Equity In Every Drop: Series Three, Episode Six

Slowing Stormwater Runoff

In this episode of ‘Equity in Every Drop,’ host Thomas Hynes interviews Ivy Frignoca of Casco Baykeeper in Maine. Ivy highlights the importance of addressing stormwater runoff, its various pollutants, and the solutions being implemented, including low impact development and green infrastructure. Ivy emphasizes the necessity of practical and sensible approaches to mitigate these issues and calls for public awareness and participation. Tune in to learn about the ongoing efforts to protect one of Maine’s most significant natural resources and how each individual can contribute to cleaner and healthier waters.

During the discussion, Ivy emphasizes the importance of implementing low-impact development practices to minimize the harmful effects of stormwater runoff. These practices include preserving natural landscapes, creating rain gardens, and using permeable materials to allow water to filter naturally. She also mentions the need for retrofitting existing urban infrastructures, such as installing treatment systems and underground tanks to handle stormwater more effectively. Ivy explains how combined sewer overflow systems, which mix stormwater and wastewater, can be improved to reduce pollution.

Ivy shares some of the initiatives led by Casco Baykeeper, such as studies on emerging contaminants like PFAS, which pose significant health risks. The organization is also involved in legislative efforts to support better stormwater management practices and to create incentives for sustainable development. Additionally, Casco Baykeeper collaborates with municipalities to implement ordinances that limit the use of harmful substances and improve local water quality.

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Thank you for listening, sharing, and supporting our mission to ensure everyone’s right to clean water. Together, we demand equity in every drop.

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Transcript – Series 3 Episode 6

Thomas Hynes: [00:00:00] Our guest today is Ivy Frignoca of Casco Baykeeper in Maine. 

Ivy has been on the job for the last 10 years. In this role, she has combatted multiple threats to her watershed, including increased development, warmer temperatures, more acidic waters, sea level rise, intense storms, and increased storm water pollution and runoff, which we’ll be discussing today. Ivy is a lawyer and an environmental advocate.

And like me, she’s a graduate of the University of Vermont. Ivy, thank you so much for being here today. It’s great to see you again. 

Ivy Frignoca: Tom. It’s great to see you again as well. 

Thomas Hynes: So for our listeners who have not had the great pleasure of visiting Maine, tell me about yourself and tell me about Casco Bay and tell me about your work as the Casco Bay keeper.

Ivy Frignoca: Well, I think whether people have been to Maine or not, our shoreline is quite iconic with all of its lighthouses and jagged cliffs and lobster that everyone comes here to eat. So that is the backdrop for the work [00:01:00] that I do. I protect Casco Bay. I describe my job as being the Lorax for the water, and Casco Bay extends from Cape Elizabeth up into Phippsburg, Maine, which if you’re not from the area, is sort of a big swath around greater Portland.

So even though. It may be a small slice. If you look at a map of the big part of the state, all of Maine has 1.3 million people, and about 25% of them live in my watershed. So I know that for the rest of you, everywhere else, 1.3 is like, not even the population of your cities. I know that’s true for where you’re sitting, Tom, but for Maine, that’s our total population.

Thomas Hynes: Well, and it’s certainly not 25% of the landmass. I mean, it is for Maine, a very dense part of the state, the most dense part of the state. Right. 

Ivy Frignoca: Casco Bay is probably, our watershed may only be like four or 5% of the landmass. It extends up into Bethel where [00:02:00] some of our more notable ski areas are, but it’s not a big piece of the state in terms of size because it’s such a large state.

But it is big in terms of the type of issues you were talking about because so many people live here. It’s such a beautiful bay and we have to try really hard to have human activities be in harmony with nature. 

Thomas Hynes: Right. And I should have listed tourism or maybe I don’t wanna, maybe that’s a charged issue, but I should have included tourism in some of the challenges, I should say.

Maybe we’ll fold that into development. But today we were gonna talk about storm water runoff and explain to me as if I don’t know anything, which is close to true, what stormwater runoff is, why and how it gets into Casco Bay. It’s more than just rain, right? I mean, this isn’t just rainwater.

This is runoff, which is sort of a different thing. 

