June 2011

Public Education and Outreach

From flyers to multimedia campaigns

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As they tackle the NPDES Phase II measure of public education and outreach, stormwater managers are working against the backdrop of many larger social issues, from the problem of the homeless in urban areas to the economic situation and the resulting lack of funding.

However, successful efforts abound, often rooted in media campaigns and reaching out to young students. And some of the messages and changes in behavior—picking up after pets, for instance—seem to be catching on nationwide.

Griffin, GA
With a population of 23,500, Griffin, GA, may be a small town by today’s standards. But the Phase II city is progressive when it comes to addressing stormwater issues. It was the first in the state to create a stormwater utility. Its public education and outreach efforts rival that of larger municipalities.

In any given year, Griffin may spend up to $30,000 a year or more in its public education efforts. Its efforts have drawn praise over the years. Last year, for example, Griffin’s stormwater department received the Stormwater Program of the Year award from the Georgia Association of Water Professionals.

Photo: City of Griffin

Much of the credit for its success goes to Brant Keller, Griffin’s director of public works and utilities. Keller identified public education and public involvement as the two most critical elements of stormwater management as part of his doctoral dissertation.

Griffin’s status as a highly urbanized area with more than 2,000 people per square mile put the municipality in the NPDES permitting arena, notes Keller, adding that the stormwater utility was set up to focus on that. Keller used multiple forms of media for stormwater education—including television and radio spots—while putting together the case for the stormwater utility, figuring out total maximum daily loads (TMDLs), and examining the need for future rate increases.

“We did more than 120 presentations before we even brought the utility before the board of commissioners for approval,” he says.

Keller polled the top 100 customers in the utility arena—including water, wastewater, and electric—and visited the top 50 general managers, presidents, owners, or executives to explain the stormwater utility to them one-on-one, face-to-face.

“That was the onset of understanding why public education and public involvement was so critical to formulating the utility and understanding what we needed to do once the permitting cycle began,” says Keller.

Griffin established its stormwater utility in 1997. Its NPDES Notice of Intent was in place by 2003, and a permit was issued effective December 2007.

The municipality also received a three-year 319 grant of about $350,000 to expand its public education and public involvement programs, Keller says. One of the first efforts was to integrate the WaterWise program in the Griffin school curriculum.

“We met with all of the science teachers and curriculum directors,” says Keller. “It took them about nine months to correlate each section of [WaterWise] into the curriculum. Once that happened, we gave the school system a 50% credit on its water, stormwater, and wastewater bills.”

Over time, as it became apparent to Keller that the WaterWise curriculum wasn’t going to be updated and its tools were become antiquated, the next step was to institute the Project WET program in the school system. The program’s many components include a network of educators, water resource professionals, and scientists who provide education on water topics such as watersheds, water quality, and water conservation through materials, workshops, and community events.

Griffin hired a paraprofessional teacher to teach about water to all fifth and sixth graders, using water conservation education kits created by Keller’s department. The city also created a BMP game, given each year to every fifth-grade student and to others involved in the city’s educational efforts. The game’s five modules address such issues as what drains into the streams and what happens in a sewer system. To date, the city has distributed 5,000 games.

He believes educational efforts targeted to students produce the most benefit, helping to produce a generation knowledgeable about stormwater, water, water efficiency, and conservation.

But students aren’t the only ones for whom educational campaigns are developed. Keller also is a fan of enhanced natural systems (ENS) for stormwater treatment. “In the ENS arena, we decided from the get-go that we needed to educate other governments and our local builders and developers on how to properly install BMPs [best management practices] for ENS,” says Keller. The city set up an 11-acre training site, financed in part by some of the grant money.

“We built a training center on BMPs—how to put silt fence in, how to put in a detention pond, what a rock check dam is supposed to look like, what erosion control netting should look like, what amending soil should do,” says Keller. “Eventually we sold that property because of a highway going in, and we built a bigger site.” The new site deals not only with ENS, but also with proprietary BMPs and stormwater BMPs, including rain gardens, rain barrels, constructed wetlands, and a host of traditional ENS BMPs that are still in place.

Griffin also instituted an ENS seminar for builders, developers, and local governments. What had once been a half-day seminar that attracted nearly 50 participants grew to a two-day seminar for more than 200 participants, including federal and state government visitors who spent one day learning about water quality and another day learning about ENS.

As the economy has shifted in the past few years, the seminar has attracted fewer builders and developers (Griffin has had only two housing starts in the last three years) but more municipal officials.

