{"id":22080,"date":"2021-11-16T14:58:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T19:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/currents\/?p=13686"},"modified":"2024-05-21T15:53:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T19:53:55","slug":"charlotte-neighborhoods-recognize-their-waters-and-their-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/charlotte-neighborhoods-recognize-their-waters-and-their-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte Neighborhoods Recognize Their Waters and Their Voices"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Above: Ryan Bowen, Crystal Alford and Yvonne Adams participate in a stormwater cleanup and storm drain labeling event organized by Our Voice, Our Water in Historic Washington Heights in Charlotte. The North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute, a sister program of North Carolina Sea Grant, co-sponsored the project.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Cameron Miller<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Bryan Patterson, PhD, chairs the Public Leadership Studies concentration at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Community groups in several Charlotte neighborhoods have joined Johnson C. Smith University\u2019s Bryan Patterson to tackle long-term stormwater issues. Partners in the\u00a0Our Voice, Our Water<\/i>\u00a0project include residents in Lincoln Heights, Washington Heights and Northwood Estates, along with the Regional Stormwater Partnership of the Carolinas and the Rising Solutions engineering consulting firm.<\/p>\n

With funding from the North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute and the North Carolina Stormwater Consortium, the team is building upon earlier annual litter roundups sponsored by the university and surrounding communities along the historical west-end of the City of Charlotte.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohnson C. Smith historically has meaningful outreach to the members of this community, engaging the community and doing various community service activities,\u201d says Patterson, who is chair of the university\u2019s Public Leadership Studies concentration.<\/p>\n

But the cleanups alone could be considered a temporary solution to a much more serious, complex problem \u2014 a temporary fix for a systemic issue impacting the quality of life in these neighborhoods. Through\u00a0Our Voice, Our Water<\/i>, the residents are gaining new perceptions and solutions.<\/p>\n

Rather than clean-ups on particular streets, this project has added education elements, along with community participation in the research, notes Thelma Byers-Bailey, president of the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we are focusing on educating our entire neighborhood,\u201d she says. In particular, an ongoing effort is to explain how trash and debris get into the waterways: via stormwater drains.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not think we know how damaging the debris will be flowing into those drains. We need to know why.”<\/p>\n

Working Together<\/b><\/h2>\n

Byers-Bailey has known the \u201ccreek at the bottom of the hill\u201d since she was a child growing up in Lincoln Heights. As an adult, she came to realize how far the creek winds through the neighborhood and that is runs near an elementary school.<\/p>\n

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Thelma Byers-Bailey is a Lincoln Heights community leader and key member of the Our Voice, Our Water project.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Through\u00a0Our Voice, Our Water,\u00a0<\/i>she is eager to help not only her immediate neighbors, but also those in other communities that make up the Historic West End Neighborhood Association to be more conscious of the nearby waterways, and the impacts of litter and stormwater.<\/p>\n

Project partners acknowledge the challenges of working with communities facing a multitude of pressing issues, such as affordable housing. \u201cI think the real unique piece of it is really understanding how all of these things impact one another, but may not necessarily directly coincide in your everyday activities or your everyday thoughts,\u201d Patterson explains.<\/p>\n

What is\u00a0Our Voice, Our Water\u00a0<\/i>doing to change these perceptions? A key strategy lies in empowering these neighborhoods to have control over their conditions through the program\u2019s partnerships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that that\u2019s the major place where these targeted communities have felt that they were not heard at all,\u201d Patterson adds. Getting a dialogue started has been key, he says, \u201creaching out to the right people in the right places.\u201d For example, Making Charlotte Beautiful is among the partners.<\/p>\n

Also, the lessons learned can be shared widely through the Regional Stormwater Partnership of the Carolinas, a nonprofit that includes 22 municipal and city entities who share common goals within stormwater management.<\/p>\n

Research Groundwork<\/b><\/h2>\n

As the project started, not all the residents and neighborhoods shared the same concerns about and perceptions of stormwater issues. This is where an analysis of calls to the city\u2019s 3-1-1 hotline, along with surveys Patterson and his research partners conducted, came into play.<\/p>\n

The team sent out several surveys to gauge the communities\u2019 perception of stormwater issues. Groups surveyed included participants in events hosted by program partners, as well as a random sampling of people in the neighborhoods of focus, to get a general idea of their knowledge of the links between litter and stormwater.<\/p>\n

Using data collected from the 3-1-1 calls, team member Daisha Williams, filtered out calls unrelated to stormwater and pollution. She then categorized and quantified the remaining calls to provide an overview of the areas of most concern in each neighborhood. Williams worked on the project through N.C. AmeriCorps, and now serves as environmental justice manager for CleanAIRE N.C.<\/p>\n

The data served as the basis for the \u201c3-1-1 Have a Voice\u201d workshop that \u201cconnected community members to municipal entities in concerned stormwater areas, in order to establish a sustainable pathway of communication and connection,\u201d Williams notes.<\/p>\n\n

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Regina Guyer of Rising Solutions agrees. \u201cIt is meaningful to know that citizens and Charlotte Mecklenburg staff have communicated within the \u20183-1-1 Having a Voice Workshop\u2019 and will seek continued communications to address issues and interest within these communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the first steps in the partners\u2019 action plan has been indexing streams running through the communities, to assess overall water quality. For each neighborhood, one site is selected upstream, two within the neighborhood and one downstream. Each site has been chosen based on visibility and significance to the community.<\/p>\n

Through 100-foot stretches, first-glance and count assessments, the following factors were scored and totaled for each neighborhood.<\/p>\n