The Importance of Volunteers
From students to senior citizens, stormwater programs get help from the community.
When it comes to protecting the waterways, wetlands, and watersheds of the country, volunteers are critical.
Just ask Rick Green, the government services director of the Upper Savannah Council of Governments, a planning and development organization serving six counties in South Carolina. One of his jobs is to coordinate the efforts of the Upper Savannah Senior Environment Corps, a volunteer program that relies on the efforts of senior citizens to tackle several environmental problems in the region.
Since the spring of 2006, the group’s members have been working on a large storm drain tagging project. Its goal is to spread the word that when Upper Savannah residents let oil and other pollution flow into their closest storm drains, they are actually sending that debris into the streams and waterways that nourish the region.
For Green, though, the main benefit of groups like the senior corps is education: Members talk to their neighbors, their children, and their grandchildren about the importance of keeping the region’s bodies of water clean. These people then talk to their friends, family members, and coworkers. Before long, the message is spread to an ever-growing network of residents who may now think twice before letting motor oil drain down their driveways and into their municipality’s storm sewer system.
“It’s so important to spread the word,” Green says. “And volunteers do a good job with that. Not only do people see the storm drain tags; they hear about the project from people they know. That’s valuable.”
The Upper Savannah Senior Environment Corps, fortunately, is just one of a large number of volunteer groups across the country whose members are working to keep the nation’s streams, rivers, creeks, lakes, and ponds clean. Some groups focus on storm drain marking. Others send volunteers armed with hip waders and test tubes deep into watersheds to test water quality. Others ask their members to speak in schools, while still others concentrate on raising much-needed dollars to preserve rivers and wetlands.
Not only are these groups a good way to get ordinary people involved in stormwater issues, but they also provide an opportunity for cities and counties to meet one of the minimum control measures of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Phase II requirements.
Phase II permits require that cities and counties feature programs that educate the public about the effects of stormwater discharges on receiving waters. The programs must also offer suggestions on what individuals can do to prevent stormwater pollution.
The permits also include a participation and involvement requirement. Municipalities, then, need to create procedures that give members of the public the chance to participate in developing and implementing their local stormwater programs.
These requirements are not easy to meet. It’s often difficult to get members of the public interested in stormwater issues. After all, the topic is hardly trendy or intriguing to most people. Municipalities often try educating the public through Web sites, public service announcements, newspaper columns and advertisements, speeches to school groups, and other measures.
But the most powerful tool many communities have are the many volunteer groups whose members are already committed to working on environmental and stormwater issues. After all, the people working with such groups are already attuned to the importance of clean stormwater runoff. They are more likely to want to spread the word and, if possible, increase awareness among their neighbors and coworkers.
The number of grassroots groups seems to be on the rise. We spoke with the people involved with several of these groups about their importance and their ability to spread the message about stormwater runoff. The future of grassroots involvement looks strong.
Protecting the Environment in Maine
As education and outreach coordinator for the Knox-Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District, Fletcher Meyers depends on community volunteers.
When Meyers needs to be reminded of just how important these volunteers are, he simply thinks back to the conservation fair his district holds every year.
The Knox-Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District, based in Warren, ME, runs several programs designed to promote water and land conservation, including water-quality studies, trout stocking, workshops, and annual poster contests. One of its most important outreach programs is its yearly conservation fair.
During the fair, a series of presenters runs displays and workshops focusing on the importance to the region of agriculture, forestry, water quality, and marine resources. Every year, from 900 to 1,000 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade attend the fair. Officials with the conservation district could not even consider running the fair without help from volunteers. Fortunately, about 40 volunteers came out for the district’s most recent event.
“You can imagine the logistics of running a fair like that,” Meyers says. “We have not only us but 40 other organizations that are represented at the fair. It’s very impressive how the volunteers make that work. It is times like this when I realize just how dedicated our volunteers are.”
Of course, Meyers would like to see even more volunteers support the event and the other projects the conservation district runs. Such organizations can always use more help from the community.
“The volunteers are very important because they show the commitment that the community has to the cause,” Meyers says. “It’s important for other people to see that there are people in the community who are donating their time to support our efforts. That shows that these efforts are worthwhile. And, hopefully, it inspires even more volunteers to get involved.”
When he spoke with Stormwater, Meyers was busy writing a press release. He admits, though, that he’s not the best person to take on such a job. He’d rather see a volunteer with writing or news experience tackle it instead.
