campus, will receive the 2014 Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies.
The project, from the Department of Environmental Projection, actually sits on a six-acre site just south of the NIH campus and just west of Woodmont Avenue.
The county completed the $2.5 million project last May. It includes two underground chambers for capturing trash and pollutants washing downstream from Bethesda, subsurface aerators to enhance pond water circulation and native trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, grasses and wetland vegetation.
Environmental planners say the project, which began in October 2010, will treat stormwater from parking lots and developed areas that would have otherwise ended up in a tributary of Rock Creek.
The award ceremony is set for April 29.
