Minutes from the January 10, 2007 Stormwater Committee Meeting
Potential Partnership with Blair High School and the Master Gardeners
Charlie Garlow, chair
of the PTSA Beatification Committee, spoke to us about the
landscaping opportunities at Blair High School. A master plan
for the school landscaping is being developed in conjunction with the
Master Gardeners. The Woodmoor Garden Club (Linda Rogers) is
also interested in participating. Teachers and students would be
involved. Charlie was familiar
with our work at Eastern
Middle School and wanted to know if we would be interested in
participating. Ed noted that if the landscaping used included
environmental functions and if outreach to the school (particularly
the Horticulture Program) was possible, we might be very interested.
We would be interested in helping install rain gardens and working
these
landscape features into the curriculum. We would also
like to arrange for our members from time to time to do presentations
to the students. Many ideas were discussed including having a
charrette with the Horticulture students, doing science experiments
and monitoring the soils (before and after the project.)
Some of the committee members indicated interest in being a guest
speaker to the students. Jenny and Ed will attend a preliminary
meeting at Blair High School on January 17 at 3:15 p.m. Ed
wants to find out if there are any FoSC members involved at Blair.
The committee agreed this was is a good opportunity to reach out and
work with tudents, Blair’s environmental club, teachers and
gardening groups.
Activities at Northwood High School
Jill Coutts, science
teacher and head of the Environmental Academy at Northwood, has
worked with our committee now for about 3 years. She is a
finalist in the CBT Teacher of the Year. Some of us are planning on
attending the CBT Awards program with Jill on January 16 in
Annapolis.
Discussing the
Northwood student project, we noted that we need to spend about
10
minutes at the beginning of each session to discuss what we are
doing and why. Toward the
end of the project, we need to spend
some time "reflecting" what was learned. This is
supposed to occur in all the student service projects. Alison will
try to find a press release about the project so we can get some
publicity out of it for Jill.
Diane provided a brief update on
the Builders Meeting she was invited to attend on January 9.
She thought it went well. Diane spoke about the new Small Lot
Drainage Law. The builders will need help in implementing rain
gardens. They are just learning about the concept. Diane
noted that we should look into developing courses for the industry
funded through grants.
Grants
Sally updated us
briefly on getting grants. If the stormwater committee is going
to go beyond its current levels of effort, we are going to need
focused professional help. There is a need for more outreach
and coordinating complicated initiatives. The effort is beyond
what volunteers can provide. Sally noted the www.grants.gov
is a good source of information. She also told us that
cooperative agreements are a good model for FoSC. One option is
having a paid staff person who is self funded through grants. Sally
noted that we need to start collecting information about what grants
are available and what are their deadlines. Perhaps Jim Baird
is a good source of information on grants. Sally is going to take a
stab at starting gathering the information.
Bio-Retention
System in Kensington
Diane gave a brief
update on Ed's and her efforts in the Town of Kensington in getting
an innovative bio-retention system in a new MARC parking
lot/pedestrian walkway. Again, grants may be needed to
supplement the cost difference between the standard pipe and pond
solution and the more environmentally preferable LID solution.
The LID concept has been well received by the town. We will
follow this effort since it might be a useful solution to runoff from
our
parking lots.
Outreach to the Chevy Chase
Garden Club
Outreach to garden
clubs is one of our objectives. Jenny updated us briefly on her
presentation to the Chevy Chase Garden Club. The presentation went
well. Jenny and Lauren Wheeler will be doing more presentations to
other landscape/garden organizations including the National
Federation of Garden Clubs.
The Green Streets Bill
Diane updated us on the
Green Streets Bill. On January 23, (Tuesday) at 7:30 p.m. there
will be a Council hearing on this bill. Diane will testify, but
it would help if others also testified. Beth will review the
118 page bill for us. Beth also noted an interesting Green
Streets book she uses at work and recommends it to us. See
http://www.metro-region.org/article.cfm?articleid=262
There will be a meeting with Ms. Floreen's staff on January
18 at 8 a.m. Beth will try to attend.
Stormwater
Tour
This spring we are
working to kick off our stormwater tour effort. Alison is
arranging the first
group. She will also review a draft of
the tour book that Ed prepared.
Outreach Committee
Survey
The meeting closed with
the committee discussing the Outreach Committee survey.
Marshall and Alison explained the purpose. The results of the
discussion are shown below.
Attendees:
Ed
Murtagh
Marshall Johnson
Diane Cameron
Jenny Reed
Beth
Chaisson
Alessandra Sagasti
Alison Gillespie
Daphne
Pee
Sally Benjamin
Charlie Garlow (guest)
Outreach Survey to
Committees
Questions for Committees
1. What are
your objectives for the coming year? What activities do you
know you are doing? What activities are you thinking of doing?
What activities do you dream about doing?
Please include
concrete numbers where possible, such as number of volunteer
projects
you'd like your committee to accomplish, number of walks
conducted, etc.
The Stormwater Committee will continue with
its efforts in outreach, advocacy and implementing showcase LID
projects. We would like to significantly increase outreach
efforts to complement the County's Clean Water Initiatives.
Activities we know we are doing:
--Continuing to
develop of partnership with Northwood High School (outreach and LID
showcases.)
--Developing a stormwater tour for the watershed.
Do a pilot tour this spring.
--Maintenance efforts on the rain
gardens at Eastern Middle School.
Activities we are thinking
of doing:
--Implementing a partnership agreement with Blair
High School (LID projects and outreach).
--Continuing our
partnership with the City of Takoma Park. Installing a showcase
LID project at Spring Park in the City of Takoma Park.
--Installing
showcase rain gardens at homes.
--Increasing public speaking
at homeowner associations, civic groups, schools, garden/landscaping
organizations, and builder organizations.
--Working on getting
grant money for professional support for our committee's
efforts.
What activities to do dream about doing?
--Nice
newsletter on stormwater related issues. The newsletter would
be tied to our outreach and advocacy efforts. This could work
well as an inter-watershed group effort.
-- Helping set up teams
of students (from Horticulture Programs at Blair and Northwood) who
will design, install and maintain rain gardens in our watershed. This
could be a good summer job opportunity. This would need to be
coordinated with the Clean Water Initiative funding.
2. How many volunteer hours do you think are needed for
these activities? Please be specific about what level of
expertise you would like volunteers to possess.
--Unlimited.
Very large number. The committee is looking into getting
professional support to implement and coordinating our many
activities.
3. What tools will you need to reach your goals?
(This can include tools such as technical, database management,
particular subject expertise, etc.)
--Training in
bio-retention design (Train the Trainer type).
--Updates to
the website. Use Landscape Architect to provide educational
diagrams for LID installations.
--Print out Tour
book.
--Stormwater Newsletter (some paper copies).
--Weed
wench.
4. What educational message do you want people to take
home to their own backyard?
Stepping away from specific activities
now: Think of this question as if you were given an opportunity
to explain to every citizen in the watershed, in 1 minute, why the
work your committee does is important and what you want them to know
about it.
--Homeowners can help their local environment
(Sligo Creek, wildlife, air quality, heat island effect) by using
environmentally beneficial landscaping practices in their backyard.
I would hope that this short message would lead them to learn more
about trees, rain gardens and green roofs.
5. Who do you think
your target audiences will be for the coming year? Are you trying to
reach: Friends members? Park users? Citizens in the
watershed? Your message to each group might be
different.
--Teachers and students
--Civic associations
and groups
--Garden Clubs
--Landscaping
professionals
--Builders