Last year, Griffin brought in speakers from the US EPA, Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division, and the Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission. Consultants, vendors, and some 62 municipal representatives attended.

“One factor they’re talking about for the next round of permits is urbanized areas having to work together,” says Keller. “We’re concentrating on the regulation and making our local governments around the state aware, as well as our builders and developers.”

Homeowners also have been included in the effort. Griffin developed a set of four-page pamphlets for builders and homeowners beginning a construction project that explains
stormwater regulations.

“We also created a developer’s package,” says Keller. “We give any potential developer that comes into the community a package explaining primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment and what the responsibilities are.”

A third educational effort—and another area in which Griffin set the stage in Georgia—was the creation of a Fats, Oils and Grease (FOG) program. “We went out into industrial and commercial settings and explained to them about grease traps and retrofitting grease traps in the entire system to help keep some of the grease and pollutants from getting into the storm drains as well as the wastewater system,” says Keller.

“You wouldn’t believe what some of the restaurants were doing,” he adds. “A highly recognized fast-food restaurant was dumping grease in the storm drain.”

Griffin also was the first in Georgia to institute mandatory recycling and created educational pamphlets for businesses, restaurants, and schools.

Keller strongly believes in media tools, and his department paid for a professionally created a six-minute video on the importance of stormwater management. It was broadcast on television and distributed for use by other educational efforts, and it proved to be an effective tool, Keller says. The creation of that video was followed by the production of a 10-minute video that describes rain gardens and roof drains, as well as how to properly fertilize a yard.

“I had the opportunity to build a regional reservoir. We had to protect that resource from a watershed standpoint, so it fit real well into producing this movie and describing why you need to wash your car in the grass from an infiltration standpoint,” says Keller.

Those caught washing residential or commercial vehicles in an area that drains to the street are given notice; the second time, they receive a fine.

The city has also created a stormwater kiosk, funded by the 319 grant and offering information on stormwater and the geographical information system (GIS) program. Griffin was one of the first Georgia municipalities to develop a GIS program, which has been a selling tool for stormwater management. “People can look at a property, look at the contours, the square footage, and what they’re being billed for,” says Keller. “The kiosk leads them back to our GIS office for additional information.”

Griffin also has a speakers’ bureau, which takes the message to civic groups, schools, and others.

Another educational tool is a display booth, such as the ones seen at trade shows, which is moved about the city four times a year, giving people in businesses, schools, and the library an opportunity to view it. The booth features photography illustrating stormwater issues for a particular year.

Griffin’s stormwater website, lists all of the department’s activities, describes its history, outlines all of the stormwater projects that the city has instituted over the years, and describes how the stormwater utility was created.

Griffin also maintains a stormwater hotline for people to anonymously report spills, discharges, and other complaints. The hotline has been effective in helping the city catch those engaged in illegal discharges, for which the fines have been as high as $15,000.

“We get an opportunity to deal with those people who won’t play by the rules,” notes Keller. “Our hotline has proven to be one of the measures that we are making some headway with because of the phone calls we are getting.”

Landscape maintenance contractors and mobile car washers can be among the culprits. Griffin engages in intense education efforts for their benefit. “We don’t want to run them out of business,” says Keller. “But we don’t want their garbage in our storm drains either.”

Griffin has cooperated with other Phase II communities in its efforts. The city has worked with Fayette and Spalding counties’ stormwater programs to sponsor the ENS day. Griffin has acquired another 319 grant and is working with Spalding County to do streambank restoration, which includes the installation of kiosks in pervious pavement around the streambanks. “There will be other educational material around the trail describing why people need to keep things out of the stream segments,” says Keller.

Keller believes that, in contrast with some other NPDES measures, public education and outreach has been a success despite its challenges. “We’re seeing public education at the top,” he says. “Everybody is talking about water conservation, water efficiency, and stormwater. It can be a tough go if your staff is not committed to going out and making presentations and doing stream cleanups.” Griffin ranks in the top 10% in stream cleanup programs in Georgia, even though it’s one of the state’s smallest cities.

“Sometimes public education is like pushing a rope,” acknowledges Keller. “You have to keep it on the forefront so people understand.”

Griffin also does two mailers a year on different subjects. Every three years, a survey is sent out countywide—Griffin bills for the county—to track the effectiveness of the stormwater utilities.

