story & photos
by Jerry Sinnamon

The greatest source of water pollution comes from litter, trash, and chemicals laying about cities, towns, and highways, according to Gary Poe, Founder and Executive Director,  Windows-On-Our-Waters Environmental Education Program (WOOWEE).

“The trash that people throw into the streets gets carried by storm water into the storm drains to be deposited, untreated, into the receiving waters of our coast,” Gary says. “Cigarette butts and their long-lived filters, candy bar wrappers, weed killers, motor oil, pet waste, and other contaminants can travel hundreds of miles on their journey to foul the sea.”  And, once in the water, these pollutants take a long time to breakdown and dissipate.

Gary’s nonprofit educational program employs a 16 foot trailer with four learning exhibits, that allows students to track storm run-off pollution. They are able to see it from a “worms eye view,” below street level, to tide pools along the waterways, to a wide range of foods, which, usually unknown to the consumer, contain ingredients from the sea. 

The WOOWEE is targeted primarily to grades three to five. “These students get excited during the program discovering the possibility they and their families can really help to control pollution of our waters. They have the patience to stay attentive throughout the program, and still believe their individual efforts can have an impact,” Gary said.

The WOOWEE program re-located to Mystic from California in May, 2009.  Gary, who grew up in Eastern Connecticut, said the chronic educational budget crises in California and the state’s brutal traffic conditions helped to convince him it was time to bring his program and trailer back to Connecticut.  

Since his return to Connecticut, Gary has invited the public to visit the Windows-On-Our-Waters trailer at the Mystic Seaport’s 4th of July Celebration, River Glow, Pawcatuck, Fish Tales, Tugs, and Sail Festival, New London, and the Norwich Public Utilities Waste Water Department Open House. 

In addition, more than 1,500 school children have attended the program from S. B. Butler Elementary School, Mystic, and nine elementary schools in Norwich.  Gary says he begins providing programs to Waterford elementary schools during October.  The content of the WOOWEE program correlates with the Connecticut Core Science Curriculum.

In describing the importance of the Windows-On-Our-Waters program, Gary said there is a big discrepancy between the harm done by random littering by the average individual versus the public’s perception that leaking oil tankers or polluting refineries or power stations require the most scrutiny to control pollution.

“When comparing the harm done by the public versus those big single-source polluters, it is always easier to resolve the issue caused by the single-source polluter,” says Gary.  “It is easy to find out where the pollution is coming from and to put the right program in place to end or reduce that pollution.  It is a lot harder when the polluter is you or me just going about our lives with all our neighbors pretty much thinking it’s the oil companies we should be worried about.”

“The story really comes home to students when they get to the General Store of the Sea, where products with ingredients derived ocean plants and animals are displayed,” Gary said, noting that chocolate milk contains carrageenan, a compound made from a seaweed named Irish Moss.  “When kids find out about the carrageenan, they either claim they will never drink chocolate milk again, because of all the pollution the seaweed encounters, or they will become environmental stewards to encourage their friends and family to stop polluting.”

Seaweed is an ingredient in many products, according to the Windows-On-Our-Waters website, including cat food, dog food, bread, beer, pasta, canned meat, peanut butter, pancake syrup, toothpaste, ice cream, and lipstick.  In addition, Gary says, “Cheese Wiz has more anchovies in it than cheese.”

While Windows-On-Our-Waters is located at 58 High Meadow Lane, Mystic, the trailer is parked and supplied with electricity by Seaport Marina, Mystic.  “This is the kind of contribution from the community we are very grateful for, but which happens more and more as the story about how we individually pollute our waters becomes better known and many children and their families decide what they can do to help in ending this pollution.”

For more information visit www.windowsonourwaters.org, or call Gary at 860.415.4655.