This past Tuesday evening, November 26th, Matt, Rick, Staj, Michelle and Gregg took part in Surfrider Portland's first Green Streets Cleanup. The City of Portland's Green Streets Program seeks to get the public educated and involved in healthy stormwater managment in Portland, through helping maintain the city's unique Bioswales.
What's a bioswale you ask? We'll its one of the most darn tootin "Why didn't I think of that first?" things around. Instead of having stormwater go down the drain, through a pipe and into a stormwater treatment center, why not have the pollutants naturally filtered out by plants, and have the water seep back down into ground water? Well, that's basically how it works.
Portland is actually internationally known for these bioswales, and city planners from around the world come here to check out our"fleet" of swales. The third Tuesday of each month, we'll be out and about cleaning the swales around the Sumner and Williams streets in NE Portland. There's about 15 or so swales in this area, and we walk around and pick up trash out of them, and make sure the entry and exits to these swales are nice and clear so they work properly. Oh and most importantly we eat awesome dessert afterwards. This past month we chowed down on fresh baked chocolate chip cookies with delicious whole chocolate milk. It was out of control!
Come and join us next month! Contact Gregg to find out more!
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