“We’re starting to see a greater public awareness on the answers to the survey,” says Keller. “In the beginning, nobody even knew what a stormwater utility was or that they were polluting streams.”

In the initial surveys, most respondents indicated that stormwater went into a combined sewer system and received treatment. “We have a separate system here, not a combined, and we’re starting to see the progress now on how effective are we in our education efforts,” says Keller. “We’re getting phone calls from students’ parents telling us that they appreciate the getting a water conservation kit in the fifth grade.”

Publishing an annual report has been another successful tactic, Keller says. The report contains information on what happened in the stormwater department in that year, including TMDLs, tree plantings, air quality, water quality, flood plain management, and neighborhood repair projects. The department has gotten good feedback on the report.

Also generating feedback are the black-and-white signs with the stormwater logo posted in various neighborhoods. The signs inform residents about a stormwater project taking place in their area.

“We’ll be doing a project along the streets, and we’ll get both negative and positive feedback,” says Keller. “They say, ‘You’re wasting our money.’ The signs are letting people know that this is a stormwater project and that stormwater dollars are paying for that stormwater project.”

Griffin also places blue-and-white signs with the stormwater logo that educates residents on the watershed in which they live.

“We gotten some pretty positive feedback on that,” says Keller. “Different things get different people’s attention. You can’t just say, ‘I’m handing out brochures’ or ‘We do a town hall meeting once a year’; that’s not going to do it. You’ve got to use multiple tools to reach different people, because different people have different skills and interests.”

For example, future efforts will have to incorporate more computer-based education efforts, Keller says. “Not just a website, which everyone has now, but what can we do to attract people now that so many people are involved in what I call the geek world of computers? That’s the next thing we’re working on.”

Going forward, Griffin will do another survey and evaluate the program’s effectiveness to date.

“We’re going to look at target audiences next year,” says Keller. “Across the board, we’ve had targeted audiences, but next year, we’re going to specifically start looking at what we’re doing in our three major basins here: Cabin Creek, Shoal Creek, and Potato Creek. Each one has a TMDL. We’re going to go out door-to-door and do some marketing about what’s going on in the watersheds.”

One of the issues of concern is pet waste. Funded by another 319 grant, Griffin public works officials will install “doggie doo” stations and will go door to door and attend neighborhood meetings to talk about the stations and their purpose.

In the future, there will be more of a focus on stormwater and water-quality issues from a watershed perspective, Keller says. “We’ll be talking about what’s in the sewer system, the drinking water, and the stormwater.”

Keller is also thinking about funding a watershed educator for the staff. “A lot of municipalities that are bigger than us have one,” he points out. “If I had to do this over again, I would have hired a media specialist who would have been paid for by the stormwater and wastewater program to better promote the program.

“I’m a public speaker, but I’m not a communications major,” he adds. “When you look at media communications, you’re looking at somebody who’s got a skill set and sees things differently than somebody from an administration level like myself. I think the key is to bring somebody on who works on this full time.”

Keller’s advice to other MS4 communities with respect to public education and outreach is to understand the different target audiences.

“A lot of people just target the ‘general public,’ and targeting the general public is not how you’re going to be successful at communications,” says Keller. “You have to look at your target audiences and develop a form of media or communications for those specific people to understand. You have to use multiple forms of public education to get the message across, because your target audiences are going to be your best support.”

Petaluma, CA
Petaluma, CA, is a “stormwater-sensitive” community that sits at the bottom of a basin, says Remleh Scherzinger, water resources and conservation engineering manager. As such, the city has experienced many flooding issues.

That’s always on the radar of its 58,000 residents. Its Phase II permit was issued in 2003 and lapsed in 2008; since then, the city has been operating under an agreement with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Board.

Funding for the stormwater program comes from two sources: a stormwater impact fee assessed against new development and a wastewater fund.

Petaluma’s stormwater management plan includes 27 BMPs, the majority of which relate to the community, the utilities, and contractors.

“Our stormwater and industrial group visits local schools, so we’re knitting those two functions because we control water and wastewater and stormwater, and we find that stormwater sometimes leads into an industrial issue or an industrial issue leads into a stormwater issue,” says Scherzinger.

The city reaches out through pamphlet mailings, display booths at community events, and training events.

Many of the other NPDES Phase II measures tie in to public education and outreach. One such activity is the twice-a-year cleanup of the Petaluma River and its tributaries.