So, yes, there are always other volunteer opportunities at the district.
“I think the key thing with volunteers is that they help spread the word in small communities,” Meyers says. “It creates a buzz. They also help bring an understanding to our organization about what is going on in the community. They bring their own input to our organization. They’ll ask, ‘Why don’t we talk about this? Isn’t this a better location to have this event? Are you aware that this is going on?’ Having a healthy volunteer base integrates every organization deeper into the community.”
Monitoring Water Quality in Florida
Felicia Boyd has long been proud of her volunteers. But in the summer of 2006, she had even greater reason to appreciate their efforts.
That’s when the Duval County Watershed Action Volunteers group that she coordinates worked with third- and fourth-grade students from inner-city neighborhoods in Florida to mark storm drains that empty into the twisting St. Johns River.
“I think lessons like that really stay with those children, and our volunteers helped make it happen,” Boyd says. “We have a group of volunteers that will take some of these inner-city children out on a boat so that they can actually see where the river goes. They can then understand that there is more to the river than whatever passes by their town. I think that leads to them appreciating, and caring for, the river.”
The Duval County group is just one of several Watershed Action Volunteers organizations that work to keep the watershed along the St. Johns River healthy. The St. Johns River Water Management District—which is the parent organization of the action volunteers groups—encompasses 18 counties in northeast and east-central Florida.
Boyd estimates that her particular group counts 65 active volunteers, a mix of people ranging from high school students to senior citizens. These volunteers walk the watershed to perform water-quality monitoring. Others monitor the amount and health of submerged aquatic vegetation in the watershed. Still others speak to local elementary school students, presenting interactive programs that focus on water pollution, conservation, and environmental events.
“Our goal is to create more awareness of the river and how people can negatively impact it if they’re not careful,” Boyd says. “There is a river here, and that brings personal responsibilities. We are trying to reach as many people as possible. We want to reach the average citizen who is not aware that they can have an impact on a waterway.”
Boyd’s challenge lies in matching her volunteers with the opportunities that are right for them. For example, one of her recent volunteers, an elderly woman, came to Boyd shortly after the woman’s husband had died. The woman wanted to get involved in her community but wasn’t sure of how she could do so.
The woman was quiet and therefore wasn’t interested in speaking or putting on presentations at local elementary schools. Boyd steered her toward more appropriate activities. The woman first helped out with the Duval County water-quality monitoring program. She helped mark storm drains and even worked in the office doing administrative work. She has since blossomed with the group and now runs nature tours in addition to other volunteer work. Now in her third year of working with the Watershed Action Volunteers, she has become a passionate advocate and supporter of the St. Johns River.
Such volunteers are an important tool in educating the public about their waterways, Boyd says.
“We do a lot of programs, such as storm drain marking, in the neighborhoods. That helps. It gets other homeowners involved when they see all these volunteers out there working. Once the homeowners are involved, they can police around an area. They might tell someone that they aren’t supposed to litter by a storm drain. They spread the word.”
Friends of the Watershed
The Cedar River Watershed is an important one for Seattle residents: A majority of the city’s potable drinking water comes from it, with the Cedar River Water Treatment Plant providing about 70% of Seattle’s drinking water. It’s crucial, then, for the watershed from which this water comes to remain healthy.
That’s the goal of Friends of the Cedar River Watershed, a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the watershed. Based in the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, located just east of the city of North Bend and about 32 miles from downtown Seattle, the group tackled a host of projects in 2006. It planted 4,180 conifers, cottonwoods, and other native plants on decommissioned forest roads along streams and wetlands; cleared 4 acres of logging slash by hand to encourage elk migration and promote the growth of native plants; and cleared 22,000 square feet of invasive plants in the watershed’s Rattlesnake Lake Recreation Area.
The group’s members also took on several education and outreach efforts, attempts to inform other Seattle-area residents of the importance of their home watershed. A highlight? The group, along with other community partners, provided 22 hours of training to naturalists last year. Naturalists learned about the life cycle of the salmon that swim through the Cedar River, studied the basics of putting together engaging interpretative talks for the public, and discussed ways in which they could encourage citizens to help keep the salmon population strong.
The group would not have accomplished nearly as much, though, without the help of its volunteers, says Sue Rooney, executive director of Friends of the Cedar River Watershed.
