Burnt Mill Creek project team works closely with neighbors in ‘The Bottom’
Christy Perrin (left), Extension director of Watershed Education for Communities and Officials, and Jason Wright, Extension storm-water management associate, join Hollis Briggs (center), president of the Bottom Neighborhood Empowerment Association, at a rain garden installed in Briggs’ backyard.
Photo by Art Latham
When Cooperative Extension educators and NCSU researchers first planned to help improve water quality in Wilmington’s Burnt Mill Creek watershed, team members had no idea of the bonuses one of their goals would reap.
That goal was to involve the community through education and participation in installing residential storm-water best management practices.
To accomplish this, the team formed partnerships.
“We held several workshops in The Bottom community to educate the residents about the impacts of storm-water runoff, while emphasizing the impact and responsibility of the individual resident,” says Jason Wright, project engineer.
“The Bottom,” so-called because it is one of the lowest points in the watershed, is a neatly groomed, densely inhabited urban Wilmington neighborhood approximately bounded by Fifth and Seventh streets on the east and west, respectively, and Market and Castle streets on the south and north.
In The Bottom, many residents’ annual incomes — between $22,000 and $34,000, says the 2000 N.C. Census — are lower than the $42,000 Wilmington median.
“We approached the Bottom Neighborhood Empowerment Association at their regular meetings to discuss how our interests may coincide,” Wright recalls. “They suggested we target workshops toward yard improvements, advertise through churches and implement public demonstration projects.”
Following BNEA’s advice, the team made contacts at Anderson Tabernacle Church and Gregory Elementary School of Science and Math for the public demonstration projects, which included installing a large rain garden and 500-gallon cistern at the school and a small rain garden at the church. Other projects followed.
“The BNEA contact led to several educational and low impact development retrofit opportunities, including three community educational workshops to share storm-water problem information and help identify projects on maps,” says Wright. “That led eventually to installation of 12 rain gardens in community areas and private residences and distribution of 24 65-gallon rain barrels.”
The projects involved teamwork. At Gregory Elementary, Wright worked with Joe Abbate, Cape Fear River Watch coordinator and his volunteers, as well as students and teachers, to install and plant a 1,600-square-foot rain garden. The team also installed a 500-gallon cistern that captures runoff from about 800 square feet of roof and drains it to fifth graders’ garden plots.
The team also installed a smaller rain garden at Anderson Tabernacle, a few blocks from the school. The parishioners took to the project, even remulching the church’s surrounding landscape to match the rain garden’s mulch.
Emily McCoy, N.C. State College of Design graduate student who recently conducted a survey on the project, found that the majority of respondents — women who were 55 or older and longtime home-owning residents — were previously involved with the BNEA.
Survey results indicated that all respondents learned about storm-water runoff and water quality and were most effectively informed about the program through visual information, such as fliers, but especially by word-of-mouth. Many homeowners who requested a rain garden or rain barrel had seen the practice installed at a neighbor’s home.
“That significantly aligns with the project’s overall educational goals,” says Wright.
The survey also indicated that residents responded to an approach that emphasized rain gardens for property beautification rather than just for storm-water management.
“Homeowners,” says Wright, “took ownership of their rain gardens in a variety of ways, not only paying $100 to $300 to install gutters not covered by the grant funds, but also adding decorative borders and supplementing the vegetation we provided with additional plants from their surrounding landscaping.”
“I spend a lot of time in my backyard,” says Hollis Briggs, BNEA president. “I took the bioretention area as a center piece and started building around it. I put in extra landscaping myself, and I’m very satisfied with it.”
—Art Latham
That goal was to involve the community through education and participation in installing residential storm-water best management practices.
To accomplish this, the team formed partnerships.
“We held several workshops in The Bottom community to educate the residents about the impacts of storm-water runoff, while emphasizing the impact and responsibility of the individual resident,” says Jason Wright, project engineer.
“The Bottom,” so-called because it is one of the lowest points in the watershed, is a neatly groomed, densely inhabited urban Wilmington neighborhood approximately bounded by Fifth and Seventh streets on the east and west, respectively, and Market and Castle streets on the south and north.
In The Bottom, many residents’ annual incomes — between $22,000 and $34,000, says the 2000 N.C. Census — are lower than the $42,000 Wilmington median.
“We approached the Bottom Neighborhood Empowerment Association at their regular meetings to discuss how our interests may coincide,” Wright recalls. “They suggested we target workshops toward yard improvements, advertise through churches and implement public demonstration projects.”
Following BNEA’s advice, the team made contacts at Anderson Tabernacle Church and Gregory Elementary School of Science and Math for the public demonstration projects, which included installing a large rain garden and 500-gallon cistern at the school and a small rain garden at the church. Other projects followed.
“The BNEA contact led to several educational and low impact development retrofit opportunities, including three community educational workshops to share storm-water problem information and help identify projects on maps,” says Wright. “That led eventually to installation of 12 rain gardens in community areas and private residences and distribution of 24 65-gallon rain barrels.”
The projects involved teamwork. At Gregory Elementary, Wright worked with Joe Abbate, Cape Fear River Watch coordinator and his volunteers, as well as students and teachers, to install and plant a 1,600-square-foot rain garden. The team also installed a 500-gallon cistern that captures runoff from about 800 square feet of roof and drains it to fifth graders’ garden plots.
The team also installed a smaller rain garden at Anderson Tabernacle, a few blocks from the school. The parishioners took to the project, even remulching the church’s surrounding landscape to match the rain garden’s mulch.
Emily McCoy, N.C. State College of Design graduate student who recently conducted a survey on the project, found that the majority of respondents — women who were 55 or older and longtime home-owning residents — were previously involved with the BNEA.
Survey results indicated that all respondents learned about storm-water runoff and water quality and were most effectively informed about the program through visual information, such as fliers, but especially by word-of-mouth. Many homeowners who requested a rain garden or rain barrel had seen the practice installed at a neighbor’s home.
“That significantly aligns with the project’s overall educational goals,” says Wright.
The survey also indicated that residents responded to an approach that emphasized rain gardens for property beautification rather than just for storm-water management.
“Homeowners,” says Wright, “took ownership of their rain gardens in a variety of ways, not only paying $100 to $300 to install gutters not covered by the grant funds, but also adding decorative borders and supplementing the vegetation we provided with additional plants from their surrounding landscaping.”
“I spend a lot of time in my backyard,” says Hollis Briggs, BNEA president. “I took the bioretention area as a center piece and started building around it. I put in extra landscaping myself, and I’m very satisfied with it.”
—Art Latham