Place: Nokomis Community Center
Robert Wright of the NEST program:
NEST stands for Neighborhood Environmental Stewardship Program - it's a volunteer citizen partnering program concerned with preserving and restoring shared water resources.
Watersheds: There are large and small watersheds. Rebuilding wetlands slows down the amount of runoff and fresh water that goes to the bays - for the creatures in the bays, salinity is an important factor for survival.
Venice has virtually no stormwater treatment - older system. Stormwater goes straight into the Gulf.
For homes there are various Low Impact Design (LID) Concepts that work with nature:
- Permeable pavers, gravel, instead of concrete.
- Bio-swales - use concrete blocks with holes that allow grass to grow through them.
- Rain Barrels - a new twist on the ancient practice of cisterns.
Move to Native Yards. "The largest non-edible crop in Florida is grass."
- Lawns use fertilizers that run off into ponds, leading to excessive nitrogen.
- Using plants at the water's edge of ponds can reduce erosion and runoff. See more here.
- Plants can thus buffer ponds and protect them as well as the soil around them.
- For appropriate plants, talk to the Florida Native Plant Society.
Rainwater does not reach the deep aquifer from which we get our drinking water. The water we consume comes from far deeper, and flows west from the state's Central Ridge, which is in the Orlando area. It costs 1 KW of electricity to move 1 gallon of water from the aquifer to your home. Keep this in mind when you're using it. 59% of drinking water is used to irrigate lawns.
Rob Wright
NEST Program Coordinator
1001 Sarasota Center Blvd.
Sarasota, FL 34240
Phone: (941) 861-0929
E-mail: rwright@scgov.net
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