On this month’s edition of Conserving Earth, host Janice Bezanson, Senior Policy Director for Texas Conservation Alliance, welcomes Melanie Ferguson, Director of the Dallas Water Commons, and actor-author-activist David Marquis, who has written and performed one-man plays about nature and is producing a trilogy of books on how water fits into our lives.
Melanie and David discuss an innovative public-private partnership that is turning a site that was formerly a flood management problem into an exceptional public park and outdoor classroom that manages stormwater, at the same time educating Dallasites and their visitors and providing a beautiful outdoor space right near downtown Dallas. It's called the Dallas Water Commons. When finished this exceptional destination will use specially planted wetlands to filter pollutants from stormwater before the water enters the Trinity River. The Dallas Independent School District and others plan to use the project as a classroom for biology, ecology, math, engineering, hydrology, dance and other arts.