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EDMONSTON, Md. - The tiny town of Edmonston, Md., just landed on the map because of one of its streets. The 1,500-person port town in Prince George's County joins Portland, Ore., and Seattle, Wash., as home to one of the nation's most environmentally friendly streets.

Officials say Edmonston receives about 40 inches of rainfall each year. Those storms trigger suburban runoff and gallons of unfiltered water flow from the street to sewer, polluting the Anacostia River and the Chesapeake Bay.

But all of that is about to change and residents from the small, working-class community say they hope other communities will follow.

Every day at 6 a.m., Claire Pooley drives down Decatur Street en route to her job mucking out stalls. She says she doesn't mind waste on her boots; she just doesn't want it pooling on the pavement.

"It's kind of neat to be a resident on one of the first green streets," she said.

Once the project is complete, officials estimate 90 percent of rain water runoff will be absorbed and filtered through a system of permeable pavement, trees and bioretention cells.

"A bioretention cell is essentially the same as a rain garden," said Jana Davis, chief scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Trust. "The idea it's going to trap water, filter it through the ground, so that it doesn't go straight into a storm drain. As a result, the water that ultimately makes its way into the Anacostia River is going to be cleaner."

The project will impact the future but it was largely motivated by the past. Until recently, Edmonston suffered major floods -- not from the river -- but from water swamping the streets.

"We flooded from the indifference of builders, planners and decision makers who did not take environmental responsibility seriously," said Edmonston Mayor Adam Ortiz.

That's something the Environmental Protection Agency's new administrator Lisa Jackson understands well. "I'm from New Orleans, so I know what flooding means to a community. I know the devastation; I know the despair; I know how hard it can be to search for a solution. How extraordinary [it is] to search for a solution that's about the future," she said.

And Congresswoman Donna Edwards, D-Md., says the rest of Maryland can follow in Edmonston's path. "An initiative like this really demonstrates a way forward and so it's a really exciting opportunity for Edmonston -- but it's a leadership opportunity for Maryland," she said.

Residents say they never thought the residential street would turn their town into a trailblazer. "It will take some time to get used to," said Pooley. "I think it's kind of cool."

Officials expect construction of "the greenest street on the East Coast" to be completed sometime in the summer.

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