Restoring the Environment and Developing Youth

Nabil Morad, nmorad@terpmail.umd.eduEnvironment, 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, dtsusaki@allianceforthebay.org, (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]