Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
me nearly full blown during a conversation with Mark Terry, principal town planner
for Southold, which is a small town in northeastern Long Island, New York. I envi-
sioned a vegetated swale with native plants, permeable pavement, and educational
signage explaining the need for non-point-source stormwater management in private
and public places. I felt the transformation of neglected spaces into public outreach
parks could inspire community involvement with stormwater issues.
Mark called this merger of functional restoration and aesthetics my brainchild,
suggesting I trademark this name. This brainchild was not easy to bring to life, how-
ever, especially with an artist as the lead agent. The first effort in Mattituck was a con-
tinuous learning process, taking more than two years to complete. Two more chal-
lenging projects will likely take much longer: WATERWASH™ ABC on the Bronx
River is beginning construction in summer 2011 after 18 months of development,
and another project at Goldsmith Inlet continues in the planning stages.
Initially, I had planned to focus on Great Pond and its wetlands, a maritime fresh-
water interdunal swale area near my home in Southold. In 2005, I led a successful
community effort to preserve the area and prevent further development. Subse-
quently, I was appointed to serve on the town's land preservation committee. Harper
Preserve, a twelve-acre site near Great Pond, was the subject of “Leap of Faith,” an
ecological video installation and my first body of artwork with serious environmental
content. The native cranberries (
Vaccinium
spp.) and threatened slender blue iris (
Iris
prismatica
) found there provided source material for GO ECO, an interactive, edu-
cational tool based on the ancient Asian game of Go. Preservation and restoration pro-
cesses also helped structure another “serious learning game,” GO Doñana, about the
UNESCO wetlands south of Seville, Spain (see chap. 6, this volume).
However, the worst stormwater spots around Great Pond were on private property
and were not widely accessible for outreach opportunities. I met with the stormwater
committee and visited many sites before settling on a town-owned boat ramp on the
Mattituck Inlet, which feeds into Long Island Sound. It had a serious grading problem
that allowed County Route 48 road runoff to scour ditches alongside the boat ramp,
flowing directly into the inlet and washing out the smooth cordgrass (
Spartina aterni-
flora
) growing there. Common reed (
Phragmites australis
) was overtaking the dis-
turbed shoreline, further degrading the area.
I approached many local scientists and stormwater experts with the WATER-
WASH™ concept and found solid response to my ideas. Previous projects using the
ecological restoration approach had proven the validity of low-tech solutions carefully
applied to specific stormwater problems. Scientists from Cornell Cooperative Exten-
sion, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the New York State Depart-
ment of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Restoration, Stormwater, and Shellfish
departments all contributed to developing the site plan and interpretive signage.
Many meetings with town officials and the stormwater committee resulted in only
lukewarm reception because there were places with more serious stormwater prob-
lems. But there was enough support from the town board to approve our application
with its educational component for a matching grant from the Long Island Sound
Study. When we actually received the grant, the challenges intensified. Eventually,
the town admitted it could not fulfill its matching obligations in the midst of eco-
