[Durham INC] Building more rain gardens

[Melissa Rooney]

Hiring an engineering company to oversee a rain-garden program is like hiring a plastic surgeon to treat acne. 
It is overkill and completely unnecessary, redundant, and costly (for Durham taxpayers).

Durham citizens elect supervisors to serve on the Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) board, providing far more citizen oversight of the rain-gardens and other bmp’s (best management practices) that our tax dollars are paying for (via state and county (and previously city) funding of Durham’s SWCD).

The SWCD has an incredibly hands-on approach, involves cost-sharing (which is far more educational to the homeowners on whose property these bmp’s are being installed and which also ensures their long-term buy-in with regard to proper use and maintenance of these bmp’s), and involves our public school system via the Agriculture/Business programs at Southern High School, the Hub farm, and soon-to-be Lowe’s Grove Middle School.

Yet the city Stormwater Services department (SS) excluded the SWCD’s RFP (to provide the rain-garden services sought) before the SS's scoring process of the other RFP’s was even complete.

My favorite part about the SWCD’s RFP was that nearly ALL of the funds requested (to provide these rain-garden services) were going to pay for public school teacher stipends (for those overseeing the above Ag/Bus programs) and summer stipends for the students who work in these programs via their public school programs. This summer stipend would be a significant financial contribution to the families of the many low-income students involved in the Ag/Bus program at Southern (and who would be installing the rain gardens as well as growing the plants for them).

Furthermore, the SWCD’s RFP involved collaboration on the part of the state, the county, DPS, and the city (via this RFP), and letters of recommendation were submitted along with the RFP accordingly. I’ve never seen a more collaborative and positive approach.

What’s more, the SWCD put in a lot of staff time fulfilling the hurdles required to provide these exact same rain-garden/bmp-installation service for the city last year for a mere $10,000 (all of which was cost-shared among the homeowners whose applications were accepted, on the basis of which projects would provide the most benefit to our waterways). The SWCD went through this frustrating process under the pretense that this contract with the city would be ongoing; and I, for one, was very frustrated when I learned that the city Stormwater Services Department was, instead, requesting RFPs from other entities for these same services. In the meantime, the SWCD’s services in this regard, and especially the involvement of our public schools, has received awards on all levels (see annual report link below):

http://dconc.gov/home/showdocument?id=13393 <http://dconc.gov/home/showdocument?id=13393>

The lack of sincere collaboration (in action, not just meetings) between the city’s Stormwater Services and Durham’s Soil and Water Conservation District must end if our approach to improving the health of our waterways is to be its most effective (cost-wise as well as environmental-benefits-wise). 

The necessity for a holistic approach and long-term plan regarding actions to improve the health of our stormwater and water sources is a no-brainer. The city and county must work together if we taxpayers are to get the most bang for our bucks.

I hope that the INC will invite the SWCD and Stormwater Services (at separate meetings) to discuss this matter at length and take action to improve this situation moving forward.

Sincerely,
Melissa (Rooney)

www.melissarooneywriting.com <http://www.melissarooneywriting.com/>




> On Sep 5, 2015, at 11:14 AM, Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I am struggling to understand these two different proposed processes for getting more rain gardens in Durham, a relatively cheap way to improve water quality in our water supply lakes.
> 
> What we aren't doing, the Soil and Water Conservation District program, costing in 10's of thousands of $$:
> Get the plants from DPS's Hub Farm (http://www.thehubfarm.org <http://www.thehubfarm.org/>)
> Use a network of watershed associations to find places to build rain gardens (they should have included INC!)
> Use the students at the ag concentration and internship program at Southern High School to build the rain gardens
> Use design and technical assistance from SWCD staff
> 
> What stormwater decided to do, costing 100s of thousands of $$ for 1/2 as many rain gardens:
> Farm everything out to a Raleigh firm (hiring how many Durham folks to work on it???) 
> Now, I can understand that if you are building a great big retention pond, you would need a specialist engineer to figure things out (tho the specialist engineers did a pretty good job of messing up the stormwater pond in our neighboring development, so they had to get in the super-specialist engineers to do it right (-:).  But it doesn't sound like a backyard rain garden is something you need a certified civil engineer to OK.
> I think other municipalities in NC (Charlotte? Wilmington?) have figured out how to use more local services effectively where they are appropriate, and it is always disappointing when Durham isn't showing leadership in effective use of taxpayer money.
> 
> Regards, pat
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