“We have 85-year-old volunteers and eight-year-old volunteers,” Rooney says. “We call on our volunteers regularly. We pull the groups together and then match their capabilities with the projects going on in the watershed. We really do rely on our volunteers.”
Rooney isn’t just saying this. Last year, more than 400 volunteers worked on habitat restoration and salmon education projects, with many working inside the municipal watershed, an area that is not open to the unsupervised public. In all, volunteers donated about 3,000 hours of time to restoring the habitat and educating the public. Rooney estimates that her volunteers in 2006 did work equal to a year’s worth of service from one full-time and one half-time staff member.
This volunteer work not only benefits the watershed but also provides a valuable service to the men and women donating their time.
“The volunteers gain a comprehension about where their water comes from,” Rooney says. “There are only six watersheds in the country that supply a municipality with as much water as the Cedar River Watershed does. It’s important for the general public to know that a billion-dollar filtration plant isn’t necessary if we maintain the ecological preserve of the watershed itself.”
The Importance of Youth
For watersheds, streams, and rivers to remain healthy in the future, members of today’s younger generation must learn about, and appreciate, their importance. These students, after all, will be the environmentalists, scientists, and engineers of the future.
Fortunately, groups such as the Norcal Environmental Student Network are educating young people about just how important watersheds and waterways are to the health of the nation’s drinking water. Norcal, a division of the Secondary Environmental and Science Educators Institute in Carmichael, CA, coordinates environmental-based volunteer projects for high school and college students in central and northern California.
Norcal volunteers have tackled a host of environmental projects since the group’s inception. One of the most important, though, is the partnership it formed in 2002 with the US Army Corps of Engineers for a stewardship program to benefit Eastman Lake, located in the Sierra Foothills of California’s Madera County.
Since 2004, Norcal’s student volunteers have been developing a geographic information system (GIS) database for the land surrounding the lake. The volunteers, all from Madera- and Fresno-area high schools, have been using GIS units to input data points, along with recorded attribute information, into a database hosted by the Center for Advanced Research and Technology Charter High School in Fresno. So far, the students have created information databases for the area’s owl boxes, wooden duck boxes, lakeview trail, and buoys.
The Norcal program not only results in good environmental deeds but also instills in the students a sense of stewardship for waterways and watersheds, says Marc Epstein, the program’s executive director.
“It’s about getting students engaged in a hands-on way,” he says. “We give them exposure with real-life experiences, project-based learning, rather than going the book or classroom route. We are getting kids now who have had some experience with community-based programs. But this is more advanced. The kids in our program are getting more than just a teeny-tiny exercise. They are doing more than just putting in a few hours.”
Norcal has just initiated a new program to have its members care for and develop stewardship programs for Dry Creek, a winding creek that forms the boundary of the Rio Linda High School campus, located in the California municipality of Rio Linda. Students tackling this project are in the earliest stages of developing a plan for keeping the creek sustainable.
Projects like this, Epstein says, encourage students to not just pick up litter or pull weeds but actually ponder how their own and their classmates’ actions can seriously impact local waterways that are often taken for granted.
“We’re just starting from scratch with this program,” Epstein says. “We have about a dozen students, so far, interested in this. It is possible to get students to come out for something that’s not just a strictly class-based experience. This is a long-term project that will require real long-term thinking, and we are still getting students to come out.”
The students are seriously considering one possible solution to stop erosion at the site. They plan to plant vegetation that would stabilize the ground and encourage the dropping of sediments during any high-water events.
The students attracted to Norcal are a varied bunch. Many are already interested in the environment, with some dreaming of careers in which they can work daily on protecting watersheds and other natural resources. Others are looking for projects to pad their resumes. Still others want to hang out with their friends in a setting that their parents will appreciate more than afternoons at the local mall.
The students working on the Dry Creek project range in age from 15 to 17. To Epstein, it’s little surprising that such students are able not only to tackle a long-term problem but also to create viable solutions to it.
“I can see the capacity of students, if you mentor them properly and have confidence in them,” Epstein says. “I think you have to have a higher level of expectations than those that most educators have today. It’s gratifying to see what I have said for years is possible coming to fruition when everyone else says you’re nuts.”
