H20nly, please

COEUR d’ALENE — Just because school's out doesn't mean there's no work left to do.

Beneath the shade of a beach umbrella on an extra warm Monday afternoon, Madeleine O'Dowd and Francesca Drake toiled on the southwest corner of Ninth Street and Coeur d'Alene Avenue. They added the golden final touches to a storm drain mural to remind one and all, "H20nly" — that is, put only water down local storm drains because they flow to Lake Coeur d'Alene.

"I really like it," Madeleine said, looking over the goldfish she had just painted onto a blue wave. "It gives it more of an earthy touch."

The incoming Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and Humanities fifth-graders, along with classmate Thomas Taylor, were the masterminds behind this enviro-art project, which encompasses a message of conservation in a creative way.

"I knew water was H20, so I wanted to try to say that we only want H20 to go into the drain, so I came up with the concept to say 'H20nly' to tell people we only want water in the drain," Francesca said, adding that if you put things other than water down the drain "it could be bad for our fish and our animals that live in the lake or drink water from the lake."

Madeleine is concerned about the extinction of different animals if humans don't clean up their act.

"All of the things that go extinct have a part in dying from pollution, and we really don't want that to happen," she said. "If we had gas acid pillaging down this, we'd probably have the last few remaining fish die."

Art teacher Marci Wing said students were given opportunities to submit designs for the project.

"We talked about importance of our landscape, our environment. They're very environmentally aware," she said. "They were all very invested and submitted just some incredible ideas."

Using the shape of the drain, students submitted everything from pizza to baseball fields to sea creatures.

The final product is a combination of Madeleine's, Francesca's and Thomas's designs.

"They really brought in the water concept, which we thought flowed nicely into the mural design and it's a really nice representation of the lake," Wing said. "They love anything they can do to help the environment, so this is a really treasured project for them."

Students at Winton Elementary also partook in end-of-the year storm drain mural projects, beautifying two drains near their school.

Winton art teacher Jasmine Reed said her students were planning to do it last year, but COVID struck. Finally, she rounded up 21 students to contribute their artistic talents to local storm drains.

"They were invested in a special project that gave them purpose and made them excited about art and excited about contributing to the community," Reed said. "They learned a lot about taking care of our environment and awareness about contaminants and how their actions and other people’s actions can impact our environment and wreak havoc. Pollution isn’t good for anybody."

While Reed oversaw the work, she allowed her students free rein on the artistic choices.

"I let the kids design it and paint the whole thing," she said. "Kids ride their bikes around here. They can show it off, they can show their friends, their family. And it brought awareness to the whole school."

The projects were shared by the Coeur d'Alene Streets and Engineering Department, the Coeur d'Alene Arts Commission, Kootenai Environmental Alliance and the Coeur d'Alene Tribe.

"I love having the kids involved," Coeur d'Alene Streets and Engineering assistant project manager Kim Harrington said. "The schools have been so great in helping us to get a pollution prevention message out to the kids. It adds not only a splash of art, but it draws attention to the storm drain."

A previous storm drain stencil project garnered positive feedback, as well as the present project, Harrington said. There are more schools that have storm drains leading to the lake that organizers would like to involve in a future project.

"A lot of people don't realize that if it goes into the drain, it goes directly to the lake, not the wastewater treatment plant," she said. "The schools have been so great in helping us to get a pollution prevention message out to the kids."

The storm drain masterpieces are expected to last throughout the summer.