In New York state, the largest source of pollution is stormwater. It’s a problem more and more residents of Monroe County are gradually learning to address, thanks to an aggressive public education and involvement program that builds on existing initiatives and makes the most out of partnerships.
The county’s strong push for stormwater education is largely driven by the desire to protect water resources, according to Todd Stevenson, a planner for the county Department of Environmental Services.
“People really care about our water resources, and they want to see them protected and improved,” says Stevenson, who oversees the public education task force for the Monroe County Stormwater Coalition. “It’s a matter of focusing the efforts in the right place.
“There’s a long tradition of towns and villages working together on a variety of different issues, including water quality. We’ve made a lot of progress in water pollution, but urban stormwater runoff is a big issue that we have to tackle.”
Tackling it head on
To address the issue head on, the county formed the stormwater coalition in 2000. The action coincides with the state’s implementation of the EPA’s NPDES stormwater permitting program, which calls for communities with municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s) to comply with New York state’s Phase II stormwater regulations.
The coalition is a partnership of 25 towns and villages, as well as the county Department of Transportation and the Rochester Pure Waters District, in conjunction with the Monroe County Department of Environmental Services. Another member is the State University of New York-Brockport.
To manage the collective effort, the coalition created task groups to focus on specific issues. The groups include Education and Public Participation, Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination (which also oversees work related to pollution prevention and good housekeeping), and Construction Site Stormwater Runoff Control and Post-Construction Management.
The groups have their hands full, as stormwater runoff makes up 63.3 percent of the pollution in the state’s waters, excluding atmospheric deposition and contaminated sediment. In Monroe County, runoff is the source of 80 percent of the water problems.
That’s not to say that the county hasn’t worked on the problem. In fact, the county has placed special emphasis on water quality because of the presence of Lake Ontario and the Genesee River Watershed. Through the years, a variety of programs have led to significant improvements in the Rochester Embayment, the Genesee River and Irondequoit Bay. Yet the NPDES regulations drove the need for the stormwater coalition.
“The towns and villages felt that implementing their own education program would not be efficient or effective, which is why we decided to come together,” Stevenson says.
Reaching out
At the outset, the coalition identified a variety of programs launched before 2000 that could be strengthened with its financial support. An example is a citizen stream-monitoring program. Funding that popular program makes sense, Stevenson says, but stormwater education dictates a different strategy.
“Our focus is on projects and programs that are more sustainable and reach a bigger audience,” he says. “It’s a great way to get people involved, but it doesn’t reach the number of people we need to reach.”
In keeping with its partnership approach, the coalition teamed with the Water Education Collaborative (WEC) and the Ad Council of Rochester to develop a media campaign. Formed in 2001, WEC is a coalition of organizations working to advance water quality education. The Ad Council is a nonprofit collaborative of local businesses and volunteers and provides marketing and communications programs for nonprofits.
The first step in the media campaign involved a 2006 telephone survey, in which only 33 percent of those surveyed understood that stormwater is discharged to the nearest waterway without being treated. Only 18 percent knew that urban stormwater runoff was a primary source of water pollution.
“That made it clear we had a lot of work to do,” Stevenson says. “We needed to start at the very beginning and teach people how the plumbing of the storm system works and explain that anything that goes down the drain ends up in the nearest waterways.”
H2O Hero
The coalition decided early on that media would help spread the word. However, it first needed an identity. For that, it looked to WEC and the Ad Council, along with a professional marketing firm. Together, the group developed H2O Hero, an animated character created by internationally known illustrator David Cowles.
The H2O Hero character, named Larry, is the focal point of the campaign. The idea is that anyone can be an H2O hero, since everyone “has the power” to improve the county’s waterways.
With H2O Hero and clear messages established, the coalition and its partners moved forward with a multimedia campaign, which includes a Web site aimed at stormwater and water quality education. H2O Hero is at the heart of the campaign, which is funded with help from a grant obtained by the Ad Council.
The coalition also took advantage of the Ad Council’s bank of donated ad space. All told, donated space amounted to $139,000, versus $30,000 of paid space.
The advertising campaign, launched in 2007, communicatesa basic message about stormwater pollution and directs people to the H2O Hero Web site. Ideally, it will also move people to act. However, Stevenson says the coalition and its partners are fully aware of advertising’s limitations.
