September 2021 | Issue 16 |
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Disaster Preparedness Month |
Dear Baltimore Office of Sustainability Friends,
Are you ready for National Preparedness Month this September? There has been no shortage of disasters this year, from floods and hurricanes to extreme heatwaves. There are many things you can do to protect your loved ones during unexpected emergencies and disasters. First - Stay in the Know! Many local and state governments send out alerts when weather or other threats impact communities. Sign up for the city's BMore Alert messaging system to receive timely notifications. Second – Have a Plan. Create a personalized disaster plan tailored to the needs of you and your family – especially for vulnerable family members such as young children, the elderly, or those with disabilities. Last – Check on Your Neighbors. Disasters highlight our interdependence. Remember to check on your neighbors and support them if and when you can during and after a disaster.
Speaking of plans – please Plan for the Ban! The citywide plastic bag ban will go into effect on October 1st, 2021, prohibiting plastic checkout bags at the point of sale and applying a 5-cent fee for all alternative bags provided to customers. You can avoid the fee by bringing your reusable bag(s) to the store with you. Plastic bags contribute significantly to litter across our city, polluting our streets and waterways. So remember to bring your bags beginning next month – and join the efforts to reduce plastic waste while improving our city!
Happy Reading!
Baltimore Office of Sustainability Staff
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Nicolette Louissaint, ED of Healthcare Ready. Photo c/o Healthcare Ready |
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Nicolette Louissaint -- Healthcare Ready |
"A strong health infrastructure is crucial to a community’s resilience." This is the crux of Healthcare Ready, a cutting-edge nonprofit that helps communities respond to disasters of all types. Executive Director Dr. Nicolette Louissaint, PhD, is leading a team catalyzing lasting change that places public health, equity, and community resilience at the center of disaster response. Equity frames their work - both as a structural outcome and an intentional process. Healthcare Ready works to overcome health disparities caused by disasters and disease outbreaks so that everyone, regardless of their socioeconomic, race, or medical status, can thrive after a hazardous event.
Dr. Louissaint also serves as a Sustainability Commissioner for Baltimore City - offering her knowledge and expertise to make Baltimore more resilient. Healthcare Ready has supported the city's network of Community Resiliency Hubs which provide critical resources before, during, and after disaster events to the city's most vulnerable communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, with the help of its well-established public/private partnerships, Healthcare Ready is also responding to the compounding impacts of natural disasters on communities. Most recently, this includes assisting the hard-hit areas of our nation recovering from Hurricane Ida.
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You don’t have to be a climate scientist or city planner to help improve the sustainability and resilience of Baltimore. Everyone has a story to tell about making Baltimore a stronger, fairer, and safer place for all of us. We’ve been collecting stories on our website, and we invite you to share yours with us by posting on social media with the hashtag #EveryStoryCounts and/or by emailing us.
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Welcome to Kas Tebbetts -- Climate Community Engagement Fellow |
Kas Tebbetts is joining our office as the Climate Community Engagement Fellow. She will be leading outreach efforts for Baltimore's Climate Action Plan Update for the next year. She is passionate about empowering new voices in the field of urban planning and utilizing all forms of expertise in the process of building community. She is excited to build community around sustainability in Baltimore and inspire equitable climate action for the city. In the past, she has worked with local history museums, urban farmers, community activists, architecture firms, real estate developers, and financial institutions in her ongoing endeavor to understand community development from every perspective. Kas originally hails from East Texas, holds a B.A. in Architecture and Urban Studies from Yale University, and spends all her time with her two wonderful and slightly crazy Kuwaiti rescue dogs.
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Welcome to new staff member, Kas Tebbetts! |
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Outdoor Learning at City Schools |
Outdoor learning helps young people access the academic, health, and social benefits of connecting to the natural world in a safe environment, which is why it’s an important part of Baltimore’s Cities Connecting Children to Nature initiative. Launched in the fall of 2020 as a partnership between the Office of Sustainability and Baltimore City Public Schools, the Baltimore Outdoor Learning Program is supporting more than a dozen city public schools in designing, permitting, and installing new outdoor learning spaces, which have started breaking ground this summer! Constellation, BGE, and Kaiser Permanente are some of the major funders of this work so far, and local landscape architecture firms and universities have stepped up to assist.
