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Issues & Victories

  • Environmental Jobs

    PATH has won over $1 Million in the Howard County Budget over 2012 and 2013 to start a youth conservation corps—READY (Restoring the Environment and Developing Youth). This effort created 75 full-time, living wage summer positions for young adults who desperately needed summer employment to help pay for school or help their families make ends meet. These young adults installed rain gardens at congregations and large county facilities, addressing storm-water runoff on over 8 acres of impervious surfaces. READY has proven itself sustainable and an important part of the arsenal Howard County needs to address storm-water runoff—the only growing source of pollution currently threatening the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.

    During the 2012 legislative session, PATH worked with environmental groups to win a storm water runoff fee for the 10 largest counties and jurisdictions in Maryland. This will not only address the fastest growing source of pollution to our streams, lakes and the Chesapeake Bay; will provide thousands of local jobs for decades to come. PATH is building on this victory to expand the READY program in the years ahead.

Victories

Environmental Jobs



PATH links environmental protections with job creation in Howard County, MD

Thanks to the organizing of religious leaders in Howard County, the Maryland General Assembly passed a stormwater bill requiring the state's 15 largest municipalities (including Howard County) to create stormwater runoff fees. This is a huge environmental victory as well as a potential dedicated funding source for the youth conservation corps that PATH creating with the county! PATH worked closely with a coalition of environmental groups and the County Executive to help pass this bill in Annapolis, and turned out dozens and dozens of people to hearings, a rally, and small group meetings with legislators.

In the News


Howard County banks on rain gardens to raise awareness of stormwater management

Friday, August 29, 2014
Baltimore Sun

Although he was a German major in college, these days Peter Bulka is shoveling dirt to build rain gardens. His colleague, Dave Gondoun, is planning to study cyber security when he starts classes at Howard Community College this fall.

But whatever they end up doing, both men, and many of the other participants in the Restoring the Environment and Developing Youth program, a Howard County green jobs initiative for local young adults, say they have come to see working to improve the environment as an important goal.


READY program provides jobs for youth, rain gardens for community

Monday, July 23, 2012
ExploreHoward.com

Some joined to help the environment. Others were hoping to learn something new. And most were looking for a way to earn money over the summer.

But all 30 teens and young adults participating in the Restoring the Environment and Developing Youth program found something they necessarily didn't come seeking — friendship.

"When I leave here I don't know what I'm going to do without these guys. ... We're like a little family," said 19-year-old Ellicott City resident Raymoan Clay.

"This job wouldn't be fun without them," 19-year-old Lindsey Nolan, of Woodbine, said about her co-workers. "It would just be digging holes."


Clean Water Supporters Rally in Annapolis

Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Annapolis Patch

Keaghan Muller of Edgewater, 11, came to Annapolis Wednesday morning to make sure that, in the future, kids have clean water to swim in.