Community Organizing of the Harris Creek Watershed

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

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

Workshop Outcome of the Harris Creek Watershed Feb.20,2010

The Workshop was successful in addressing Trash that was coming from Illegal Dumping on Vacant Lots and in Vacant Houses. Most of this was taking place in the middle part of the Harris Creek Watershed. The Community of 17 Neighborhoods appears to be coming together to be a spokesperson for this injustice. Calling 311,even though considered by the City DPW the procedure to do,just does not seem to be working. This Information was obtained from over 400 Questionnaires completed within the Watershed. It was learned that the City Housing Department has hired a number of Code Enforcement Officers whose job it is to go after Trash Violators. The number of Citations has more than doubled within the last six months. Community Leaders are asking that residents be able to directly work with these Housing Inspectors to get better results in cleaning Trash from our streets. We will attempt to do this at the next Trash Hearings at City Hall under Councilperson James Kraft's direction. This may turn out to be a Win-Win-Win situation. What is very much needed in these Neighborhoods is to restore the Trust that was lost by inaction and abuse over the years. It is the Plan of the Harris Creek Watershed to regain this Trust by action steps that will bring about Environmental Justice. The Community of Neighborhoods will then develop into a strong Watershed Association that can address Trash in all aspects and give Sustainability to the Watershed Project. We are gathering and asssessing the feedback information from the Workshop and shortly will be setting up the second Workshop to be conducted in about six weeks. Stay tuned in! Respectfully,Raymond D.Bahr MD BHWA

Cancelation of the Harris Creek Watershed Workshop Feb.13,2010

Snow.....Snow.....Snow.......and more to come.
The Harris Creek Watershed Workshop scheduled for this Saturday Fe.13 has to be canceled due to the Snow. It is being rescheduled for the following Saturday Feb.20,2010. Despite our excitement about this Conference,we could not ignore the obvious. People would put themselves at Risk,and this we did not want to chance this. We are planning to have it at St.Anthony's Hall at St Casimir's Church,but we need to confirm this. Stay tuned and if you have Questions,call me at 410-534-7655 or e-mail me at RDB60@aol.com.
We are excited because of the possible of New Initiatives that would include (1) a Landkeeper position who would work with City Housing to reduce trash violations and do Justice to these Neighborhoods (2) Hoop Greenhouse Farming that could make fresh produce available all year round at the City Schools and provide Education,Environment intoduction and "Green"jobs. This would enhance Proper Nutrition and help to offset Childhood Obesity and Adult onset Diabetes. (3) adoption of the "Humane Metropolis Baltimore" Initiative as advanced by Parks and People Foundation. (4) Facilitating the Community of 17 Neighborhoods in coming together with a StormWater Plan for the Harris Creek Watershed. Thus,You can see why we are Excited to have this Workshop. Respectfully,Raymond D.Bahr MD BHWA

Workshop for the Harris Creek Watershed (246) Project

The First Workshop for the Harris Creek Watershed Stormwater Project will take place Saturday February 13 from 9 AM to 1 PM at St.Anthony's Hall in Casinmir's Parish on the corner of O'Donnell and Kenwood Ave. Come, share in the excitement of this Project that is aimed at cleaning up City streets and preventing Trash from going into the Baltimore Harbor. This has been a "listening project" for us in that we discovered that years of abuse and illegal dumping on vacant lots had eroded the trust residents had for the City. It became obvious that we could not just push the Trash Problem unless we undertook the task to understand the injustice issues confronting residents in the Harris Creek Watershed. We could only build real Community by promoting Justice. On february 13,we (the BHWA) will be discussing our Mission,our Strategy and our Plans that will enable us to make this a Win-Win-Win situation for all concerned. Join us as we tackle the issues that divide us so that we can identify the concerns that bring us together. Success here will have us wind up with a Cleaner City and a Cleaner Baltimore Harbor. Raymond D.Bahr MD Harris Creek Coordinator BHWA 2/3/10

Neighborhoods in the Harris Creek Watershed

The Harris Creek Watershed consists of two Parks,Clifton Park and Patterson Park as well as 16 Neighborhoods. These are as follows,

Darley Park

South Clifton Park

Four by Four

Oliver

Broadway East

Berea

Biddle Street

Middle East

Milton-Montford

Madison Eastend

McElderry Park

Patterson Place

Butchers Hill

Baltimore Linwood

Canton

Ellwood Park/Monument


These Neighborhoods will be visited by Phillip Stafford (Parks and People Foundation) and Ray Bahr (BHWA) in the month of January 2010. Input from the Survey Questionnaires will be obtained. 2-4 Stakeholders from these Neighborhoods will be asked to attend our First Workshop to be held Saturday February 13 9-12 at St.Casimir's Hall in Canton.

Ray Bahr BHWA

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.