Ivy Frignoca: Yeah sort of breaking it down first, Casco Bay is an [00:03:00] estuary, which is a place where the river meets the sea, or fresh water meets salt water. So it’s a very, very rich nursery ground and so storm water is everything that falls from the skies or snows that melt that if the landscape was not developed, would deliver all the fresh water and proper loads of nutrients to the bay, and that’s what Casco Bay needs to be healthy because it’s a very rich nursery ground for so many of our valuable fisheries. What we get concerned with, you use the word runoff, so there’s two things we’re concerned with runoff as you use the term and pollution. So as our watershed gets more developed or because so much development occurred before

 We as people rarely understood the impacts of like literally moving streams and paving, putting parking lots, all around malls. That, how bad that was going to be for water quality [00:04:00] the runoff that you were referring to, that’s what I think of as runoff. When you no longer have natural ground, but you have all these big swaths of pavement.

The rain hits that picks up all the pollutants that are on that surface and sheets right off into our waterways. So that does two things. One, it carries pollution and two, it’s an intense level of runoff that isn’t natural. 

Thomas Hynes: And that’s like the difference between permeable and impermeable surfaces. Correct. So the asphalt is acting impermeable, so the water’s not filtering correctly. And it’s also capturing all of this nasty stuff that’s on the ground. And that’s actually something we talked about in an episode earlier in the series with Sean at Puget Soundkeeper, like 6PPD is coming off of tires.

This is this sort of emerging thing and not what we’re talking about today. But all of this nasty stuff on the ground is coming off with the stormwater. And we were talking before we started recording. A different Waterkeeper, Julie at [00:05:00] Lake Champlain, lakekeeper in nearby Vermont, described it as each drop of rain has a little empty backpack, and then they carry all that nasty stuff with them down to the lake or in your case, down to the bay.

So what kind of threat, how does that manifest in the Bay? I mean, I can kind of imagine, but tell me the threat that that poses to Casco Bay. 

Ivy Frignoca: I like the way that you set this up because the threat it depends on what is being picked up off the landscape. Right? In every storm it’s going to be different pollutants, so it really depends upon the time of year.

You talked about what my colleague Sean is dealing with in Puget Sound. We have that same threat here with all the bridges that cross over the waterways. In my watershed, it could be fertilizers and pesticides could be dog waste. It could be cigarette butts, it could be car exhaust.

 Recently we’re finishing up a study tracking PFAS and we’re looking at [00:06:00] PFAS loading through storm water. So it really depends, like answering that question is so very difficult because there’s gonna be this myriad set of pollutants that can have a problem. And then also the volume of water is very different than what would happen in nature when

things are filtered and cleaned and then discharged into our waters. And finally, which on a hot day like today when we’re recording, what happens is that pavement is super, super hot. So the water hits the pavement, heats up and goes into the our tributaries. And Maine is known for its cold waters, but they’re warming. And that is  one cause of why they’re warming. 

Thomas Hynes: You already mentioned, and I think of Maine, I think of seafood and I think of lobster and I think of things like that. Does that, that, well, that has not just an ecological, but also an economic downstream impact. Right.

I mean, ’cause if the lobsters need to be at a certain temperature and fish need to be at a certain temperature, right. I mean, you can’t really mess with

Ivy Frignoca: Yes.

Thomas Hynes: For a number of [00:07:00] reasons. Yeah. 

Ivy Frignoca: And that’s not, I mean, you mentioned earlier we have a lot of threats. I won’t say that the rising ocean temperature of storm water is just because of impervious surfaces.

That’s a different, there’s different complicating factor there as our whole climate and everything warms. 

Thomas Hynes: Of course. When I think about this problem, and we were talking about this a little bit before we recorded. It’s almost in, it’s weird to say that rain is invisible or that storm water is invisible, but it’s so dispersed and varied based on where it’s landing and when it’s landing and where it’s running off.

That it almost feels like it would be easier to point out this problem if it were, oh, that factory right there has got a pipe and it’s going into the bay. I can see it. They’re a bad actor, and you can kind of focus on that problem a little bit easier. Is there a challenge for you as the advocate for the Bay and I, and for people who are not familiar with the role of a Waterkeeper?

I mean, it’s everything. It’s Chief communication officer, chief marketing officer, chief Scientific officer, legal officer. I mean, [00:08:00] you’re all of these things at once, but if we’re talking about communicating this problem so that you can address it, does that pose, is that harder to raise awareness because you can’t just point at a pipe coming out of a factory.