“We orchestrate or work in concert with other local organizations to do the trash cleanup,” says Scherzinger. “We do trainings for different entities and local contractors in terms of their stormwater pollution prevention plan.”

City inspectors are trained in stormwater issues; the stormwater staff visits sites periodically to oversee activities to ensure proper procedures are being followed.

There’s a yearly inspection of detention facilities and catchments. If inspectors find a problem on a facility on private property, a letter is sent to the homeowners’ association informing them of their need for improvement.

“If they are unable to comply, then we move in and do the work and have the contractor send the bill to the HOA,” says Scherzinger. “That ties to our stormwater maintenance program. Our stormwater maintenance group goes out in the fall and places information buttons on our drain inlets that provide information about the water draining to the Petaluma River. While that’s happening, we’re sucking out the storm drains and letting everybody know they don’t want to put leaves into them. We also have some enforcement activity that happens there.”

Scherzinger is also resurrecting an approach that had been successful in the past: newspaper ads. “That languished for a couple of years, but we’re going to start it up again next year,” he says. “Our conservation program has shown that the ads have real strength.” His aim for the upcoming budget is to fund separate ads for conservation, industrial, and stormwater management. Another plan is to fund a video ad at the local movie theater.

“We’ve done this for water conservation, and it seems to work,” says Scherzinger. “We seem to be able to benchmark when that’s happening and what kind of activity we’re getting in that program. We know when the ads are running and we can show that when those ads are running, we’re getting more participation in those programs. I’m hoping that that will happen for stormwater as well.”

The public education and outreach program takes up a quarter of total funding, says Scherzinger.

“We annually fund about $800,000 to $900,000 for our program,” he says. “The majority of that goes to maintenance and operation.”

Help from Eagle Scouts on creek cleanups and vegetation removals and from high school students seeking volunteer hours for graduation helps offset some of the costs of executing the stormwater program, Scherzinger says. “They need the experience, and I’m more than happy to help.”

Petaluma is engaged in some collaborative efforts with Sonoma County. “The county as a whole is very active with the regional water quality board,” says Scherzinger. “The water agency has taken a lead on a number of these issues, but with Petaluma being an MS4 community, we work with them, but we’re not copermittees.”

The EPA audited Petaluma’s program in 2005. The agency has both praise and recommendations.

“They say the program is well-structured and we have demonstratable actions,” says Scherzinger. “We were really strong in public education and outreach, but where we were having problems was in the execution of operation and maintenance. We only have a three-man crew. The city is large, so we’re not able to get to all of the drain inlets and do all of the cleanouts.”

Scherzinger looks to the community’s youth as a measure of the program’s success. Water conservation is taught in third grade and stormwater in the fifth grade.

“We’ve been reaching out to schools and we’ve seen a marked level of involvement from our young students, especially those kids that are in high school now that we reached out to when they were in fifth grade, because that’s been our target grade,” he says.

 “Kids say they remember being in fifth grade and seeing this presentation,” Scherzinger adds. “We bring a watershed model and the kids get to squirt water all over it. Mud and oil goes into the river. It’s interactive, so it makes a good mental memory for them. They’ve referenced that. That’s really kept me on track with pushing that part of the program.”

Like many other stormwater managers, Scherzinger is now targeting pet waste through public education efforts such as placing pamphlets at veterinary clinics. “We’ve heard from people verbally and in writing saying how nice it is knowing we’re active in that part of the storm drainage program, trying to keep pet waste out of our creeks and streams,” he says. “We’re trying to get people to pick up after their pets on the walking paths along the greenways. Stormwater, along with the parks department, has put out plastic bags all over the place trying to keep that excrement out of the creek and making it easy for people to get on and off the path.”

Going forward, Scherzinger is pursuing more Web-based communications. He’s working with a local gardening group that produces videos and trainings through Web-based media.

“We’re looking at that model for some of our training and outreach,” he says. “We’re really trying to get the industrial stormwater partnership up and running so I can have multiple enforcement agents out that there who are cognizant of the issues and able to support each other, given that our manpower is low. Everybody has to multitask these days.”

Scherzinger also plans to increase activities regarding trash within the watershed.

“The regional water quality board is moving toward regulating trash and establishing a TMDL for it,” he says. “We’re partnering with the Southern Sonoma County Resource Conservation District to identify areas where we have a conglomeration of trash, and once we identify that, maybe we can track back into the system and figure out where it’s coming from and be active in that area.”

One area being looked at for greater enforcement is waste entering the river near homes that are located there.

