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A few months ago,
EPA and The Weather Channel teamed up to create a documentary
called After the Storm,
highlighting some causes and effects of water pollution -
essentially describing nonpoint-source pollution and the dynamics
of a watershed to a diverse audience. The program contained
interviews with scientists and ordinary citizens, examples
(from New York City, the Santa Monica Bay, and the Gulf of
Mexico) of the damage polluted runoff can cause, and practical
information on what people should do - marketing types would
describe it as "the call to action" - to protect their own
watersheds, such as recycling hazardous household waste and
picking up after their dogs.
A real need still
exists for such information, notwithstanding the ongoing efforts
of Phase II public-education and outreach efforts. All of
us, at one time or another, have heard results of surveys
conducted by water-quality outreach programs, in schools,
or by a local news station doing a segment on water pollution.
A recent survey in a southern California city, for instance,
found that 68% of randomly selected people didn't know what
a watershed was, and, when asked whether they lived in a watershed,
fewer than 28% said yes. Two Canadian surveys of people living
along a particular stretch of polluted river concluded that
public awareness is even declining a bit (in one survey, 27%
of the people questioned defined "watershed" correctly; four
years later, 23% did).
The message is
important, but the packaging is too, especially when that
message is in danger of being lost in the surrounding noise.
With so many causes and ideas competing for attention, a few
well-produced documentaries and other tools that can be made
available for use by many different stormwater programs seem
to me a valuable complement to local efforts, which are almost
without exception operating on limited budgets. The rights
to After the Storm, for example, eventually will revert
to EPA, which plans to make it available for broadcast by
other television stations, as well as to educational organizations.
Repetition is critical
to drive a concept home, whether you're marketing a product
or conveying an idea, and most local stormwater education
programs just can't deliver the variety or reach people as
often as they need to. It's taken years, but some powerful
messages about once-obscure or -unpopular concepts have entered
the public consciousness through long-repeated exposure. The
general understanding of global warming and the shift in attitudes
toward smoking are two of them, and arguably the entire environmental
movement in the United States was born from the same sort
of public awareness efforts in the 1960s and '70s, leading
not only to new legislation and increased private conservation
efforts but also to easily recognized and understood milestones,
including Earth Day.
It's true that
many of the people who watch programs like After the Storm
already have an interest in the subject and that those who
neither know nor care what a watershed is are unlikely to
seek them out. Then again, a widely distributed and often
repeated program will draw in some chance viewers - perhaps
some who, surfing television channels, will stumble across
it, find it a preferable alternative to an infomercial, make
a connection with something they've heard or seen locally,
and learn something along the way.
Send
Janice an email
SW
May/June 2004
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