Intern at DEP educates residents about area’s storm water runoff Stencils on drains carry warning

BREWER – Yellow ducks are guarding several catch basins for storm water runoff within the city and other neighboring communities.

The ducks were spray painted onto roads in Brewer, Orono and Bangor by area youth and state Department of Environmental Protection summer intern Caroline Tjepkema as a way to educate residents about contaminants and how they travel from yards to area waterways.

“The ducks symbolize pollution,” she said. “It’s a good visual way to portray pesticides and fertilizers that are not that [visually] apparent.”

Working with the Bangor Area Storm Water Group, made up of representatives from Bangor, Brewer, Hampden, Veazie, Milford, Orono and Old Town, Tjepkema surveyed area residents about how they maintained their lawns and educated youth about water runoff.

The words “Keep water clean” and “Drains to river” surround the ducks, which are the official mascot of Think Blue Maine, which falls under DEP and sponsors educational TV commercials and a Web site, www.thinkbluemaine.org, aimed at teaching people how to keep Maine water clean.

Tjepkema, an Orono resident, recently earned her master’s degree in botany and plant pathology from the University of Maine.

Monday she worked with a group of 4-H youth in Bangor and was in Milford with another youth group on Tuesday. UM’s Cooperative Extension provides her with an office.

“‘Don’t fowl our water,'” said Allan Thomas, Bangor Area Storm Water Group chairman.

“We really do have to clean up our water,” he said. “And not just because it’s a federal mandate. The world depends on it. I’m not a tree hugger, but I know we all rely on that water.”

Since Congress finalized the Clean Water Act in 1977, there has been significant change in the occurrence of waterway pollution, but more work still can be done, Thomas said.

“It’s all the little things,” he said, listing cigarette butts, lawn fertilizers, pesticides and small fluid leaks in vehicles as examples of easily cleaned up contaminants. “It’s just that too many people in the area ignore the little things.

“If residents don’t understand [the problem], they won’t change,” Thomas said.

The Bangor storm water group has been working together for more than a year, said Ken Locke, Brewer storm water coordinator.

As part of her summer job, Tjepkema conducted a lawn care survey with 250 residents within the storm water group’s communities. Free water tests that checked for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium were offered.

“As a group and a community, we’re concerned about the amount of fertilizer and pesticides that are being applied to the laws in the community,” Locke said. “We wanted to get an idea, as a community, about how many residents were applying fertilizer and pesticides and out of them, how many were doing it themselves and how many were hiring a company to do it for them.”

People need to realize that fertilizer, pesticides and other contaminants can travel into rivers, streams and other waterways through the storm drains right outside a home and the bright yellow ducks are a good way to get their attention, Tjepkema said.

“It’s a really good way to portray the pollution,” she said. “People know the commercials and remember the ducks.”

Local AmeriCorps volunteers helped Tjepkema with stenciling the ducks.

Members of the Bangor Area Storm Water Group and Think Blue Maine will be giving away plastic yellow ducks at the American Folk Festival later this month to people who can answer a water pollution question, Thomas said.