greetings,
Wellington, New Zealand has a compact CBD situated between a harbour and a green belt. Native freshwater fish (Galaxiidae) migrate through the stormwater system between the harbour and the streams in the green belt in order to complete their life cycle. Five issues affect the health of the fish in the pipes: people urinate and vomit on the footpath and this goes into the stormwater system, shop owners wash their shop frontages (due to urine & vomit) with hot water and detergent that goes into the storm water system, Police confiscate liquor being drunk illegally on the streets & pour it into the stormwater system and thousands of cigarette butts also go down the drain. We would like to instigate an education programme to inform all of the stakeholders without unduly alienating key people.
Any suggestions on how to approach this?
Frances Forsyth
Greater Wellington Regional Council
New Zealand
[email protected]
CBD stormwater and native fish
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What does CBD mean?
Myrtle Macdonald
Consulktant
retired
Canada
Hi Frances,
In past years we have used humour & street theatre (we called it Killer & Swimmer) to help raise awareness re cigarette butt disposal (and doggy doos)in a popular seaside town. Swimmer, complete with snorkel mask, flippers and a wig plastered with hundreds of cigarette butts, walked amongst tourists and locals.
The message displayed on her sandwich board confirmed she pretty much knew where butts discarded in the street by smokers ended up!
(Killer, her toy dog wearing sunglasses & mounted on a skate board followed behind and delivered the doggy doo message.)
(Using this approach for urine & vomit would be a challenge.. perhaps Killer could help in some way)
Regards
Tony Jones
Project coordinator
KESAB
Australia
www.kesab.asn.au
I love this! I may pass it onto our group here, SAS - www.sas.org.uk....thanks, Tony!
Cheers,
Manda
Manda Brookman
CoaST One Planet Tourism Network
United Kingdom
www.coastproject.co.uk
Hi Frances,
I believe that education alone will not solve the problem, although it is definately part of the solution. I'd recommend beginning with identifying the desired behaviour change. I think it is unlikely that the council would be able to change the social behaviour of the binge drinking that goes on in Wellington, I think this would be a big ask for your education programme. I lived in Majorca in Spain, a party town for many from the UK when they had a change in council and tried to change peoples behaviour - a major task which they didnt achieve in my time there.
I'd suggest you engage with the nightclubs, pubs and restaurants about getting ideas for where you would like them to vomit! Begin by educating a group of managers/staff on the environmental issues, and then engage a few passionate ones to help trial some solutions for encouraging alternative behaviour. Make sure you get some insight from the bouncers, these are the people who see your problem every night and will know what will/won't work.
Even if this approach doesn't succeed, in the process you will have gained the sympathy of the club managers, who might be more willing to reduce their detergent use for a more natural alternative, or even consider putting in swales on the drains by their property (if this would help your situation).
Karyn Owen
Venture Southland
Invercargill
Southland, NZ
Karyn Owen
Project Co-ordinator
Venture Southland
New Zealand
Good afternoon to New Zealand,
Enlightenment about stream health can be developed through creek and coastal clean up day involvment, here is a site that could be a helpful model for you all in New Zealand to develop a site of your own.
http://www.cleanacreek.org/default.asp
Other outreach tools and ideas can be found at...
http://www.mywatershedwatch.org/
A possible solution to the liquor being poored into the gutter or street could be to educate and encourage the police officers to pour the liquor onto lawns, tree wells or some other pervious surface.
The sites above are part of the outreach component of the Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program in Santa Clara County, CA. Also feel free to check out scvurppp.org to get a look at our program. This program is a very successful pollution prevention partnership of 13 cities, the County of Santa Clara and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. We do still have the cigarette butt challenge and few others but we are working on the solutions.
Sincerely,
Brett Calhoun
J. Brett Calhoun
Senior Water Quality Specialist Stream Water Quality Unit
Santa Clara Valley Water District
United States
CBD stands for central business district. This is an area of high rise buildings comprising offices, bars, restaurants, retail and apartments. Permeable surfaces such as lawn are few and far between.
Does anyone else out there have fish in their stormwater systems?
Frances
Frances Forsyth
Be the Difference programme
New Zealand
[email protected]
AED (Academy for Educational Development) developed a successful information campaign (based on Community Based Social Marketing principles) to reduce binge drinking at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), in Boston MA. The message was targeted to sophmore male students (where the problem of binge drinking was identified as most acute). Although the message will vary depending upon the targeted audience, the steps AED used to identify the problem and formulate the message were brilliant. I recommend you do an internet search on this project.
Marsha Walton, Ph.D.
Sr. Project Manager
Energy Efficiency & Exploratory Research
NYSERDA
Albany, NY
1. I wonder if an ethanol recycler would be willing to set up containers to collect the alcohol, to be used in their recycling process. I know that there are a number of companies in North America that do this sort of thing. For eg: Pacific Ethanol in California collects residues from alcohol operation for refining into alcohol for fuels.
2. Ditto for the Vomit. Can the city works department provide 'vomit sinks' connected to the sewer system? Vomitoriums perhaps?
Norm Ruttan
President
iWasteNot Systems
Canada
www.iwastenotsystems.com
Blimey. Poor fish! :/
Is there any benefit in working with a) the police (to regulate the drinking better, and thereby reduce the urine and vomit levels) and also to pour the alcohol somewhere else? If there was less around, the shopkeepers would be having to wash less of it away, too. Maybe a couple of key police officers could be helped to do a water analysis, and see forthemselves the impact?
Just a thought!
Cheers,
Manda Brookman
Manda Brookman
Cornwall Sustainable Tourism Project (CoaST)
United Kingdom
www.coastproject.co.uk