By Zoe Fry, Program Coordinator
Now in its eighth year, our Youth for the Environment and People (YEP!) program’s Spring cohort convened to learn about pollution in the Salish Sea. The group of 13 dedicated students hailed from high schools all over Whatcom County — Squalicum, Options, Sehome, Whatcom Intergenerational, Bellingham, and Explorations. Pollution in the Salish Sea is quite a big umbrella, so this year’s cohort honed in on stormwater, the Salish Sea’s single largest source of pollution. Over the course of ten weeks, students worked together to form an action project for how they wanted to tackle stormwater pollution.
First, students learned how pollution gets into our urban creeks through stormwater runoff, how it impacts our streams and wildlife health, how we can alter the landscape to catch pollutants, and what pollutants could/should be eliminated at their source. Kirsten McDade, RE Sources’ North Sound Waterkeeper, and myself (Zoe Fry, Program Coordinator — hello!) led a field day to Little Squalicum Creek. Kirsten and I facilitate RE Sources’ volunteer-run stormwater monitoring program. During the field day Kirsten and I demonstrated how stormwater monitoring works, from collecting a water sample from an outfall that dumps into Little Squalicum Creek, to using a multimeter to test for parameters of pollution.
Stormwater runoff is generated from rain and snowmelt that flow over impervious surfaces like paved streets, parking lots, and rooftops, and does not soak into the ground — it “runs off” into the Salish Sea untreated. Since the polluting effects of stormwater is a broad issue with many angles to study it from, we held a lot of hands-on activities. The students used a public tool from the City of Bellingham’s, CityIQ, to learn where stormwater infrastructure is located in city limits. Using this website, the students learned what an outfall is, where they are located, and what streets drain stormwater into which outfall. We used a watershed model to demonstrate the difference between a point source and a non-point source, and how the imperviousness of a surface can affect the amount of pollutants in stormwater runoff.
During the field day the students waded through Little Squalicum Creek to collect stormwater runoff from its outfall (here are the GPS coordinates if you are interested in checking it out for yourself: 48.76662, -122.51584). They then learned how to read a YSI Multimeter to collect data points including water temperature, pH, conductivity, salinity, and dissolved oxygen of the stormwater. I led a lesson on how to use a device called a YSI photometer to detect how much copper was in the stormwater runoff. A separate demo focused on how to use R-Cards, equipment similar to Petri dishes used to determine how much bacteria, particularly E. Coli, is in the stormwater. With these data points the students learned how to report pollution to the Department of Ecology and the City of Bellingham.
After weeks of learning how polluting stormwater is, participating in hands-on lessons, and being immersed in a field day, the students began to brainstorm action projects that might create or improve a policy or practice related to stormwater management. The students began to enthusiastically contribute ideas of what an action project could look like, from an informative film, to DIY rain gardens, to holding an information session on the effects of stormwater.
In the end, the students chose a Saturday to set up shop at Taylor Dock for a few hours to educate passersby on stormwater — because the stormwater outfall near Taylor Dock is one that consistently has pollution problems. There were colorful and informative trifolds at the students’ information booth, a five-foot interactive model of a watershed, and beautifully decorated takeaway pamphlets. One would never know that the students were introduced to the concept of stormwater barely 10 weeks ago. Each participant contributed valuable informative tidbits to the public.
YEP! provides a space for students to learn how to facilitate meetings, learn how to take action in their community, meet fellow peers from other high schools, and work on collaborative skills. As one student said after the program, “There aren’t a whole lot of options for environmental activism at my school and I thought this was a good way to do that.”
Finally, the students celebrated their ten weeks of hard work on the water! Seven students carefully balanced on a giant stand up paddle board and paddled in front of Taylor Dock. While floating on the Salish Sea, each student contributed a takeaway they had. One said “I loved working with other people my age who care about our environment and community”.