NEMO Linking Town Halls to Technology, Linking Land Use to Water Quality   By Peg Van Patten Connecticut Sea Grant

NEMO project coordinator Chester Arnold, extension water quality educator, pulled down the screen, snapped on the slide projector, and using high-tech GIS map graphics and remote sensing images, showed the group their favorite subject: their town and its watersheds. Arnold used aerial and satellite images of the town compiled into a land use map to tell the NEMO story, then added ordinary photos and slides to show typical or specific situations. Different colors on the map indicated areas that are aquatic, forested, cultivated, or impervious. (Impervious areas are surfaces that water can't penetrate, such as asphalt paving, roofs, and concrete.) Then Jim Gibbons, extension land use planner, took the group on a virtual time-travel journey into the future, using GIS technology to project a "build-out" scenario-how the original map changes if all of the development that the town's current zoning regulations allow actually occurs. 

GIS stands for "geographic information system," and means that any data that can be referenced to a location can be assembled into a digitized map, stored, and subsequently manipulated with computer software. Different types of information about the same geographical location can be overlain on a base map as a series of layers, making it easy to analyze and compare situations. Statistical programs can also be used with the data displayed to create predictive models. (See Nor'easter (3)2:24-27 for an overview of GIS). 

When the images hit the screen, the questions flew. "What's that large red strip over there?" "That's the shopping mall on Route 1." "And the oblong area next to it?" "That's the hardware chain development across from the toy store." When the view changed to the "build-out" scenario, red areas spread over the screen. The viewers began to ask themselves questions. What water quality issues might develop with additional construction? Could the existing site designs be modified to avoid potential problems? 

This computerized version of the crystal ball shows that with traditional development, the percentage of land covered with impervious surfaces increases dramatically-and if too great an increase occurs in a watershed, water quality inevitably suffers. Recent research shows that when the total area of impervious surface in a watershed exceeds 25 percent, serious degradation of water quality has already occurred. 

The colors shown on the impervious cover maps are fraught with meaning. "We call it our traffic light color scheme," explains Sea Grant Marine Advisory extension educator Heather Crawford, another member of the NEMO team. "It's easy to interpret. Green areas designate environmentally healthy resource situations with less than 10 percent impervious surface, while yellow areas imply a need for caution (10 to 25 percent impervious cover). Red zones (greater than 25 percent), of course, indicate danger-danger that serious degradation to water quality has occurred, requiring remedial action." Crawford, Arnold, Gibbons, and another team member, Heather Nelson, NEMO technical coordinator, have done similar presentations involving "build-out" scenarios in Old Saybrook, Fairfield, Chester, and other Connecticut towns, and the concept is rapidly catching on. 

NEMO's message is not that all large-scale development must be prohibited, but rather that municipalities can preserve and protect water resources and community character while accommodating compatible economic growth, provided appropriate planning is done. The challenge is to devise a development strategy that fits in with the surrounding community, minimizes negative environmental impact, and doesn't degrade groundwater and surrounding lakes and estuaries. The team advises a three-tiered strategy to accomplish these goals: natural resource-based planning, innovative site design, and the use of best management practices. 

"The key to NEMO is that it provides a broad framework for decision making, rather than the more typical case-by-case situation," says Crawford. The project literally looks at the big picture, addressing water quality not as a stand-alone issue, but as a consideration related to other issues, such as suburban sprawl, traffic, road maintenance, housing subdivision design, open space planning, and neighborhood character. 

One recurring problem in town planning and resource use is that officials on planning boards and wetlands commissions are volunteers, either elected or appointed. Problems sometimes arise because members may lack sufficient technical knowledge and support. They also tend to have busy schedules, a narrow legal purview, and a rapid turnover rate. Given these constraints, board members, however dedicated and qualified, have a hard time tracking the cumulative impacts of proposed developments to the environment, economy, and quality of life. That's where NEMO lends a hand. 

"The project serves as a catalyst for change," Arnold says, "by enabling local officials to better incorporate water resource protection into their everyday decisions." 

For example, in Waterford, commercial and industrial storm water runoff and improved site design are addressed by zoning commissions, and water resource protection goals are added to development plans. As part of an effort involving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the town is using NEMO concepts to experiment with two different housing subdivision designs and a control site to determine the effects of the two designs on water quality downstream, using new monitoring technologies. The town is also testing alternative paving materials at the sites, according to Tom Wagner, Waterford town planner. 

"With the graphical NEMO presentation, commissioners see immediately that water quality issues are not exclusive to wetlands, but are in fact part of the larger picture of watershed-based planning" said Wagner, who is also a member of the NEMO advisory committee. "The NEMO presentation is particularly valuable because the information is presented so concisely and can be quickly absorbed," he said.    

Sea Grant has historical connections with the NEMO project that led to the original concept. The land use cover maps that NEMO uses so effectively were compiled for the entire state of Connecticut by Dan Civco, natural resources management associate professor at the University of Connecticut's remote sensing laboratory in Storrs. The project was partly sponsored by Connecticut Sea Grant development funds, with the intent of estimating major nitrogen sources that contribute to eutrophication in Long Island Sound. Looking at the maps, the creators of NEMO thought of ways to expand the educational value of the data and bring the towns and municipalities directly into the pollution battle. 

