Eye-catching art and meaningful messages combine to create the first installations of a collaborative storm drain environmental awareness art project organized by the Town of Branford Engineering Department.

Branford Assistant Town Engineer Jennifer Acquino said the department was able to develop its new Branford Storm Drain Art and Education project due to a DEEP grant and the collaboration of many.

Acquino said others involved in the project are Branford’s Office of Sustainability and Compliance, Department of Public Works, and Branford Parks and Recreation summer camp, as well as Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and non-profit Lots of Fish, a New Haven-based environmental clean water advocacy and art education group.

In July, DEEP’s Education Outreach group came to Branford to provide three hands-on stormwater education activities for campers, said Acquino. From those activities, Lots of Fish artist and educator JoAnn Moran translated elements created by campers into storm basin artwork designs and messages for the kids to paint.

Using bold, colorful, “bio-based” environmentally friendly traffic paints researched by Moran, a total of three installations have been created at stormwater basins in the vicinity of the Branford Community House.

“As part of the Town’s DEEP Small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer program, we have to develop educational outreach, and we felt it would be a great collaboration with the Parks and Rec summer camp as a way to get the kids directly involved,” said Acquino.

Some of the summer camp program involvement also received funding from a significant State Department of Education grant awarded to Branford Parks and Recreation camp programming.

“It was a good collaboration for us because we wanted to add STEM learning and use community partnerships,” said Parks and Recreation Assistant Director Dale Izzo.

During the DEEP stormwater education session, campers learned important facts that Acquino hopes will resonate with residents, too. DEEP educators explained what stormwater is, talked about impervious surfaces and runoff and how water gets into the drains, what’s supposed to go into the drains, how pollution works, and finding sources of pollution.

“We hope it helps them to understand why we don’t put things in the storm drains and what ends up in the Sound when you do put it in the storm drain,” said Acquino.

One extremely egregious source of pollution that needs to be curbed in Branford is dog owners dropping dog waste bags directly into basins.

“We have a significant problem with people bagging their dog waste and putting it in the drain, thinking it goes to our treatment plant. But all of our storm drains are not connected to our plant. Some larger cities have combined storm and sanitary sewers. The Town of Branford’s are separate. So whatever you throw into these basins will go directly into the Sound at some point,” said Acquino.

With messages like “Only Rain in the Drain” and “What Goes on the Ground Goes in the Sound,” Moran said she hopes the lessons the campers have learned from DEEP about stormwater runoff, and transferred to this project, will be amplified for those who view it.

“I like to do collective projects because it takes collective action to change,” said Moran. “In many cities, the main source of pollution in the water is city streets because the storm drains carry the water with the litter, the oil, everything that’s on the street, and it goes out to rivers, mostly unfiltered. I think there’s a certain amount of ignorance about that, and hopefully, this will help to change a certain number of people’s habits. Every little bit helps.”

Acqunio said Moran has offered to train a volunteer artist from the area to help Acquino keep the project going and growing at other stormwater basins around Branford next summer.

“We’re going to try to do it every year with the camp,” said Acquino.

Learn more about the project at https://sites.google.com/view/branford-storm-drain-art/home