OCEAN CITY – Officials with the Maryland Coastal Bays Program came before a resort committee this month seeking input for a survey that could lead to grant funding for various programs.
On Nov. 14, Frank Piorko, executive director for the Maryland Coastal Bays Program, came before the Coastal Resources Legislative Committee, or Green Team, to gather interest and input for a source reduction survey that will be conducted by Trash-Free Waters, a national program of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“They are very interested in a select group of national estuary programs that encompass resort towns within their estuary study areas,” he said, “and that also have some information relative to source reduction of trash, either metrics or programs going on.”
As part of the study, Piorko said program officials would like to interview organizations that are part of the Green Team and gage the public’s response to campaigns and cleanup efforts.
“The EPA never offers anything without asking for something,” he said, “so their ask is they want a shortlist of folks from the various organizations within the Green Team that are involved in this.”
In return, Piorko said the survey could lead to grant funding opportunities for resort programs.
“That’s how a lot of small funding ends up being distributed out of headquarters,” he said.
To that end, Piorko said he would pitch $25,000 in funding for three resort programs.
“We are kind of pitching funding to them on three basic program elements,” he said.
He said possible grant funding could be used to introduce an incentives program that recognize restaurants that voluntarily reduce plastic waste such as straws and take-out containers.
“We are brainstorming things that can be purchased with grant funds that might make it attractive as an incentive,” he said. “That would be everything from signage and decals and things that would be at the point of sale to doing some bulk advertising in local newspapers.”
Piorko said grant money could also fund additional receptacles and outreach materials for a cigarette butt recycling program as well as a program that would provide canvas “goodie bags” to visitors checking into condos and rental units.
“We all know when you go and check in you are going to get a plastic bag full of everything from restaurant menus to ‘Welcome to Ocean City’ (fliers),” he said. “Our thought is that it could be a reusable canvas bag … They can use the bag at the grocery store during their stay or even leave it behind for the next visitor in that hotel, motel, apartment or condo to use when they are on vacation.”
Tom Murray, a former advisor with the EPA, told Piorko that $25,000 was a reasonable ask and suggested resort officials could use the funding to gather more data.
“Another thing that can be done there is to put together a very quick survey card that can go into the bag so that the people can fill it out and hand it back in to whomever. It might capture some data about the habits of people …,” he said. “If we can get some behavioral data, it might be useful moving forward with these kinds of studies.”
With the committee’s support, Piorko said he would send the funding ideas to program officials in the coming days, as well as a list of Green Team members who would be willing to assist in the survey.
“Altogether, we whipped up something for the EPA to chew on for about $25,000 …,” he said. “We’ll see what they have to say. They could come back and say, ‘Where did you get the idea we had that kind of change floating around?’”