Planners are enthusiastically embracing the NEMO program as a guiding light to help them devise environmentally sound projects. In other towns influenced by NEMO presentations, such as Chester, open space planning and natural resource inventories have been initiated by conservation commissions. In Old Saybrook, NEMO information was incorporated into landscaping and parking regulations. For example, shopping centers can try including storm water catch basins in their parking lot designs. Sunken islands of vegetation placed within asphalt parking lots can be attractive features that help to mitigate the problem of polluted runoff. Perhaps the driveways could be just a little narrower. Very practical suggestions like these appear in an article that Arnold and Gibbons wrote for the Journal of the American Planning Association (62)2:243-258. 

While it's easy to blame industrialization and urbanization for water quality problems, these are not the only causes of the problem, Arnold cautions. Housing patterns that developed after World War II, based on individual automobile use, have led to large-scale suburban sprawl and very consumptive patterns. The traditional square or rectangular housing subdivision, for example, incorporates a lot of impervious surface in the blocks of straight roads. A more environmentally sound arrangement-some would say more aesthetically pleasing, too-would be a cluster of houses surrounded by open space. 

Connecticut's NEMO fans also include The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Since 1993, the NEMO project has worked with TNC on two watershed projects in the lower Connecticut River valley, Chester Creek and Eightmile River. TNC designated the area as one of 40 "Last Great Places" in the world. With additional support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the EPA, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NEMO has been able to develop stewardship programs for private woodlot and streamside property owners, in addition to land use programs for town officials. And in Norwalk, NEMO will play a key role in the Norwalk River Watershed Initiative, a collaboration of the EPA, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The watershed is an urban/suburban area draining into the western end of Long Island Sound, where low dissolved oxygen has been a concern. Educational programs will be given to the municipal land use commissions of the one New York and six Connecticut towns that encompass the watershed. 

The NEMO concept is not limited to Connecticut; it's traveling rapidly, as other Sea Grant and extension programs and water districts all over the nation leap to adopt programs like NEMO. It makes sense to export NEMO concepts, since towns in other states face the same or similar problems. In June, NEMO will hold a four-day training workshop in Michigan for Great Lakes Sea Grant and extension staff who want to use GIS in watershed and educational projects. The workshop will be funded by the Sea Grant programs of those states, as well as Connecticut. 

In the Pacific Northwest, a watershed project on Bainbridge Island, Wash., involving extension, Sea Grant, and EPA, is in the planning stage. The NEMO team plans to travel there this summer to train a multiagency team. Alaska's extension is also pursuing some ideas about a NEMO project. Discussions on a NEMO adaptation for the Mobile Bay watershed area in the Gulf Coast region are under way and would probably involve NASA as a major partner, along with the extension and Sea Grant.   

In New Jersey, Rutgers University (NJ) extension has submitted a proposal that is a long-term adaptation of NEMO to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The project would involve a partnership with NRCS and the county planning offices in four New Jersey counties. 

NEMO team member Jim Gibbons, a natural resource planning educator for the UConn extension, is giving presentations on NEMO to staff from all of the water districts in Florida. The presentation may be broadcast by satellite to enable more district staff to participate. The water districts, which are one of the most significant land use planning agencies in Florida, are interested in adapting NEMO statewide. And let's not forget the Northeast: The NEMO team will also train a group from the Merrimack River Watershed Council, a large nonprofit organization in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The project is focused on the Shawsheen River basin, a subbasin of the Merrimack in southeastern Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection is also adapting NEMO educational materials as part of its new watershed initiative. 

Pam Pogue, marine research associate with the University of Rhode Island (URI) Sea Grant program, is part of a team that carries on a similar program in Rhode Island. As part of their municipal training program, Pogue and her collaborator Virginia Lee, Marine Advisory Services coastal management program leader, brought in a team of experts and instructed members of planning boards and commissions in storm and wastewater management, development of water resource protection policies, and the value of wetlands. The training program was developed by the URI Coastal Resources Center and Rhode Island Sea Grant. 

"The training was very intense," said Pogue. "We worked directly with the planning and zoning boards and commissions for 13 weeks, looking at the areas as integrated watershed systems, and reversals were actually brought about on some of the land use decisions. 

"By working together, we helped to facilitate the decision-making process and avoided duplicating efforts," Pogue said. The group has formulated plans intended to preserve Greenwich Bay, while allowing economic growth. 

As resources dwindle and population grows, NEMO-like programs offer a new way of looking at community land use, from a larger, watershed perspective that relates both surface and groundwater quality to impervious surfaces. The most impervious surface of all, Arnold jokes, may be the human head. The difficult part is getting through to people to look at a situation from a new perspective, and to translate what they see into actions that improve resource management and community planning. 

Peg Van Patten is Connecticut Sea Grant Communications Director.