BBBTV12 Serving Anderson, Roane, and Morgan Counties
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (September 13, 2019) – The City of Oak Ridge Stormwater Management Program, in partnership with Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee (CAC), is pleased to announce a fifth year in collaboration with an AmeriCorps team. Public Works Department staff are excited to welcome Kaitlyn Klema and Tabitha Duggan for 2019-2020.
Throughout their service year, Kaitlyn and Tabitha will partner with community leaders and local organizations to hold water quality events and activities with the goal of improving our local waters and increasing community knowledge of water quality.
They will continue the efforts of previous AmeriCorps teams by supporting successful partnerships and initiatives, including working with after school programs and the Girl Scouts, managing the Adopt-A-Stream program, and helping teach watershed lessons at Oak Ridge Schools. Additionally, they will assist the Engineering Division with permanently mapping the City’s stormwater infrastructure. They will be instrumental in helping address environmental concerns in order to reach the permit requirements mandated by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the EPA as a new Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) program.
Kaitlyn Klema moved to Tennessee from a small town on the Connecticut River in New Hampshire. She attended the University at Smith College in Western Massachusetts where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Geoscience, with a minor in Japanese. In her first year with AmeriCorps, Kaitlyn is looking forward to serving with the Oak Ridge Stormwater Team and learning more about GIS, rain gardens, stream surveying, environmental education, and all things stormwater.
Tabitha Duggan moved to Knoxville from Winder, Georgia, after graduating from Georgia College and State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health and a certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Tabitha completed two internships, one with the Covington – Newton County GIS Department and the other with the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency. This will be her first year with AmeriCorps. Tabitha is excited to get to know the Knoxville area and connect the knowledge gained from her previous roles as a student and intern with her new position as part of the City of Oak Ridge Stormwater Team.
CAC AmeriCorps has been a program with the Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee since 1994. CAC AmeriCorps works with many partners in the region, including other municipal stormwater programs and environmental organizations. The primary goal of this program is to provide environmental conservation services through hands-on field work, and education in many different areas, which include water quality, recycling, and other sustainability efforts.
For more information on the Stormwater Management Program, visit http://stormwater.oakridgetn.gov.
