BATON ROUGE, La.—The Louisiana Stormwater Coalition (LSC), LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens, BREC and ExxonMobil successfully “Bashed the Trash” at Monte Sano Bayou, located in north Baton Rouge near Interstate 110 and ExxonMobil’s facility earlier this month.
Monte Sano Bayou is part of the BREC park system and is on LSC’s list of critical stormwater demonstration sites in the state.
“We were excited to see more than 50 volunteers join forces to do a legacy litter cleanup that included a massive number of tires that have been illegally dumped in the bayou,” director of the Botanic Gardens at Burden and LSC cofounder Jeff Kuehny said. “We hope that the installation of a stormwater litter boom will help keep the bayou clean and free of trash and debris.”
Items collected included:
- Trash: 46 bags, totaling 630.84 pounds and 134.5 cubic feet
- Tires: Hundreds
- Debris: 35.25 pounds
- Recycling: Four bags, totaling 36.46 pounds and 22.5 cubic feet, including 503 #1 PET plastic bottles and 213 aluminum cans
LSC contracted Osprey Initiative LLC, thanks to an investment from ExxonMobil to install a litter boom, support the cleanup effort and collect data to create a litter-free bayou at BREC’s Monte Sano Bayou. Osprey will continue to collect data from the litter boom, which will be used for litter remediation upstream.
Demonstration sites such as Monte Sano Bayou are essential for developing effective stormwater management and litter abatement strategies. The data collected and the combined learnings will become part of a stormwater management guide to be drafted by the LSC. The guide will be made public upon completion.
“At ExxonMobil, we care about the communities where we live and work, and we were happy to join with our community partners at BREC, the Louisiana Stormwater Coalition, the LSU AgCenter and Osprey on this important initiative,” Meg Mahoney, manager of public and government affairs at ExxonMobil, said. “Not only did our employee volunteers pick up hundreds of pounds of litter to make the bayou cleaner for those enjoying the park, these efforts can also lead to better stormwater drainage for north Baton Rouge, supporting improved quality of life for our neighbors.”
Lydia Nichols-Russell, natural resource manager at BREC, echoed Mahoney’s sentiments.
“Interrupting the flow of litter at Bayou Monte Sano makes it a cleaner, safer place for those living nearby, and it also improves the quality of life for all the people and wildlife downstream,” Nichols-Russell said. “To help with this effort, please put trash in a bin, tie your trash bags and reduce single-use items to keep Louisiana clean and everyone living here healthy.”
The Louisiana Stormwater Coalition is an all-volunteer, grassroots effort dedicated to advocating for permanently funded stormwater management programs and educating the public on their benefits and how they help address flooding and litter issues, strengthen economies and enhance a community’s quality of place.
In 2021, the Louisiana Senate passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 24 calling for a stormwater feasibility study, which currently includes projects at Bayou Fountain, the LSU AgCenter’s Burden wetlands, Capitol Lake and Monte Sano Bayou. Once these demonstration projects are complete, the LSC will draft and submit a manual on developing and implementing stormwater management programs in Louisiana; this manual will be made available to the public. In 2022, the LSC was instrumental in helping Louisiana become the 42nd state to declare stormwater to be a utility.
This local option legislation now provides towns and cities with a permanent funding mechanism needed to bond capital improvement projects and provides reliable, consistent funding to help build strategic stormwater management plans to help solve flooding and litter problems in local communities. Please visit www.louisianastormwater.com for more information.
This story originally appeared on LSU AgCenter by Malorey Uzee. You can read the original story online here.