Thanks to additional support from Heart of America and The Ravens, Park Heights Academy (formerly Edgecombe Circle Elementary School) was able to complete several new outdoor learning spaces in record time in June 2021! Our gratitude and congratulations go out to the school staff and student team, the volunteers from Morgan State University who helped with the design, and everyone who pitched in. To learn more, check out the wide variety of resources compiled by BCPS as well as by the National Covid-19 Learning Initiative.
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Volunteers helped with the new outdoor learning space at Park Heights Academy. Image c/o Heart of America |
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Sustainability Highlights |
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DPW Grow Centers are Back! |
The Department of Public Works’ GROW Centers are returning this Fall with eleven different pop-up events and workshops. The GROW Center serves to provide resources, information, and training to help residents green their homes and communities, reduce polluted stormwater runoff, and eliminate waste. They include free trees, mulch, chaff, and reusable shopping bags, as well as information on stormwater fee credits, recycling and composting, and other ways to help make Baltimore greener, cleaner, and more resilient. First come, first serve while supplies last. Masks and social distancing will be required. The full schedule of GROW Center events, as well as composting workshops, can be found here.
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Photo c/o Steve Raabe and preventballoonlitter.org |
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Maryland Balloon Release Ban Begins Oct. 1st |
The Maryland General Assembly approved and Governor Larry Hogan signed a bill to ban balloon releases in Maryland beginning October 1st, 2021. Balloons are a common source of marine debris and present a variety of threats to birds and other wildlife, including through entanglement or ingestion. A 2019 study concluded that balloons are the deadliest type of plastic waste of all to seabirds, with soft plastics (such as balloons or balloon fragments) accounting for just 5% of the items ingested, yet being responsible for more than 40% of mortalities. Websites like preventballoonlitter.org offer a wide range of alternatives to using balloon releases for celebrations.
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Public Comment Needed: Baltimore Together Economic Development Strategy |
The Baltimore Development Corporation wants your feedback on Baltimore Together, a comprehensive economic development strategy for the City of Baltimore. The adoption of the final plan will contribute to the implementation of Strategy 3, Action 4 from the Local Economy chapter of the Sustainability Plan: "Create and adopt an economic plan that supports local production, purchasing, and exporting strategies; addresses training on inclusion and bias and increases access to job training and living-wage jobs. Promote hiring practices to equitably include more women; more people from racial, ethnic, and religious minorities; and more LGBTQIA, differently-abled, and formerly incarcerated people." The deadline for public comment is September 30, 2021.
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Books + Articles our Staff are Reading |
"Baltimore’s cooling centers have been a mainstay strategy, a guaranteed respite to prevent cases of heat exhaustion or heatstroke and shelter residents from the immediate threat. But more systemic, structural remedies are necessary to temper extreme heat’s strain, even now. That’s where community hubs like The Door come in..."
"Climate change is an international crisis that demands action at every level of government. Yet perhaps overlooked, with all the dire warnings about the climate crisis from the United Nations, ongoing political battles over climate policy at the federal level, and the impasse in the General Assembly over legislation earlier this year, is the work local climate leaders — sometimes called sustainability officers — are doing in a handful of Maryland counties."
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Water seeping into a basement. Photo c/o BOS staff. |
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Prevent Basement Seepage! |
Basement water seepage is a private property issue that can create frustration amongst Baltimore homeowners. The problem can happen in structures located anywhere in the city, not just ones near streams, lakes, and the coastline. The cause of basement water seepage problems can be one particular item or a combination of many.
Problems are often related to:
- Foundation age and type
- Construction methods used in original construction
- Slope of the yard
- Recent weather trends
- Soil types
- Region's topography before development
What can you do to prevent basement water seepage? Check out this page to learn more.
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We Love Feedback
Tell us what you want to hear! Do you have ideas on newsletter content? Or would you like to nominate an organization or person to be featured? Email us at sustainability@baltimorecity.gov.
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Our Mission
The Office of Sustainability develops and advocates for programs and policies that improve Baltimore's long-term environmental, social, and economic viability.
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417 E Fayette St, 8th Floor
Baltimore, MD 21202
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Lead Editor: Aubrey Germ, Climate and Resilience Planner
Newsletter Contributors: Bruna Attila, Coastal Resources Planner + Acting Floodplain Manager; Abby Cocke, Environmental Planner; Amy Gilder-Busatti, Environmental Planner; Kimberley Knox, Green Network Coordinator; Lisa McNeilly, Sustainability Director; Ava Richardson, Sustainability Manager; Kas Tebbetts, Climate Community Engagement Fellow; Lauryn Countess, Communications Intern; Sara Kaiser, Baltimore Public Allies Fellow
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