Ivy Frignoca: Every once in a while there are pipes that associated with stormwater, right? There’s two types of stormwater runoff that comes out of pipes, and for some of those sources, those are regulated under the Clean Water Act and then the diffuse runoff you’re talking about. I think what you’re getting at is how do we address this problem and the best way to address it.

Is to prevent it. So moving forward, we need to adopt in our state and local building codes, the concept of low impact development and what that simply means is preserving nature, doing what nature does, right? So you don’t wanna move a stream bed, you wanna preserve a stream bed. You wanna preserve soils where water can filter.

You wanna put [00:09:00] in areas or rain gardens as they’re called, as places for water to naturally filter. Try to use as less materials as possible that cause those impervious surfaces you were talking about earlier that don’t let water percolate. So there’s a lot of techniques that have been known for a long time that need to be adopted.

So that’s one thing we can do moving forward. Looking at the past harm, we also focus on redevelopment. So when a property is redeveloped in our urbanized areas, we try to look at changes in local and state law and regulations that creates incentives or requires people during redevelopment to do things to reduce storm water pollution. And then on a municipal level We work through a general permit called the MS four permit. I don’t know how wonky we wanna get here, but it is one of the permits under the Clean Water Act, and this one is for the [00:10:00] most urbanized municipalities, and it regulates the discharges coming out of our separate storm source systems. And these are the systems that collect storm water.

People see the drains on the side of the street. And it travels out and discharges into our waterways. And so we’re trying to ensure that those get tested sources of pollution get eliminated and that treatment structures are associated with those as they are upgraded. So that there can be some filtration to clean some of the pollutants out.

 So those are some of the ways we’re dealing with it on the other side we are working to reduce supporting municipalities that pass fertilizer and pesticide ordinance to keep that out. We’ve completed a study to look at PFAS loading so we can look at where those sources need to be reduced.

So really try to the problem as much upfront, figure out where it’s coming from and try to prevent it. 

I know that was a long answer, but it’s not like, it’s not [00:11:00] like there’s one magic thing. It takes a lot of creative thinking across a lot of different solutions. 

Thomas Hynes: And is it, I mean, and as part of that. Maybe you’ve already said this, but, and capturing the water kind of close to where it lands rather so that it can’t run off. Right. So, and having less of those permeable surfaces, rain gardens uh, they also call bioswales, I think. Is that part of the solution as well.

Ivy Frignoca: Yes. So last year I sat on a steering committee to revise the state’s storm water rules. And those are the rules that regulate all development that disturbs over an acre. So it’s not all the development in Maine, but it’s the big ones. 

And the two goals are to preserve nature as much as possible.

 And then the second is to try to treat storm water, anything that’s polluted onsite before it flows off. And I think that’s what you are referring to or kind of asking me to clarify. So that might be the rain gardens, which allow filtration [00:12:00] having buffers between the edge of your parking lot and where the waterway is preserving wetlands and, swamps putting in engineered filtering systems where needed to reduce nitrogen or phosphorus, all those kind of things. 

Thomas Hynes: And that’s not the same as a wastewater treatment plant filtering out nitrogen and phosphorus. That’s like a garden doing that. Right. So my next question was how can green infrastructure kind of help mitigate runoff?

And that sounds like it can, and it’s probably, my guess is it’s a lot cheaper Right. 

Ivy Frignoca: That’s a good and interesting question. Whether it’s cheaper first, I think it’s in working with the engineers on the stormwater steering committee there are treatment systems that can reduce nitrogen or phosphorus.

 I am not an engineer so that is a possibility. It’s still better to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus use in the first place so we don’t have to treat [00:13:00] it. And then you mentioned something about sewage treatment plants. I don’t know about the rest of the country. But I know it’s true in other places of the country.

I know my watershed best. There are instances now where our storm water does go to the treatment plant. And so another way that we’re addressing storm water is that in some of the oldest pipes in the city that carry Wastewater and storm water to the treatment plant. Because those pipes, when it rains a lot, the amount of water going into them exceeds the volume of the pipes.

 Whatever exceeds the volume spills out through gates into our waterways. It’s called combined Sewer overflows. In case any of your listeners have heard about that before. So what they’re doing here in Maine, and I think they’ve done in other places, but they’re really doing along Casco Bay is putting these big underground tanks in.

And so the polluted storm water, the most polluted storm water and waste water from those combined sewer pipes goes in there.[00:14:00] And then when there’s capacity at the treatment plant, it gets sent there and gets treated. And to me that is one of the very best solutions because then it’s getting disinfected.

