Three minutes of advocacy could make a difference.

For years, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission has said it needs a new water intake pipe in the center of the river.

“Water quality in the middle of the river is much more stable,” said Doug Brinkman, an engineer who testified for WSSC before the Montgomery County Planning Board Thursday, March 13.

The current intake on the shoreline is “adversely impacted by its location on the Potomac River shoreline,” he said.

“Especially during storm events, sediments and debris, particularly from Watts Branch, cause source water quality to change dramatically, and affect the plant operations,” according to WSSC.

But for years, environmental advocates including Ginny Barnes of West Montgomery County Citizens Association and Neal Fitzpatrick of Audubon Naturalist Society have argued that Watts Branch and other streams demand the county’s attention.

“Watts Branch is deteriorating and we have to address it,” Barnes said during her testimony at last Thursday’s two-and-a-half-hour hearing.

“If these stream buffers aren’t good enough to protect our drinking water, we need to rethink that. It isn’t just to go further and further into the river to put our straw,” Barnes said.

WSSC proposed four alternatives for its plans to continue to provide safe reliable drinking water to Montgomery County and Prince George’s County, three that include 96-inch steel pipes with capacity to withdraw 400 million gallons of water a day and would take approximately four years of construction to complete.

A “No Action Alternative” is required by county policy in order to demonstrate the impacts should the county do nothing.

Fairfax County already has an intake pipe in the center of the river, and Loudoun County is anticipated to request its own intake in the center of the river shortly.

Following remarks from WSSC and Barnes, the Planning Board asked its staff and WSSC to study the feasibility of improving the quality of Watts Branch, both as an option by itself and as an action to be done in conjunction with the potential building of a new intake pipe.

WSSC already employed snorkelers and others to study environmental impacts of construction, cataloguing species of mussels, plants and aquatic life, and discovering at least one unexpected endangered plant species, as well as identifying one island whose ownership is unknown.

WSSC is scheduled to complete environmental assessments, feasibility studies, and conduct further hearings to gather input from the community by the summer.

“We know that people care,” said Jerry Irvine, public affairs manager with WSSC.