As a watershed steward, I never thought my first success story with stormwater management on private land would involve a nonagenarian. After all, most recommendations for slowing the flow of stormwater and allowing it to soak back into the earth through rain gardens involve some serious physical labor to implement and a bit of physical activity to maintain.
But Dorothy Brooker is not your average 90-year-old.
Most people don't think about stormwater until pools or floods form after a heavy rainstorm. The old way of dealing with stormwater is to pipe it out and dump it into the nearest streams and rivers. We now know that this harms aquatic life, however, because it drastically changes their environment. Think about all the pesticides, fertilizer, poop and oils that stormwater collects being dumped onto your home — not pretty.
To minimize the damage we are doing to our waterways, watershed stewards are helping communities slow the flow of stormwater off of their properties by encouraging it to soak into the earth with the help of native plants.
I worked with Michael Rock, head of the landscape committee in Deering Woods condominium complex in Columbia, to assess their stormwater issues, which have caused eroded land as well as flooded areas. Ms. Brooker is on the landscape committee there.
Like most of us, she had no idea what native plants were and had never gardened with them. However, once Ms. Brooker found out about the benefits of native plants — they soak up stormwater, are low maintenance and create a habitat for pollinators, frogs and birds — she went out to Blue Water Baltimore to buy some native plants for her own garden.
Last summer, a team of young adults ages 16 to 26 from the READY (Restoring the Environment and Developing Youth) program, installed three rain gardens in Deering Woods. From her condominium, Ms. Brooker saw the crew working. She offered them Popsicles to cool off and the use of her bathroom for breaks.
She was also part of the Deering Woods team that watered and cared for the plants during their crucial first year. As we all know, it is one thing to have something installed; it is another thing to maintain it in working condition, especially when living things are part of the maintenance. When the rain gardens appeared to need some adjustment, Ms. Brooker picked up the phone and called to report her observations. It is clear that she looks to see what needs to get done, and then does it.
This is how she approached quitting smoking at the age of 60. She knew she had to stop, so she did — cold turkey. But she also knew to avoid the things that would tempt her to smoke — like sweets. That resulted not only in greater ease in breathing, but a healthy weight loss.
The fact that Ms. Brooker could stop smoking at age 60 and begin taking care of her body to become a healthy 90-year-old gave me much hope. Can we do the same for our planet? Yuan T. Lee, the 1986 Nobel Laureate for chemistry, noted in the recent Nobel Laureates Symposium on Global Sustainability in Hong Kong that part of the problem with comprehending the urgency of climate change is that a 2 degree Celsius rise doesn't seem like that big a deal. However, if your body temperature goes up 2 degrees Celsius , your doctor would be seriously concerned. Similarly, most people are not worried about smoking several cigarettes per day because the effect of these actions each day is small — just like the effects each of us has on our planet with the use of fossil fuel and impervious surfaces each day.
Maybe all we need is to be receptive to new data and ideas and get rid of old misconceptions. If a 90-year-old can do this, why can't the rest of us?
Sabrina Fu teaches science and environmental management classes at UMUC and volunteers in Howard County for watershed stewardship, Steam Clean and Frog Watch. She is also group leader for Citizens' Climate Lobby, Howard County Chapter, and volunteers at Howard County Conservancy for animal care and native plant care. Her email is rousfu@verizon.net.