They’re removing all the solids, all the dog poop bags, people throw down storm water drains and stuff, and they’re treating it also to remove as much pollution as possible.

Thomas Hynes: That is a great idea. And I think there actually is some projects like that in very targeted places happening in new York City,

but if we’re looking at Brooklyn behind me, sort of that way towards Gowanus Canal, formerly the Gowanus Creek, they’re doing something like that there. And just to totally drill down on a sort of, not really necessary point, but like, people take the bags and throw them down the drain, or do they take the contents of the dog, throw down the drain?

Ivy Frignoca: Yes, they take the bag of dog poop and throw them down the drain.

And one of the biggest complaints from people who are hired by municipalities to run their storm water system is how many bags of poop they have to clean out of storm water pipes. So this is like a little public service [00:15:00] announcement in the middle of this podcast.

 Stormwater pipes drain to waterways. They don’t go to a treatment plan or a garbage disposal system. So the bags have to be disposed of in the trash, not down pipes. And I’ve seen it, I was just out actually doing a podcast on stormwater go figure around back cove in Portland, which is a very popular park.

And I was seeing the dog poop bags by the stormwater outfalls.

Thomas Hynes: That’s crazy behavior. And I’m sorry to fixate on this, but I just think that’s crazy. And, And I mean, yeah. Okay. Well, I just 

Ivy Frignoca: Yes, we have April stools day here and try to do public education about it. 

Thomas Hynes: April stools day is brilliant. That’s brilliant. But I just can’t I’ve had dogs and, I clean up after my dog, and I also feel bad just taking the bag and throwing it in the trash because the real thing to do is to actually empty the bag in your toilet.

But I like, I’m not doing that, but we’ve probably given this enough airtime. , But that’s crazy that people do that. April stools day is definitely a way to get ahead. [00:16:00] Yes. That’s a great name. I want to just talk a little bit more about what Casco Baykeeper, like you as the individual or the organization at large.

 In the vein of April stools day, what other programs or initiatives are you proud of that are addressing this problem?

Ivy Frignoca:  Oh my goodness. Wow. How much time do you have? We are working on so many different topics. So first, just wanna step back and sort of set the scene. Portland, Maine is the state’s largest city and densest populated area. It’s a very charming city, and if you leave Portland Harbor and go around the very first set of islands, which are

five minutes offshore, you forget that you are in our immersed, urbanized landscape. You are immediately surrounded by dolphins and porpoises swimming alongside of you and sturgeon leaping and eagles and osprey and Cormorants diving and coming up and gobbling [00:17:00] down fish. So it’s a pretty amazing bay. And then

so much of that’s like sort of Western Casco Bay. So much of Eastern Casco Bay is still the jutting cliffs, the beautiful rugged islands lobstermen clamors. And then we have a burgeoning aquaculture industry here. So picture this bay, if you will being almost everything, Maine, you know what I’m saying?

 From the iconic images of fishermen going out to our most urbanized area and boats with bands on them and people going out to the islands for reggae fest and that kind of thing. So it’s everything. And so our work then encompasses so many issues and one of the biggest buckets that we address is helping Casco Bay adapt to climate change.

So that’s a huge part of my work right now. Responding to emerging contaminants that we’re just learning about, such as the PFAS study storm water and inland land use that has an impact [00:18:00] on the bay and vice versa ’cause the number of species that go back and forth between fresh water and salt water over their life.

So those are kind of like big overarching buckets that we work in. 

 So we’re talking a lot about the problem and how it can manifest in the Bay and what Casco Baykeeper is doing about it.

Thomas Hynes:  What else would you like to see done about it? it’s a silly question, but if you could sort of wave a magic wand and flip a switch, I know that’s not possible, but if you can make some big or small changes or both what would you like to see done about this? 

Ivy Frignoca: I gave you a lot of the things that we’re working on, and this is like long-term work. ’cause it, it’s hard to implement change I think at a very, very high level. 

Thomas Hynes: Exactly. Yeah. 

Ivy Frignoca: It’s easier to grasp people’s attention with ah, PFAS. It causes cancer. We’re just learning about it. We have to address that whatever it is, eelgrass is disappearing.