The Other End of the Spectrum
While it’s important to get young people interested in protecting the nation’s waterways, it’s equally important for environmentalists to tap the resources of the fastest-growing segment of the country’s population: senior citizens. Fortunately, a wealth of volunteer groups made up of senior citizens is already making a difference.
Members of the Senior Environment Corps—with local groups, like the Upper Savannah group, across the country—are tackling energy conservation, environmental education, water-quality monitoring, storm drain marking, habitat restoration, and pollution prevention.
Center in the Park Senior Environment Corps, based at a senior citizens’ facility in Philadelphia, is a particularly active example. Fred Lewis, volunteer coordinator with the corps, says the group has about 30 volunteers. Working with a number of local agencies including the Philadelphia Water Department and the local office of the EPA, these volunteers focus especially on water quality, monitoring the health of the water at various sites around the city on a monthly basis. Group members test for high levels of nitrate, sulfate, phosphate, and, occasionally, bacteria. Members analyze the water at the laboratory of nearby Chestnut Hill College.
The group has made important contributions. For instance, at one site, group members about two years ago could smell the odor of sewage. When they tested the water, the volunteers found high levels of bacteria. The city’s water department then took steps to solve the problem.
For Lewis, this story and others like it justify the long hours he’s spent mucking around wetlands and juggling the needs of dozens of volunteers.
“When I retired, I wanted to do something that would keep me engaged, so I wouldn’t be sedentary,” Lewis says. “I decided to get involved with this. It had two purposes: It kept me interested and involved, but I also got the feeling that I was doing something constructive, making a contribution to the community. It was one of those rare things that you can find to satisfy yourself when you’re in retirement.”
Edward Chun, one of the busiest volunteers with Center in the Park, agrees. He’s a retired chemist and is happy to lend his expertise to the group.
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“Most of our seniors have not had a good chemistry background,” Chun says. “I felt that I should be there to give them assistance when they run their tests. The last thing I did before retiring was working on diagnostic kits for Hepatitis B used for screening blood transfusions. I thought my experience would be valuable to the group.”
Chun and Lewis offer further proof that the spirit of volunteerism is going strong. They’re also proof that volunteers, of any age, are another weapon in the fight to keep the nation’s waterways healthy and clean.
Author's Bio: Dan Rafter is a technical writer based in Illinois.
May 2007
The Importance of Volunteers
From students to senior citizens, stormwater programs get help from the community.
When it comes to protecting the waterways, wetlands, and watersheds of the country, volunteers are critical.
Just ask Rick Green, the government services director of the Upper Savannah Council of Governments, a planning and development organization serving six counties in South Carolina. One of his jobs is to coordinate the efforts of the Upper Savannah Senior Environment Corps, a volunteer program that relies on the efforts of senior citizens to tackle several environmental problems in the region.
Since the spring of 2006, the group’s members have been working on a large storm drain tagging project. Its goal is to spread the word that when Upper Savannah residents let oil and other pollution flow into their closest storm drains, they are actually sending that debris into the streams and waterways that nourish the region.
For Green, though, the main benefit of groups like the senior corps is education: Members talk to their neighbors, their children, and their grandchildren about the importance of keeping the region’s bodies of water clean. These people then talk to their friends, family members, and coworkers. Before long, the message is spread to an ever-growing network of residents who may now think twice before letting motor oil drain down their driveways and into their municipality’s storm sewer system.
“It’s so important to spread the word,” Green says. “And volunteers do a good job with that. Not only do people see the storm drain tags; they hear about the project from people they know. That’s valuable.”
The Upper Savannah Senior Environment Corps, fortunately, is just one of a large number of volunteer groups across the country whose members are working to keep the nation’s streams, rivers, creeks, lakes, and ponds clean. Some groups focus on storm drain marking. Others send volunteers armed with hip waders and test tubes deep into watersheds to test water quality. Others ask their members to speak in schools, while still others concentrate on raising much-needed dollars to preserve rivers and wetlands.
Not only are these groups a good way to get ordinary people involved in stormwater issues, but they also provide an opportunity for cities and counties to meet one of the minimum control measures of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Phase II requirements.
Phase II permits require that cities and counties feature programs that educate the public about the effects of stormwater discharges on receiving waters. The programs must also offer suggestions on what individuals can do to prevent stormwater pollution.
The permits also include a participation and involvement requirement. Municipalities, then, need to create procedures that give members of the public the chance to participate in developing and implementing their local stormwater programs.
