UofL Students study solutions for Metro Impound Lot & water quality

David Wicks is taking classes at UofL as a life long Beargrass Creek advocate and President of River City Paddle Sports, which runs and environmental education center out of Louisville’s Community Boathouse no the Ohio River. Rob Monsma is an undergraduate student at the University of Louisville who is studying history and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), with plans to continue on for a graduate degree in Urban Planning. Together they are working to advocate for cleaning up and relocating the Metro Impound Lot at at 1478 Frankfort Avenue in the Butchertown neighborhood, abutting Beargrass Creek. The Lot is operated by the Louisville Metro Police Department, and has been at this location for at least 50 years. It serves as the main temporary storage area for cars towed from throughout the city, and as longer term storage for cars being held as evidence in a legal proceeding. Concern over decades of petrochemical and heavy metal runoff from the lot to the impaired creek has finally prompted the city to consider relocation.

Metro is conducting public meetings and tours to provide information about the operational and locational needs for the Lot, and to collect public input that may be helpful in identifying a new location for the Lot. All public comments collected during these meetings will be compiled and posted

On this edition of Sustainability Now, your host Justin Mog sits down with David & Rob to discuss the issues around the Lot, it’s impact on Beargrass Creek and water quality, and their ideas for a better way to handle the situation. They advocate for the use of data in making land use decisions and have conducted an analysis on one month's - December 2017 - spatial data on the 737 locations where cars where towed from to send them to the Impound Lot. You can see their map of these tow locations at: sharepoint.louisville.edu/sites/provos…%20DEC17.pdf

Sustainability Now! airs on FORward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and repeats Tuesdays at 12am and 10am.

Source: UofL Students study solutions for Metro Impound Lot & water quality (Sustainability Now, FORward Radio, Feb. 19, 2018)