Casco Bay Loss, 54% of its eelgrass. We need to address that. Those things [00:19:00] are both very true. Stormwater we need to address, we needed to be addressing it a decade ago, a decade before that, a decade before that, a decade before that. And we need to be addressing it into the future. And because it’s kind of this ongoing problem and so diffuse it doesn’t get a lot of attention or focus.

It’s not easy. It’s not neat to grapple with. And. I would like to see it get the attention that it needs because if we don’t address this question, if we don’t address this problem, then nothing we do to try to protect our waters will be successful. And I can give an example. When the Clean Water Act was passed a little over 50 years ago it just went after

industrial and wastewater pollution and commercial pollution. Right? The stuff that you were saying about that comes out of pipes that you can measure in the factory, that you can measure in the wastewater treatment plant, and you can say, reduce by this much and so great.

They [00:20:00] did that and our waters were still polluted. Why? Because the Clean Water Act didn’t address storm water. And so in the late 1980s, it took a stab at addressing storm water, but it’s not there yet, and we’re not there yet, and the Clean Water Act alone won’t be enough. So storm water needs its moment, and I’m really grateful for this podcast to help get the word out about that.

Thomas Hynes: I mean, that’s such a great point. And that, was my thinking on this, is that when you have like a big bad wolf. And I’m just thinking of the stories I tell my little kids, but it’s like you have this like obvious villain in the the factory pipe or the polluter, and you’re like, well, that’s it right there.

I can see it. It’s a problem. We all know that’s not great. Or like you were saying eelgrass is going away, PFAS plastic pollution, they’re more tangible problems. Right.

Ivy Frignoca: Yes.

Thomas Hynes: And you can kind of get your arms around them. But what I’m also hearing is that stormwater and this runoff is all those problems too.

Ivy Frignoca: It makes every single one of those problems [00:21:00] worse. ‘

Thomas Hynes: Yeah.

Ivy Frignoca: cause it’s a, delivery system for so many of them. 

And we will not be successful in our mission or as people if we don’t address storm water pollution. And if we don’t thoughtfully choose how we develop and live on the landscape, 

Thomas Hynes: the delivery system that’s an excellent way to put it, because yeah, it’s the vehicle to bring all this nasty stuff into the ecosystem.

 What else would you want? And I know these are, these are not easy questions to answer, but what would you want a listener to know about this? I know they’ve already learned a great deal listening to this so far, but what action can an individual take?

’cause you’re obviously doing a lot about this other organizations around the country doing a lot about this. What would you want John or Joanne Q listener out there to do about this or to know about this? Or what can they do on a personal or individual level? 

Ivy Frignoca: Sure. So a couple things. One I’m smiling because I’m thinking back to [00:22:00] our conversation about dog poop earlier.

So one is like we can all think about our individual actions like you can choose whether you’re gonna use any fertilizers and pesticides at all. And if you feel like you do need to use a fertilizer or pesticide, look at the forecast. Don’t put anything down if it’s gonna rain shortly after that time, or think about how you’re applying it or where you’re applying it, or the impact it’s going to have.

 Think about what is going down storm drains, right? Like a lot of people just like sweep everything off their property on the side of the road. Everything that is in there, whether it’s nails, poop, whatever, that all goes down the storm drains. So we can, as individuals be more thoughtful. Don’t idle your cars, idling cars in parking lots, releases so much pollution.

 So much that I’ve seen like the, what is it, the nitrogen oxide or whatever it is in the pollution actually cause At nuisance [00:23:00] algal blooms off the side of a parking lot ’cause it delivered so much nitrogen through a stormwater drain. So we can take those individual actions. Then I think also ask at a municipal level or your state representative or senator what’s going on?

 What are we doing about this problem? Cause I, I think that’s really important. Sometimes I go through our city and I see these little kids playing in streams. Which they should be. Right. That’s the magic of, of being a little kid, is getting to be out playing poo sticks or hopping around in the streams or skipping pebbles.

But we wanna make sure our kids are playing in nice clean water and we make sure our dogs are drinking nice, healthy water, not gonna make ’em sick. 

Thomas Hynes: Yeah, I agree with that. And I, And I love I mean the sort of the spectrum of things that you said there. For one, yeah raise, not raise hell, but like, raise questions with your elected officials or raise hell, and ask what are you doing about this?