These requirements are not easy to meet. It’s often difficult to get members of the public interested in stormwater issues. After all, the topic is hardly trendy or intriguing to most people. Municipalities often try educating the public through Web sites, public service announcements, newspaper columns and advertisements, speeches to school groups, and other measures.
But the most powerful tool many communities have are the many volunteer groups whose members are already committed to working on environmental and stormwater issues. After all, the people working with such groups are already attuned to the importance of clean stormwater runoff. They are more likely to want to spread the word and, if possible, increase awareness among their neighbors and coworkers.
The number of grassroots groups seems to be on the rise. We spoke with the people involved with several of these groups about their importance and their ability to spread the message about stormwater runoff. The future of grassroots involvement looks strong.
Protecting the Environment in Maine
As education and outreach coordinator for the Knox-Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District, Fletcher Meyers depends on community volunteers.
When Meyers needs to be reminded of just how important these volunteers are, he simply thinks back to the conservation fair his district holds every year.
The Knox-Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District, based in Warren, ME, runs several programs designed to promote water and land conservation, including water-quality studies, trout stocking, workshops, and annual poster contests. One of its most important outreach programs is its yearly conservation fair.
During the fair, a series of presenters runs displays and workshops focusing on the importance to the region of agriculture, forestry, water quality, and marine resources. Every year, from 900 to 1,000 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade attend the fair. Officials with the conservation district could not even consider running the fair without help from volunteers. Fortunately, about 40 volunteers came out for the district’s most recent event.
“You can imagine the logistics of running a fair like that,” Meyers says. “We have not only us but 40 other organizations that are represented at the fair. It’s very impressive how the volunteers make that work. It is times like this when I realize just how dedicated our volunteers are.”
Of course, Meyers would like to see even more volunteers support the event and the other projects the conservation district runs. Such organizations can always use more help from the community.
“The volunteers are very important because they show the commitment that the community has to the cause,” Meyers says. “It’s important for other people to see that there are people in the community who are donating their time to support our efforts. That shows that these efforts are worthwhile. And, hopefully, it inspires even more volunteers to get involved.”
When he spoke with Stormwater, Meyers was busy writing a press release. He admits, though, that he’s not the best person to take on such a job. He’d rather see a volunteer with writing or news experience tackle it instead.
So, yes, there are always other volunteer opportunities at the district.
“I think the key thing with volunteers is that they help spread the word in small communities,” Meyers says. “It creates a buzz. They also help bring an understanding to our organization about what is going on in the community. They bring their own input to our organization. They’ll ask, ‘Why don’t we talk about this? Isn’t this a better location to have this event? Are you aware that this is going on?’ Having a healthy volunteer base integrates every organization deeper into the community.”
Monitoring Water Quality in Florida
Felicia Boyd has long been proud of her volunteers. But in the summer of 2006, she had even greater reason to appreciate their efforts.
That’s when the Duval County Watershed Action Volunteers group that she coordinates worked with third- and fourth-grade students from inner-city neighborhoods in Florida to mark storm drains that empty into the twisting St. Johns River.
“I think lessons like that really stay with those children, and our volunteers helped make it happen,” Boyd says. “We have a group of volunteers that will take some of these inner-city children out on a boat so that they can actually see where the river goes. They can then understand that there is more to the river than whatever passes by their town. I think that leads to them appreciating, and caring for, the river.”
The Duval County group is just one of several Watershed Action Volunteers organizations that work to keep the watershed along the St. Johns River healthy. The St. Johns River Water Management District—which is the parent organization of the action volunteers groups—encompasses 18 counties in northeast and east-central Florida.
Boyd estimates that her particular group counts 65 active volunteers, a mix of people ranging from high school students to senior citizens. These volunteers walk the watershed to perform water-quality monitoring. Others monitor the amount and health of submerged aquatic vegetation in the watershed. Still others speak to local elementary school students, presenting interactive programs that focus on water pollution, conservation, and environmental events.
“Our goal is to create more awareness of the river and how people can negatively impact it if they’re not careful,” Boyd says. “There is a river here, and that brings personal responsibilities. We are trying to reach as many people as possible. We want to reach the average citizen who is not aware that they can have an impact on a waterway.”
