West Hempstead teen on a mission to protect local waterways

West Hempstead High School sophomore Steven Trezza is a Boy Scout with Troop 240 of West Hempstead. In his current pursuit of the rank of Eagle Scout, Steven has launched a community service project aimed at protecting local waterways through the use of education and awareness.

Calling attention to the need for such protection was the first step of Steven’s West Hempstead Storm Drain Project. To that end, Steven helped place more than 800 “No Dumping” medallions on storm drains throughout the town.

The next step is to explain to the community what the medallions mean and why they are there. To carry out this piece of the project and in the hope of reaching a greater audience to further spread awareness, Steven submitted to the Herald a series of articles about his project.

Beginning this week, the Herald will publish each of Steven’s four articles. Richner Communications and the Herald are glad to provide Steven a forum through which he can share this important and necessary work.

The Herald also encourages residents from West Hempstead and surrounding communities to visit Steven at his booth during the Oct. 3 West Hempstead Street Fair in order to learn more about his project.

Why there’s a dead zone in L.I.’s Great South Bay

By Steven Trezza

There is a dead fish in the middle of Long Island’s Great South Bay.

Find it for yourself. Download Google Earth, type “Great South Bay, NY” in the Fly To box, hit enter and “fly” to the Bay. At the lower left side of the screen find Layers, click to expand, click to expand Ocean, expand State of the Ocean and check Dead Zones. If you have the proper settings, a dead fish will appear in the Great South Bay. Fly to the Long Island Sound and you will find another dead fish. Click on the dead fish and Google will tell you, “Dead zones are areas without enough oxygen to sustain life.” In 2008, the Sound’s dead zone reached 180 square miles, up from 162 square miles in 2007. If the trend continues Google will need a bigger dead fish.

Why is there a dead zone in the bay? Oxygen in the water is being depleted due to land development, groundwater drainage, urban storm water runoff, sewage treatment, fossil fuel consumption and agricultural waste. The drains that you see along the curb are called storm drains. They carry rain water and many empty directly into the Bay. Anything that enters the drain is also deposited directly into the Bay. The next time you throw a candy wrapper or soda bottle into a storm drain, you can go visit it floating alongside the dead fish on Google Earth. Wrappers and bottles are bad but chemicals are worse. Old paint, fertilizer, motor oil, detergents, solvents and pool chemicals dumped into storm drains go where? You guessed it, straight into the Bay.

Have you spotted a “No Dumping – Drains to Bay” medallion on a storm drain in West Hempstead? They are not hard to find: more than 800 have already been placed. I imagine that many residents are wondering who placed the medallions and why. My name is Steven Trezza and those mysterious medallions are part of my Eagle Scout project.

Placement of the medallions was made possible by the dedication and hard work of many volunteers from the community, Boy Scouts of America Troop 240, local businesses, the Town of Hempstead, the Department of Conservation and Waterways, and Operation SPLASH. The medallions serve as a reminder that only rain water belongs in a storm drain. I hope I have sparked your curiosity.

Learn more about this project and what you can do to help by reading my article in next week’s issue of the Herald and visiting my website, www.stormdrainproject.webs.com.