Another area of concern is waste being generated by the homeless population.

“We’re trying to figure out how to deal with the homeless,” says Scherzinger. “It’s a traumatic event for our system as a lot of their stuff is washed down to certain areas. Some people drag refrigerators and chairs and couches down there.”

Scherzinger’s advice to his peers around the country is to seek opportunities to connect outside the stormwater department with stakeholders within the community and other entities to seek partnering opportunities.

“You may not be able to fund all of it, but maybe there’s a portion where you can work in concert with others and leverage that and collectively get significant work done in the watershed,” he says. He’s forging such partnerships with groups such as the Petaluma Wetlands Alliance.

“There are groups out there that are volunteer-based and are willing to do the work,” says Scherzinger. “You just have to figure out what they’re willing to do and orchestrate them.”

He’s had success in mobilizing local homeowners to work on vegetation management on creek sections. One vegetation management project on a 2,000-foot section of a creek attracted help from homeowners and Boy Scouts, with local businesses providing Dumpsters and other materials.

“It took a lot on our part to orchestrate it, but we got a ton of labor and value-added by having all of these stakeholders come forward,” says Scherzinger. “If I have one piece of advice, that would be to seek these people out, get them involved, and get them moving.”

North Port, FL
In North Port, FL, the staff at the city’s Department of Public Works and stormwater manager Elizabeth Wong used a small grant from the South West Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) to help pay for the costs of placing 100 storm drain markers in key areas—storm inlets at schools and along frequently used sidewalks—making them especially visible to students and residents. The money was also used to pay for two aesthetically pleasing signs that provide detailed bullet points on what people can do to protect the waters.

For the most part, the city’s educational efforts are concentrated on attending numerous public educational events, many of which member of the city staff do on their own time during off-hours and on weekends.

The program has also found success—as have other stormwater programs throughout the United States—through the placement of articles in the local media that address how local water quality can be adversely affected. And media coverage of waterway cleanups and children’s educational events help spread the word about these events.

While the grant money helps to fund some of the educational efforts, some are also partially paid for from the city’s general fund, which, for example, allocates about $40 to purchase candy as treats to attract children at presentations.

Wong also taps into free resources, such as brochures offered by SWFWMD. “With permission from SWFWMD,” says Wong, “we tailor-make their brochures to give them a local flavor. We print them ourselves at a low cost.”

Wong is starting to note a heightened awareness about stormwater issues in the community. She says that going forward, she will be more selective about the types of events she chooses to attend, as she also has to put her efforts into the other NPDES measures and is now doing so with a reduced staff, as is the case for so many other municipalities during the economic downturn. “I have to allocate my time where I can best use it,” she notes.

That includes time invested in applying for grants. Although a $1.6 million state grant helped to fund stormwater improvements for four years, that grant no longer is available.

“I’m always looking for other sources of funding,” she says. “The smaller grants—the $1,000 to $2,000 grants—are still there, but it’s a lot of work to get a small grant.”

Wong advises other stormwater managers that one way to avoid burnout is to coordinate efforts with other departments. Instead of having three booths at a public function, share one booth, she suggests.

Wong credits the success of the city’s education and outreach efforts to two managers who got the ball rolling in North Port during a 2005 boom: public works director Branford N. Adumuah and former planning, zoning, and engineering director Patrick Collins, who now works as the city engineer in Valdosta, GA.

“Between the two of them, they hired good people to start doing the public outreach, the maintenance, and the inspection aspect of this work,” says Wong. “It was completely neglected since this system was built by General Development Corporation back in the 1960s. Now we have an ongoing maintenance and replacement program.”

Wong credits Adumuah for computerizing the program. “It’s very important to have an orderly work-order tracking system,” she says. “Complaints are addressed, logged, given a number, and tracked. We’ve seen tremendous improvements, and now we can count how many complaints we’ve addressed. The residents have seen that and appreciate the fact that they can always call back and the public works staff can use the tracking system to let them know the status of their issues.”

Like other stormwater managers, Wong is putting a greater emphasis on education with respect to pet waste and waste from farm animals. Animals’ waste can heavily contribute to nutrients and fecal coliform in the waterways.

Wong’s advice to others is to spread the word using every available resource.

“You can do only so much with your own staff,” she says. “You’ve got to get the word out to the public in booths everywhere, in flyers—and put it on your website.”

Author's Bio: Carol Brzozowski specializes in topics related to waste management and technology.