Boyd’s challenge lies in matching her volunteers with the opportunities that are right for them. For example, one of her recent volunteers, an elderly woman, came to Boyd shortly after the woman’s husband had died. The woman wanted to get involved in her community but wasn’t sure of how she could do so.
The woman was quiet and therefore wasn’t interested in speaking or putting on presentations at local elementary schools. Boyd steered her toward more appropriate activities. The woman first helped out with the Duval County water-quality monitoring program. She helped mark storm drains and even worked in the office doing administrative work. She has since blossomed with the group and now runs nature tours in addition to other volunteer work. Now in her third year of working with the Watershed Action Volunteers, she has become a passionate advocate and supporter of the St. Johns River.
Such volunteers are an important tool in educating the public about their waterways, Boyd says.
“We do a lot of programs, such as storm drain marking, in the neighborhoods. That helps. It gets other homeowners involved when they see all these volunteers out there working. Once the homeowners are involved, they can police around an area. They might tell someone that they aren’t supposed to litter by a storm drain. They spread the word.”
Friends of the Watershed
The Cedar River Watershed is an important one for Seattle residents: A majority of the city’s potable drinking water comes from it, with the Cedar River Water Treatment Plant providing about 70% of Seattle’s drinking water. It’s crucial, then, for the watershed from which this water comes to remain healthy.
That’s the goal of Friends of the Cedar River Watershed, a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the watershed. Based in the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, located just east of the city of North Bend and about 32 miles from downtown Seattle, the group tackled a host of projects in 2006. It planted 4,180 conifers, cottonwoods, and other native plants on decommissioned forest roads along streams and wetlands; cleared 4 acres of logging slash by hand to encourage elk migration and promote the growth of native plants; and cleared 22,000 square feet of invasive plants in the watershed’s Rattlesnake Lake Recreation Area.
The group’s members also took on several education and outreach efforts, attempts to inform other Seattle-area residents of the importance of their home watershed. A highlight? The group, along with other community partners, provided 22 hours of training to naturalists last year. Naturalists learned about the life cycle of the salmon that swim through the Cedar River, studied the basics of putting together engaging interpretative talks for the public, and discussed ways in which they could encourage citizens to help keep the salmon population strong.
The group would not have accomplished nearly as much, though, without the help of its volunteers, says Sue Rooney, executive director of Friends of the Cedar River Watershed.
“We have 85-year-old volunteers and eight-year-old volunteers,” Rooney says. “We call on our volunteers regularly. We pull the groups together and then match their capabilities with the projects going on in the watershed. We really do rely on our volunteers.”
Rooney isn’t just saying this. Last year, more than 400 volunteers worked on habitat restoration and salmon education projects, with many working inside the municipal watershed, an area that is not open to the unsupervised public. In all, volunteers donated about 3,000 hours of time to restoring the habitat and educating the public. Rooney estimates that her volunteers in 2006 did work equal to a year’s worth of service from one full-time and one half-time staff member.
This volunteer work not only benefits the watershed but also provides a valuable service to the men and women donating their time.
“The volunteers gain a comprehension about where their water comes from,” Rooney says. “There are only six watersheds in the country that supply a municipality with as much water as the Cedar River Watershed does. It’s important for the general public to know that a billion-dollar filtration plant isn’t necessary if we maintain the ecological preserve of the watershed itself.”
The Importance of Youth
For watersheds, streams, and rivers to remain healthy in the future, members of today’s younger generation must learn about, and appreciate, their importance. These students, after all, will be the environmentalists, scientists, and engineers of the future.
Fortunately, groups such as the Norcal Environmental Student Network are educating young people about just how important watersheds and waterways are to the health of the nation’s drinking water. Norcal, a division of the Secondary Environmental and Science Educators Institute in Carmichael, CA, coordinates environmental-based volunteer projects for high school and college students in central and northern California.
Norcal volunteers have tackled a host of environmental projects since the group’s inception. One of the most important, though, is the partnership it formed in 2002 with the US Army Corps of Engineers for a stewardship program to benefit Eastman Lake, located in the Sierra Foothills of California’s Madera County.
Since 2004, Norcal’s student volunteers have been developing a geographic information system (GIS) database for the land surrounding the lake. The volunteers, all from Madera- and Fresno-area high schools, have been using GIS units to input data points, along with recorded attribute information, into a database hosted by the Center for Advanced Research and Technology Charter High School in Fresno. So far, the students have created information databases for the area’s owl boxes, wooden duck boxes, lakeview trail, and buoys.
