Through a project funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Region 1, MyRWA is working with several community organizations on a stormwater education project. As part of this program, Tri-City Community Action Program (Tri-CAP) worked with the Beebe School in Malden during the 2010- 2011 school year in conjunction with the Partnership for Community Schools in Malden’s (PCSM) Channel Surfing afterschool program.
Tri-CAP’s environmental justice coordinator, Nick Cohen, worked with a group of Beebe School students to learn about stormwater pollution in relation to the Malden River. The students learned about these issues by conducting hands-on activities in the classroom, visiting the Malden River, meeting with Malden city officials, and taking water quality samples with MyRWA. For their final project, the students restored a wet meadow area adjacent to Fellsmere Pond to improve stormwater runoff. Additionally, the students created images about their project for interpretive signage to be placed in the park kiosk. Nick Cohen, a Malden-based landscape designer and two Malden High School students supervised the students in this project. The City of Malden endorsed the project as consistent with the Open Order of Conditions for water quality improvements and general maintenance of the pond.
