On Wednesday March 13th the EFC, in partnership with Maryland Black Mayors, Inc. (MBM) kicked off the Getting the MOST for Maryland Black Mayors program. This training program educates and better connects MBM elected officials and staff with stormwater management solutions through in-person workshops, the MOST Center's online courses, facilitated peer-to-peer discussion forums, and matchmaking with local watershed groups and service providers.  

The EFC and MBM are working with 16 trainees, representing eight municipalities in Prince George's County. Participants include elected officials (mayors and council members) and municipal staff such as Town Managers and Public Works Directors.  The primary goal is to improve county officials and staff's understanding of the value of addressing stormwater management, participating in clean water programs, and better connecting their constituents with funding and resources. The project will continue throughout the spring of 2019.

 

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The EFC recently kicked off a project in Cambridge, MD to address residential stormwater issues. The first phase of the project determined the willingness of residential property owners to learn about and install stormwater BMPs. Building on the success of Phase I, EFC is partnering with the Cambridge Clean Water Advisory Committee on the second phase of the project to incorporate a community needs assessment and stormwater financing feasibility study.  

   

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The EFC, in partnership with LandStudies, Inc., released a new online course now available at the MOST Center:  Economic Ecology- Maximizing Economic and Environmental Returns through Floodplain Restoration. Local governments across the region face a variety of water resource issues to include regulatory compliance, flooding and infrastructure protection, water supply, and more. However, viewing landscapes as part of a whole watershed - rather than independent projects - and restoring those landscapes to their natural state, can be more cost effective than conventional approaches and provide a host of community benefits. This new MOST Center course provides an overview of Economic Ecology™, a regional approach to solving water resource issues that maximizes both economic and environmental returns on investment. Successful examples from the Lititz Watershed in Lancaster County, PA are used to demonstrate the benefits of addressing environmental issues on a regional scale, specifically through floodplain restoration.

 

EFC Project Assistant Elena Perry (second from left) at the project presentation

Two EFC student project assistants, Elena Perry and Luke Savonis, worked on the Streambank and Road Erosion in Harford County project. The project was chosen as a winner of the 2019 Sustainable Growth Challenge, presented by the Maryland Sustainable Growth Commission . 

 

This project was completed in an introductory ArcGIS class offered in Fall 2018, where three student teams consulted with the Harford County Public Works department to identify and rank roadways at risk for streambank erosion. Distance between the stream and road, the watershed area, and soil type were calculated, standardized, weighted and aggregated to identify county road segments at greatest risk to erosion. This information was provided to county staff to use in road and stream maintenance and future smart development decision-making as the county continues to see population growth.

 

For more information check out the press release and the storymap presentation.