The Norcal program not only results in good environmental deeds but also instills in the students a sense of stewardship for waterways and watersheds, says Marc Epstein, the program’s executive director.
“It’s about getting students engaged in a hands-on way,” he says. “We give them exposure with real-life experiences, project-based learning, rather than going the book or classroom route. We are getting kids now who have had some experience with community-based programs. But this is more advanced. The kids in our program are getting more than just a teeny-tiny exercise. They are doing more than just putting in a few hours.”
Norcal has just initiated a new program to have its members care for and develop stewardship programs for Dry Creek, a winding creek that forms the boundary of the Rio Linda High School campus, located in the California municipality of Rio Linda. Students tackling this project are in the earliest stages of developing a plan for keeping the creek sustainable.
Projects like this, Epstein says, encourage students to not just pick up litter or pull weeds but actually ponder how their own and their classmates’ actions can seriously impact local waterways that are often taken for granted.
“We’re just starting from scratch with this program,” Epstein says. “We have about a dozen students, so far, interested in this. It is possible to get students to come out for something that’s not just a strictly class-based experience. This is a long-term project that will require real long-term thinking, and we are still getting students to come out.”
The students are seriously considering one possible solution to stop erosion at the site. They plan to plant vegetation that would stabilize the ground and encourage the dropping of sediments during any high-water events.
The students attracted to Norcal are a varied bunch. Many are already interested in the environment, with some dreaming of careers in which they can work daily on protecting watersheds and other natural resources. Others are looking for projects to pad their resumes. Still others want to hang out with their friends in a setting that their parents will appreciate more than afternoons at the local mall.
The students working on the Dry Creek project range in age from 15 to 17. To Epstein, it’s little surprising that such students are able not only to tackle a long-term problem but also to create viable solutions to it.
“I can see the capacity of students, if you mentor them properly and have confidence in them,” Epstein says. “I think you have to have a higher level of expectations than those that most educators have today. It’s gratifying to see what I have said for years is possible coming to fruition when everyone else says you’re nuts.”
The Other End of the Spectrum
While it’s important to get young people interested in protecting the nation’s waterways, it’s equally important for environmentalists to tap the resources of the fastest-growing segment of the country’s population: senior citizens. Fortunately, a wealth of volunteer groups made up of senior citizens is already making a difference.
Members of the Senior Environment Corps—with local groups, like the Upper Savannah group, across the country—are tackling energy conservation, environmental education, water-quality monitoring, storm drain marking, habitat restoration, and pollution prevention.
Center in the Park Senior Environment Corps, based at a senior citizens’ facility in Philadelphia, is a particularly active example. Fred Lewis, volunteer coordinator with the corps, says the group has about 30 volunteers. Working with a number of local agencies including the Philadelphia Water Department and the local office of the EPA, these volunteers focus especially on water quality, monitoring the health of the water at various sites around the city on a monthly basis. Group members test for high levels of nitrate, sulfate, phosphate, and, occasionally, bacteria. Members analyze the water at the laboratory of nearby Chestnut Hill College.
The group has made important contributions. For instance, at one site, group members about two years ago could smell the odor of sewage. When they tested the water, the volunteers found high levels of bacteria. The city’s water department then took steps to solve the problem.
For Lewis, this story and others like it justify the long hours he’s spent mucking around wetlands and juggling the needs of dozens of volunteers.
“When I retired, I wanted to do something that would keep me engaged, so I wouldn’t be sedentary,” Lewis says. “I decided to get involved with this. It had two purposes: It kept me interested and involved, but I also got the feeling that I was doing something constructive, making a contribution to the community. It was one of those rare things that you can find to satisfy yourself when you’re in retirement.”
Edward Chun, one of the busiest volunteers with Center in the Park, agrees. He’s a retired chemist and is happy to lend his expertise to the group.
“Most of our seniors have not had a good chemistry background,” Chun says. “I felt that I should be there to give them assistance when they run their tests. The last thing I did before retiring was working on diagnostic kits for Hepatitis B used for screening blood transfusions. I thought my experience would be valuable to the group.”
Chun and Lewis offer further proof that the spirit of volunteerism is going strong. They’re also proof that volunteers, of any age, are another weapon in the fight to keep the nation’s waterways healthy and clean.