Completing the First Leg of the Harris Creek Watershed Project

The Strategy from the beginning for the Stormwater Project in the Harris Creek Watershed was to not only educate the residents about Trash and Pollution and the implementation of Best Management Practices,but also to deeply engage the residents by identifing Issues that were more of a concern to them.Many of these Issues had to do with Environmental Injustice. An example here is the pollution of a stormwater drain located at the Baltimore Recycling Plant. This Business recieves the demolition material from the houses being torn down North of Johns Hopkins to make way for new development. MDE was notified and after inspection,found the Plant to be in Violation and as a result now requires certain conditions to be carried out while undergoing periodic inspection. The Community Associations in the 17 Neighborhoods in the Harris Creek Watershed noticed this accomplishment. The more deeply the Project gets involved like this,the more chance we have of giving Sustainabilty to the Project.

The Masterplan continues.............We worked with the Environmental Justice Partnership at Johns Hoplkins to set up the Watershed Project at the Community Outreach Stand at the Northeast Market, both in November and December and were successful in obtaining more than 100 completed Questionnaires on the Harris Creek Watershed. Incidentally,this was the exact Questionnaire given out by the DPW at the recent educational conference at the Rowing Club. We are trying to see if we can add the DPW completed ones to our numbers. The next step is to present what we are doing in the Watershed Project to all of the 17 Community Asssociation Meetings in January. We plan to get more Community Input through handing out and completing the Watershed Questionnaire. At these meetings,we will try and identify Stakeholders that will come to our First Workshop scheduled for Saturday Feb.13,2010 at St.Casimir's in Canton. The Center for Watershed Protection will be responsible for setting up the Program Agenda for this Meeting. The Parks nd People Foundation will gather up all the Questionnaires (hopefully 600-800) and subject them to Analysis for Presentation at the Workshop. The Department of Public Works will be asked to participate as a Partner. This is being coordinated by the Batimore Harbor Watershed Association.

This Workshop,as well as several others to follow will enable us to write a Stormwater Plan for the Harris Creek Watershed and will thus complete the First Leg of the Journey to reduce significantly Trash and Pollution coming out of the Harris Creek Outflow Drain located on Boston Steet next to the Anchorage Towers. Presently,we are collecting 5 Tons of Trash each month. If we are successful here,we can take this Model around to the other 26 Outlets in the Baltimore Harbor and one day see a Healthy and Clean Harbor that is fishable and Swimmable.

We are proud that the BHWA is in sight of seeing the First Leg of the Harris Creek Watershed Stormwater Project completed. Thanks to Phillip Stafford from Parks and People Foundation and Donna Kirsh from the Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association for contributing so much to make this dream possible. Raymond D.Bahr MD Coordinator of the Harris Creek Watershed Project.