More than 80 percent of Baltimore-area residents say they're willing to do "a lot more" to prevent water pollution, but they don't want to pay more taxes to solve the problem, according to a newly released opinion survey.
This suggests an ad campaign to educate people about steps they can take in their personal lives - picking up pet waste, using less lawn fertilizer and stopping littering - could help clean up Baltimore Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay, according to a pair of local environmental groups that commissioned the research.
Changing personal behavior could be more politically palatable than asking the city to pay millions to install trash filters in its storm-water drains to keep floating debris out of the harbor, leaders of the Herring Run Watershed Association and the Jones Falls Watershed Association said.
"People want to solve problems, but they never want to pay for them," said Mary Sloan Roby, executive director of the Herring Run Watershed Association. "The issue has to impact people directly and personally. Are your children going to be safe to play in the water and eat the fish?"
The organizations, along with other groups in the Stormwater Action Coalition, hope to attract government and corporate donations to create an anti-pollution ad campaign.
One goal of the public education campaign is to end ignorance about what happens to rainwater when it washes over city streets.
Eighty-two percent of 800 Baltimore-area residents who were surveyed by phone last summer said they are aware that storm water from streets and parking lots flows into local waterways.
But 17 percent of the people falsely believed that the storm water was treated before it spilled into Baltimore Harbor. In reality, storm water - often full of trash, oil and other pollutants from the streets - flows untreated and mostly unfiltered into the harbor, which leads to the Patapsco River and then the bay.
And 38 percent of those polled don't know what happens to storm water. Only 16 percent knew for certain that storm water is not treated, while 28 percent thought it was probably not treated but weren't sure, according to research for the environmental groups by the Annapolis-based OpinionWorks polling firm.
"People don't understand how watersheds operate, and they don't understand the connection between their lawn and the harbor - but once they get that, they respond," said Steve Raabe, president of OpinionWorks.
