Chittenden County Stream Team; "Connecting the Drops"
For the third year in a row, the Chittenden County Stream Team partnered with Lake Champlain Sea Grant and the Regional Stormwater Educational Program to host Connecting the Drops, an outreach campaign that uses art to connect people with messages about stormwater and rain barrel use. The Town of Williston hosted the rain barrel display this year in the Williston Community Park from May 23rd thru June 29th. The display was hosted by Essex Junction in Maple Street park in 2014 and on Church Street in Burlington in 2013. Five barrels decorated by local artists and two barrels decorated by student artists from Champlain Valley Union High School Art Club were displayed in the park along with "The Stormwater Story," an educational display about the movement of stormwater across the landscape and methods to slow the flow. Visitors to the display were able to scan a QR code with their smart phones to sign up for a chance to win a one-of-a-kind rain barrel from the display. In addition to the display, the Stream Team held a build-your-own rain barrel workshop in Williston and provided targeted outreach about stormwater to the residents of the community. Seven lucky winners were drawn during Williston's Independence Day Celebration and ice cream social on the Village Green.
The Stream Team held two successful rain barrel workshops this summer. Community members built 55 rain barrels at the workshops! One workshop was held in Williston as part of the Connecting the Drops outreach campaign and another workshop was held in South Burlington in partnership with the South Burlington Natural Resources Committee. The Stream Team's rain barrel building workshops have been very popular and fun for the whole family!
Rain barrels placed at downspouts provide an efficient, low-cost way of collecting rain water for reuse. Not only are rain barrels a great way to conserve water, they also help reduce the negative impacts of stormwater by reducing the amount of runoff from rooftops from entering local streams, ponds and lakes.
The CCST and the WNRCD would like to thank our dedicated water quality monitoring volunteers and The Friends of the Winooski for completing another year of data collection on streams around Chittenden County! All of the samples have been analyzed by the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation's LaRosa Lab and have been posted to the Stream Team's website. The samples were analyzed for phosphorus, turbidity, and chloride.
Twenty-one South Burlington High School students in Torey Olson’s environmental science class joined Laura Dlugolecki of the Chittenden County Stream Team and WNRCD staff in the East Woods to learn about the Potash Brook Watershed and participate in a stream clean-up along Potash Brook. Potash Brook’s watershed covers 7.1 square miles and drains into Lake Champlain at Shelburne Bay. The Potash Brook Watershed is comprised of approximately 22% impervious areas which include: parking lots, roads, rooftops and driveways. The students made connections between the large impervious surface cover in the watershed and the water quality issues in Potash Brook. During rainstorms or when snow melts, large volumes of water can run off impervious areas in the watershed and make their way into Potash Brook and eventually Lake Champlain. This runoff can carry a variety of pollutants including bacteria from animal waste, nutrients from fertilizer and sediment from loose soil. Runoff can also carry larger, more visible trash. Looking at maps of the area and seeing trash in drainages and the stream channel allowed the students to see how trash (and other invisible pollutants) can make their way into Lake Champlain from Potash Brook. Trash in the waterways has the potential to be harmful to fish and recreational activities. As the students paired up and walked the banks of Potash Brook to remove any trash, they discussed the importance of the East Woods. Large swaths of forested land help filter out pollutants and provide space for water to soak into the ground. The students filled four large bags of trash and carried them out of the East Woods to dispose of properly.
The Stream Team has many great volunteers who adopt our public rain gardens throughout Chittenden County. Adopting a rain garden is an opportunity for individuals to assist in keeping the rain gardens clean and attractive by performing basic maintenance activities like picking up litter, pulling weeds, and installing new mulch. Rain gardens can be a great way to manage stormwater runoff on a small scale. Stormwater captured by a rain garden soaks into the ground and recharges the groundwater at a rate 30% greater than that of a typical lawn and helps prevent pollutants from impervious surfaces such as parking lots from entering water bodies. We currently have three rain gardens in need of adoption. One is located at Brownell Library in Essex Junction, and the other two are in South Burlington: Farrell Park and the Dorset Street Fire Department. The Friends of the Winooski River are also looking for volunteers to help maintain a rain garden at Essex Elementary School in Essex Junction.
The Stream Team has been busy throughout the spring and summer tabling at public events and speaking to individuals and groups about water quality, stormwater runoff and solutions including rain barrels and rain gardens. We have been at the Shelburne Farmers Market, Milton's Green-Up Day, the Burlington Farmer's Market, Summervale, Shelburne Farms Harvest Festival and many more. We love talking to the public and school groups.
There are always opportunities to volunteer to help achieve our goals of engaging citizens and reducing our impact on impaired streams in your community; why not consider joining the Stream Team, leading a volunteer project or becoming a rain garden adopter? For more information about working with the Stream Team for educational outreach or developing a volunteer project please contact Laura Dlugolecki, Stormwater Specialist, Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District laura@winooskinrcd.org , or visit our website, www.ccstreamteam.org.
The WNRCD thanks our partner organizations and the public for their efforts and support. For more information on activities and projects you can do on your own property to protect water quality, please visit: www.winooskinrcd.org
