The Harris Creek Watershed Project has come a long way,but it still needs to go much further. It was helped greatly this week with a meeting that focused on the amount of illegal trash dumping on vacant lots,especially in the middle of the 246 Watershed. Input from over 400 completed Survey Questionnaires as well as input from listening to residents from the 17 Community Neighborhood Associations identified this as their number one problem. Despair from inability to do anything about the chronic problem was to be a concern that the 246 Watershed needed to address. Yes,this is a Watershed Project with a Stormwater Plan when completed....and Yes,we want to prevent the trash from coming down into the Baltimore Harbor........but,even more important,the 246 Watershed is interested in going after this illegal trash dumping as an Injustice to the Community and Advocating for a Program to quickly clean the trash up and to develop aggressive measures to prevent it from happening. Plans are under way to coordinate the efforts of many to bring this about. Engaging our Citizens at a deeper level of committment is a way to strenghen the Community of 17 Neighborhoods needed in this 246 Watershed Effort. The Clean "Harbor" comes only after we prevent permanently the illegal trash dumping from taking place on vacant lots and in vacant buildings in the Harris Creek Watershed. We are deeply appreciative of the role of Baltimore City Housing Department and their Code Enforcement Division as well as the Baltimore City Department of Public Works and their Cleaner,Greener Program,Solid Waste Program,Community Education Program etc As initially stated,we still have a long way to go......but the Direction is now clearer.
Respectfully for the Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association,the Parks and People Foundation,the Center for Watershed Protection,Raymond D.Bahr MD Harris Creek Watershed Program Coordinator
The Journey to the Harris Creek Watershed Plan
Creating Community by promoting Justice
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Trash HearingsCity Hall March 9,2010
Trash in the Baltimore Harbor was the Topic of Discussion. The Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association (BHWA) presented evidence that 5 Tons of Trash was being delivered each month to the Baltimore Harbor at the Outflow along the 2700 block of Boston Street (across from the Safeway). To investigate this,the BHWA obtained Funding to do the Harris Creek Watershed Project (HCWP). This includes 17 Neighborhoods and 2 great Parks and covers 1270 acres and has a population about 44,000 residents.
The Question that we raised was,"How do we bring about a Community of these Neighborhoods to address this Pollution of the Harbor? How do we deal with the tremendous Diversity existing in these Neighborhoods medium income 44K vrs 6 K unemployment 6% vrs 40-50% African American population of 10% vrs 65% ? This is and always will be our Challenge. Intetresting enough,these 17 Neighborhoods are connected beneath the surface of the street by 55 miles of storm drains that lead down into the Baltimore Harbor.
This Problem would seem like a "slam dunk" to solve. Reduce the Trash and find ways of recycling as much as possible. Find ways to get the storm water to go into the ground rather than onto impervious surfaces (concrete and asphalt streets). Could we change culture by education alone? No,and we knew that going into the Project. We planned to "Listen to the residents" to see what their Issues were and what their Priorities were. We prepared a Survey Questionnaire to get this Input and we went further by going to all the Community Neighborhood Association Meetings and listened further to their Issues.
What did we find? We found out that the Input from the 400 completed Questionnaires that Trash was their number one concern and that it was more than Trash,bur Illegal Trash Dumping on Vacant Lots and Buildings within their Neighborhoods. We began to study this and took photos of this Illegal Practice. We were amazed at the amount of this Trash Dumping and that the"crys for help" were often times neglected or treated lightly and with disrespect. We remembered the saying that'"Bad things happen to poor people". They get dumped upon. They are most vulnerable and their voices are not often heard. They needed people to advocate for them. This is a form of Environmental Injustice and should not be tolerated. We needed to correct this in order to get the trust of the residents if we wanted to clean up the Trash in the Harbor. How can we do so?
It was our initial plan to develop the concept of a "landkeeper" who would be the middle person between the residents and the City,but we discovered that the City through the Housing Department had already began an aggressive approach to this Illegal Dumping. We pointed out that this was Great but it could be greatly improved with a few changes. We are planning now to work and tweak this a little to do even a better job. We are very optimistic about rapidly accomplishing our Goal to reduce significantly the Trash going into the Baltimore Harbor.
"Veni,Vidi,Vici" We have found where a major part of the Trash to the Baltimore Harbor is coming from. It is coming from the middle part of the 246 Watershed where their are many Vacant Lots and Vacant Buildings.....and it is coming from Illegal Dumping of the Trash on these sites. We hope to now work close;y with the Housing Department and Department of Public Works to put into place a Plan that will aggressively attack this Problem. If so,we should start to see a significant reduction in the 5 Tons of Trash each month entering the Baltimore Harbor. Ray Bahr MD Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association
Coordinator Harris Creek Watershed Project
The Question that we raised was,"How do we bring about a Community of these Neighborhoods to address this Pollution of the Harbor? How do we deal with the tremendous Diversity existing in these Neighborhoods medium income 44K vrs 6 K unemployment 6% vrs 40-50% African American population of 10% vrs 65% ? This is and always will be our Challenge. Intetresting enough,these 17 Neighborhoods are connected beneath the surface of the street by 55 miles of storm drains that lead down into the Baltimore Harbor.
This Problem would seem like a "slam dunk" to solve. Reduce the Trash and find ways of recycling as much as possible. Find ways to get the storm water to go into the ground rather than onto impervious surfaces (concrete and asphalt streets). Could we change culture by education alone? No,and we knew that going into the Project. We planned to "Listen to the residents" to see what their Issues were and what their Priorities were. We prepared a Survey Questionnaire to get this Input and we went further by going to all the Community Neighborhood Association Meetings and listened further to their Issues.
What did we find? We found out that the Input from the 400 completed Questionnaires that Trash was their number one concern and that it was more than Trash,bur Illegal Trash Dumping on Vacant Lots and Buildings within their Neighborhoods. We began to study this and took photos of this Illegal Practice. We were amazed at the amount of this Trash Dumping and that the"crys for help" were often times neglected or treated lightly and with disrespect. We remembered the saying that'"Bad things happen to poor people". They get dumped upon. They are most vulnerable and their voices are not often heard. They needed people to advocate for them. This is a form of Environmental Injustice and should not be tolerated. We needed to correct this in order to get the trust of the residents if we wanted to clean up the Trash in the Harbor. How can we do so?
It was our initial plan to develop the concept of a "landkeeper" who would be the middle person between the residents and the City,but we discovered that the City through the Housing Department had already began an aggressive approach to this Illegal Dumping. We pointed out that this was Great but it could be greatly improved with a few changes. We are planning now to work and tweak this a little to do even a better job. We are very optimistic about rapidly accomplishing our Goal to reduce significantly the Trash going into the Baltimore Harbor.
"Veni,Vidi,Vici" We have found where a major part of the Trash to the Baltimore Harbor is coming from. It is coming from the middle part of the 246 Watershed where their are many Vacant Lots and Vacant Buildings.....and it is coming from Illegal Dumping of the Trash on these sites. We hope to now work close;y with the Housing Department and Department of Public Works to put into place a Plan that will aggressively attack this Problem. If so,we should start to see a significant reduction in the 5 Tons of Trash each month entering the Baltimore Harbor. Ray Bahr MD Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association
Coordinator Harris Creek Watershed Project
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