Restoring the Environment and Developing Youth
Nabil Morad, [email protected], Technology, and Economy
Psychology
What is the Ready Program?Restoring the Environment and Developing Youth – READY for short – is a
program run by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, supported by PATH
(People Acting Together in Howard County) and funded by the Howard County
government in order to lessen the county’s lasting impact on the environment. I
was one of many crew members sent to different public location, such as
schools and churches across Howard County to build rain gardens that are
designed to process the pollutants and extra nutrients that rainfall would
otherwise pick up from roads, parking lots and lawns and carry to our precious
bay.
Contact Info: Donald Tsusaki, [email protected], (443) 949- 0575
Why is it important?The READY program sought to address the issue of rainwater runoff throughout
its entirety. This was accomplished through the construction of rain gardens, and
through the education of its workers at seminars and lectures at various
sites .As more impermeable surfaces are created every day, water cannot
properly percolate causing sources such as animal feces and lawn fertilizer to be
washed away directly into the bay , creating optimal conditions for algae to
flourish well beyond their normal levels. As the algae takes over the bay, it
restricts access to sunlight by other plants in the bay, causing the smaller aquatic
life to have no food to eat. These consequences echo upwards throughout the
system creating “dead zones” where the majority of life cannot survive. The
READY program seeks to reverse these effects by educating the general
population of this lesser known topic and by creating landscapes that filter out
the extra nutrients before they reach the bay, instead creating healthy self-
sustaining gardens in public places such as schools and churches.Daily Work
On the practicum site, which consisted of various
local schools, churches and retirement homes,
much of my duties required immense physical
strain. On a typical day, between a group of 6 crew
members, two thousand pounds of rocks and dirt
were moved by hand. After a considerably long
and detailed process where layers of earth are
systematically removed, the gardens are tested by
seeing whether or not water correctly percolates
down into the ground.
The other portion of the practicum required
occasional educational lectures and seminars so
that the organization as a whole could better learn
the impacts of our work from trained specialists.
These ranged from aquatic research labs, wildlife
preserves and national parks among many others.
As a whole, this practicum was both mentally and
physically challenging as everyone was expected
to be able to complete the work, as well as know
why they were doing it.
Across 5 crews and 30 young adults, 192,000 square feet of
impermeable surfaces were treated. Although there are many
more areas to be taken care of, this is still a vital step that will
prevent a considerable amount of extra nutrients from
reaching the bay and creating more dead zones in the eco
system.
This has many social implications as well. The success of
putting 30 young adults in charge of changing our bay’s
future was understandably met with a lot of doubt. However,
the involved crews managed to put in more work than ever
expected in one of Maryland’s hottest summers on record.
This not only got the program reapproved for the upcoming
summer, but inspired many other groups within the
community to take part. Mass orders for rain gardens have
been accumulated by the supervisors of the READY program
in preparation for the next season, DC has shown interest in
replicating the program in Washington and the county has
begun planning seminars to teach local landscapers the value
of rain gardens.
Impact
AcknowledgementsFor this experience I’d like to thank Donald
Tsusaki, whom without this entire program would
have never come to fruition, Jaison Renkenberger
for driving 30 miles a day to supervise every
individual site, and Amanda Tritinger for
supervising our immediate site.
Future Goals
My involvement in the READY program has not
greatly changed my future goals in the long term,
but because of it I am heavily planning on
returning to the program this summer as a crew
leader. Despite what I had predicted, being on a
landscaping site all day doing very intense
physical labor was much more rewarding than the
majority of the other jobs that I have had, and
nothing can replace the feeling of coming home
entirely exhausted and broken every day knowing
that one helped the environment, and overall,
society. Although it is not enough to divert me
from my current path in psychology, it has
definitely developed a sincere appreciation for
hard work.
Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay [Logo] (1971). Retrieved March 31st, 2013, from: http://www.stormwaterpa.org/media/blogcontent/AlliancefortheChesapeakeBay.JPG
Crew members construct a rain garden at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center in Columbia, Maryland.
Tsusaki,Donald (Photographer). (2013). READY Crew Members. [Documentation]
Finished garden at Francisan Friars.
Morad, Nabil (Photographer). (2013) READY Program Finished Gardens[Documentation]