But also just the individual mindfulness. Just that notion of saying, Hey, is it gonna rain tomorrow? Why am I gonna put all 

this stuff on the ground? And it’s just gonna, like, 

it’s [00:24:00] probably not a good use of your money and resources if you’re spending money on this, on your lawn, it’s just gonna disappear the next day.

Yeah, just having a sort of a, not spatial awareness, but just like a general awareness of like, well wait, this action exists within a week of weather or a larger ecosystem, or whatever it may be. But to have that awareness and to be a little bit more mindful I guess of what you’re doing and what the impacts and effects will be.

 One of the reasons I’m so glad to talk about this with you today is that I’ve been working here a number of years. You’ve obviously been working on this for a number of years, so I can understand it because I come to work every day and talk about it, but I don’t really think this is an issue that people think about.

You’re like, well, rain is natural and rain goes downhill and it goes back into the lakes and ponds and oceans and that’s fine. But I don’t think we think about it like a parking lot is this sort of silent killer or even a farm field.

Ivy Frignoca: Yeah. Tom, you’re making me think of, um so I’m a graduate of our, our local law school, and I [00:25:00] guest lecture at the law school and teach advanced clean water law.

And I also lead programs from the public along our waterfront. And , one of the things that I do is I take people for a walk along Portland’s waterfront along the river, and we look at it through the eyes of stormwater. So first it’s like, try to imagine what this was like before there was any development and then like talking about what it really was.

This was all wetlands and it was wetlands that got filled in and it also had streams going through it and everything. So like, now you are in charge of it. You are in charge of dealing with stormwater and you’ve got pipes underground, but you’ve also got remnant wetlands and streams that are trying to go back to being nature.

 Even just starting that there. And then you go and look at storm water outfalls or parking lots that go right up to the edge of the water so there’s no buffer. So everything slides right off into the river that has been one of the most powerful things. So maybe that’s a great thing for your [00:26:00] listeners to do too is to go out and think along the waterfront or ask a local waterkeeper to take you for a walk or see if your city storm water coordinator can do that. Because here, that has made the biggest difference. Like more and more students wanna work on this issue. More and more people now are interested and get it because now they see the waterfront in a different way.

Thomas Hynes: Yeah. And the connection to it, right? I mean, that it’s not the, the waterway is not something that exists outside of the land. That’s one of the things that I’ve really learned that has been apparent to me talking to Waterkeepers the last couple years is like, you wanna like clean the water, you gotta clean the land around the water.

You gotta keep everything is, and we know that, but that is, it’s important to be reminded of that.

Ivy Frignoca: I think what you can do is not like proselytize or be like, the sky is falling, but just. Try to be like, we can all be sensible because and maybe this would be the last thing I would say, we live in such a divisive world and what I’m trying to do when I address storm water [00:27:00] pollution is be practical, right?

Like what are the practicalities? So these techniques we’re talking about for development aren’t to make development impossible or so costly no one can afford it. It is just to be sensible in how we’re using the land and be thoughtful about it. And it’s the same that’s why I don’t say like, I mean, it would be great to ban pesticide except for emergency uses, and that’s what a lot of our municipalities have done.

 But I know that there are a lot of people who are really adamant about being able to use those materials right now. So it’s just like, be thoughtful. Like you’re having an impact. You’re harming your grandkids, you’re harming your pets, you are harming the water like

Thomas Hynes: yourself 

Ivy Frignoca: Yeah, yourself, all those things. 

Thomas Hynes: I like that you’re calling it practical and sensible it sounds I, I would throw in a reasonable You’re not throwing people off the land and say, leave Maine alone, so we can protect you know, it’s not that you’re saying we, we understand that people need to use the [00:28:00] land.

 We understand that people need to grow back.

Ivy Frignoca: Exactly. This is a thorny problem. It’s existed for a long time. We’ve gotta go back and correct harm that occurred before we really understood what was going on.

 And I think it’s just gonna take a lot of us being really sensible and practical and seeing the problem and addressing it whenever and however we can.

Thomas Hynes: Well, Ivy, I want to just say uh, thank you so much uh, on behalf of myself and the podcast and everyone listening out there and just on behalf of people who enjoy clean water and recreation and just for all the work you’re doing in general.

But for being here today, it was great seeing you again and I really appreciate your time. 

Ivy Frignoca: It’s just a pleasure to be here and as wonky as it is to talk about stormwater,I always love talking about it. So thank you.

Thomas Hynes: You made it very interesting. I appreciate it. Thanks so much.