Submitted by Betty Mayes
City has always been my life. I was born and raised in this city we call Baltimore.
A beautiful park known as Herring Run, with its rippling stream, was part of my life from early childhood. My own children, now grown and living in their own homes in this same city, also have the same affinity for this park.
But something has changed. When the rainwater from storms pours down the sewer inlets, there is trash that flows along with it. Where does it go? Into the stream we call Herring Run. Instead of being a beautiful pristine stream flowing through our city on its way to the river and bay, it becomes a flotilla of varied trash. How can we make this the "dream stream" that it could be?
Our mayor has pledged to make our city a "cleaner, greener Baltimore." This must begin with the children who need to see the results of trash being dropped in the street.
An impromptu lesson on the environmental impact of street trash was had by a group of children and my husband and me during a recent rainstorm. We were in the park when the storm came, and all of us took cover on a footbridge under the main traffic bridge. It rained quite hard for the first ten minutes, and the waters of the stream flowed faster and faster.
Then, in an instant, there came an onslaught of plastic bottles, cans, styrofoam, plastic bags and anything else that may have been dropped in the street. The kids were amazed at what the fast flowing stream was carrying, and the big question was "How did it get there?"
Our teaching lesson on environmental impact began at that moment. Teach the children to live greener lives, and our city, park, and stream will, indeed, be "cleaner and greener."
Photo Caption: Morgan State University ROTC members pick up trash in Baltimore's Herring Run Park during a park clean-up in April of 2008. (Photo by Betty Mayes)
