Driving through the Las Vegas, NV, area recently, I noticed a series of billboards that stood out even along this visually cluttered section of I-15. Designed to look like personalized license plates, they feature pictures of cars or SUVs half submerged in water, and slogans like "THNK1ST," "BADIDEA," and IBSINKN."

It turns out they're sponsored by the Clark County Regional Flood Control District, which held a contest last summer for local residents—kids and adults—to come up with ideas for the billboards and selected about 20. Earlier billboard campaigns also featured cars sinking in churning, muddy water—the result of drivers trying to cross flooded streets—with slogans, in English and Spanish, like "Look mom, no brains," "Not to be used as a flotation device," and Famous last words: "I can make it."

As a strategy for making the public aware of a situation, this is very effective. People love contests, and to compete they have to give at least some thought to the nature of the problem the billboard is supposed to call attention to. Public education is, of course, one of the requirements of the NPDES Phase II permit; if you live in a Phase II city or county you might have heard radio spots or seen TV ads or flyers, or you might be working on some aspect of public education yourself. If you're a developer, you might be trying to let people know about the steps you're taking to protect the local environment.

Too many of these local public education campaigns are underfunded, making it difficult to produce good materials and to get the exposure they need. Some cities have pooled their resources to create materials that can be used throughout the region, which allows them to stretch their budgets farther, but what they lose in doing so is the local flavor: What are the features in my backyard that we're actually trying to protect?

Clark County, which contains the city of Las Vegas, is the country's fastest-developing area, with new construction—homes, businesses, mega-casinos, airport expansions—mushrooming and with somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 new residents pouring in each month. For many of them moving to this arid desert, flooding problems are probably the last thing they expect, and the Flood Control District's mission includes teaching them about the danger of flash floods, which they might never have been exposed to. (Another part of the district's campaign was mailing postcards to residents who had moved to the area since last summer—about 40,000 mailings.) ESC is similar in that there are many aspects of it people encounter and think about only rarely.

IECA has done something similar with the photo contest at its annual conference, although the audience it's reaching there is already in the know. Something like Clark County's billboard contest—perhaps asking people to submit ideas for flyers, Web pages, or TV spots rather than billboards—in the schools or on an even wider scale could help get people interested in erosion and sediment control, and in the consequences of not doing them. Getting the public themselves to (enthusiastically) do part of the work isn't a bad idea.

Send Janice an Email

EC - September/October 2005