“We knew a mass media campaign is a great thing to do, but that it was not going to be enough,” he says. “There’s only so much you can say in 30 seconds and only so much information people can absorb when they look at ads.”
Volunteerism at its best
To supplement its media campaign, the coalition again looks to partnerships. The strategy capitalizes on the county’s tradition of volunteers working on water quality. “We try to look out in the community and see who else has an interest in our issue,” Stevenson says. “If they do, we partner with them instead of doing our own thing. There are a lot of resources out there and we just don’t have the funds to be reinventing all sorts of wheels.”
One partner is the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Monroe County. The coalition contracted with CCE to give school and community presentations on how to cut stormwater pollution. It also contracted with WEC to give stormwater presentations in schools. Each year, about 8,000 students and residents take part in stormwater education presentations and events, typically featuring a demonstration of a watershed model and emphasizing opportunities to volunteer.
The programs also supplement volunteer efforts of groups such as the local Boy Scouts. So far, groups of citizens have adopted and monitored more than 100 streams. Volunteers also help to spread the word about stormwater pollution.
In all, volunteers have installed as many as 3,500 H2O Hero storm drain markers and distributed 40,000 door hangers. The door hangers, in the shape of a fish, outline behaviors that help minimize stormwater pollution.
In the meantime, the coalition takes partnerships and volunteerism to even higher levels with aggressive education initiatives, as well as an assortment of programs targeted at specific groups. Stevenson says the volunteer efforts, combined with the media campaign, create momentum for change.
“If people understand the basics of stormwater, they can educate each other,” he says. “If I’m a homeowner and I understand the issue, and I see my neighbor dumping old paint down the drain, I’ll know that’s a bad thing and I can talk to them about that.”
Addressing illicit discharges
Monroe County is also pushing forward on other MS4 Phase II stormwater compliance measures. It is making notable headway with IDDE initiatives, particularly in mapping and inspecting stormwater outfalls.
To better manage outfalls, the coalition provides technical assistance to members as a shared service. As of fall 2008, the coalition and participating members mapped 98.1 percent of the outfalls and inspected 2,400 of the 7,400 outfalls. The inspections identify indicators of possible illicit discharges. In all, the inspections revealed 188 cross-connects with sanitary sewers.
“We’ve learned that illicit discharges are much more widespread than we thought,” Stevenson says. “Many towns and villages thought they didn’t have a problem. However, we’ve found significant numbers of illicit discharges in all types of areas.”
In response, the coalition developed a model ordinance that prohibits illicit discharges, which the municipalities adopted. Moving forward, the coalition is addressing transitory sources of illicit discharges, such as illegal dumping.
Construction runoff
The coalition is also making progress on construction site stormwater runoff by working closely with the Monroe County Soil & Water Conservation District and others.
Here, initiatives range from educational literature to work geared to ensuring that developers adopt best management practices, such as minimizing site disturbance, installing silt fencing, reestablishing vegetation, and creating sedimentation basins.
Under contract with the coalition, the district also provides technical assistance to member municipalities, reviewing development plans, inspecting construction sites, and providing training. Other initiatives include retrofits to facilities such as stormwater basins. Retrofits may involve modifications to the structure or regrading facilities so that they function as stormwater wetlands.
The coalition and its partners also work on new approaches to dealing with construction site runoff. One tactic involves creation of rain gardens. Two rain gardens were built in 2007, and the City of Rochester later created several more.
As with IDDE, the coalition’s task group also created two model ordinances. The efforts are producing results, but not without hurdles. “One of our biggest challenges is ensuring developer compliance with the erosion-control requirements,” Stevenson says. “It requires a lot of staff time to do inspections and the necessary follow-up.”
Making a difference
The challenge of getting developers to adopt best practices is a prime example of the coalition’s bigger challenge: time and money. “I think it’s an extraordinary thing that all of these municipalities have all been able to work together through the coalition,” Stevenson says. “There are a lot of people working together, and they’ve done a fantastic job of pooling resources so they can be most effective.”
Moving forward, Stevenson says a major focus is funding. The coalition is discussing the concept of a countywide stormwater district, which would collect a fee for shared services provided by the coalition. For now, the coalition will continue doing what it does best: facilitating the sharing of resources, leveraging partnerships, and building on existing programs and expertise.
It’s a strategy that works, but Stevenson points out that it all hinges on the desire to make a difference. “It’s not just about complying with a bunch of regulations,” he says. “People really care about our waterways and want to do a great job.”
