The Skinny on Eco Grants Funded by those Pretty Bay License Plates
Has your group or organization been considering a “greening” project, but wondered where the cash will come from?
Has your group or organization been considering a “greening” project, but wondered where the cash will come from?
Water is a gift. Water is life.
Clean water represents life and it is indeed a gift whether we are drinking it, recreating in it, or being baptized in it. So what is our role in keeping our water clean and safe?
Clean water starts where we live….the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Everyone living in the watershed (approximately 18 million people covering more than 64,000 square miles of land) contributes in some way to the health of the Bay.
So how does what we do in our backyards and on our church grounds affect the water of the Bay? When stormwater runs off impervious services, such as roofs, streets and parking lots, it picks up trash and pollutants that are carried to nearby storm drains and flow directly into our streams or rivers. These polluted waters eventually make their way to the Bay. Areas with forests and meadows or rain gardens allow the rainfall to be absorbed into the ground or evaporate into the atmosphere. You can help protect God’s waterways and groundwater by properly managing the stormwater at your church and home.
Begin by having a water audit done for your church grounds to determine how best to collect water that drains from the rooftops and paved surfaces. Once done, you will
There are many great resources and funding opportunities to guide you through this process and helplighthouse finance your efforts.
Blue Water Congregations, a program thru Blue Water Baltimore and Interfaith Partners of the Chesapeake, provides free technical, design, financial and landscape expertise to identify and implement stormwater reduction strategies at faith-based institutions within our watersheds.
Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake offers a number of great programs to help congregations in their efforts.
Stewards of the Bay: A Toolkit for Congregations in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, a nonprofit that leads, supports and inspires local action to protect the lands, rivers and stream of the Bay watershed, offers a wide array of programs to reduce stormwater runoff:
So why else is consuming bottled water a bad idea?
Using vast quantities of fossil fuels and water, these bottles are manufactured, filled, and shipped around the globe. (Not a good carbon footprint!)
Plastic bottles are not biodegradable in any meaningful way: what you drink in a few minutes can stick around for a thousand years. Even with recycling efforts, 6 out of 7 plastic bottles consumed in the U.S. are thrown in the trash or “downcycled.”
Americans buy more than half a million bottles of water every week … when it flows virtually free from the tap.
What can you do instead?
Carry a reusable water bottle with you.
At church events, provide water in pitchers or use a water cooler for large events.
Resources
The Story of Bottled Water
Untapped: A documentary movie that examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution and our reliance on oil.
Bag It: A documentary on why plastic is so harmful to our health and environment and what you can do to reduce it.
Your carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas.