Sponsored by the Belmont Citizens Forum

Where: Winn Brook School Cafeteria, Belmont

When: 7:00 – 9:00 pm, Thursday September 13, 2012

How can you as a homeowner make a difference in improving water quality and reduce flooding in your community?

Clean water is becoming an increasingly precious resource. Managing water from storms such as the mid-July series of thunderstorms that drop inches of water at a time is a critical challenge, given the increase of impervious surfaces in our urban communities. Such surfaces don’t allow the slow infiltration into the earth needed to cleanse water and refresh aquifers, resulting in floods followed by low water levels in waterways, affecting their entire ecology. Water from increasingly severe storms gets into our sewers, overburdening them and sewage treatment plants, leaving sewer overflow damage behind.

Come hear experts discuss local and regional storm water management issues. Find your home on official FEMA maps showing flood patterns in the Winn Brook and other Alewife Brook watershed neighborhoods. Find out what difference citizen voices can make to government decisions about the prevention of flooding and pollution caused by excess storm water.

Bring your questions and concerns!

Panelists:

Kathy Baskin Director of Water Policy, Mass. Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs

Glenn Clancy Belmont Director of Office for Community Development

Patrick Herron Mystic Monitoring Network Director, Mystic River Watershed Association

Ralph Jones Belmont Selectman

Richard Vogel Director, Tufts University’s graduate program, "Water: Systems, Science, and Society"

Moderator: Fred Paulsen, Belmont Town Meeting Member

Non-Profit Cosponsors: