Checking In with @waterkeepermark and Swim Drink Fish Ambassador Lauren Brown Hornor
For the Checking In series, Mark Mattson speaks with Swim Drink Fish Ambassador Lauren Brown Hornor.
Lauren Brown Hornor is a both an Ambassador and Strategic Partnership Lead for Swim Drink Fish. She is a Florida native with a love of water and long history in the Swim Drink Fish movement. As an attorney with the Waterkeeper Alliance in New York, Lauren provided legal support and guidance to many Waterkeeper organizations. She helped launch Fraser Riverkeeper in 2007 before serving as its Executive Director and Riverkeeper. Lauren also founded Miami Waterkeeper, served as its Board President for ten years, and now continues on as a Director.
MM: How are you?
LBH: Thanks for asking Mark!
Overall, we feel so fortunate to have remained physically and emotionally healthy during these strange times, and I contribute that to the unparalleled access to nature we are afforded here in B.C. on the North Shore of Vancouver. I make sure to get everyone outside a few times a day for those big exhales between school projects and online lessons. We spend as much time as possible in our garden, and the kids have had their hand in planting a thriving vegetable and herb garden. They spend their breaks watching the pollinators, digging up worms, bouncing away on the trampoline and watering the Spring flowers. We reward them at the end of the school day with a bike ride to the Ambleside Dog Beach, a loop around the trail along Capilano River or with a hike at one of the many local trails which have fortunately remained open.
Trying to find a new normal with both Matthew and I working from home while keeping three children engaged in something that resembles an at-home school routine often stretches our patience to the max. Some days our rhythm seems inflow and copacetic, and other days I feel overwhelmed with the heavy energy from both inside the house and in the shifting world. However, the forced "pause" to our commitments, expectations, and work travel brought on by COVID-19 has provided space for us to connect, bond, and better navigate the recent upheaval in the United States with intention and care.
As cities and media explode with anger over the killing of yet another unarmed black man at the hands of police, we have struggled with how to balance protecting our young children from seeing the worst of the violence while simultaneously explaining the ravages of racism and ensuring we are raising empathetic, aware, and engaged kids. Speaking to our kids, ages 5, 9, and 11, each with different capacity to understand the problem of systemic racism is something we had previously avoided, but we now realize that even the ability to postpone hard conversations is not an option for so many, and that is not acceptable. We are listening, learning, reading, talking, reaching out to our friends at home in the States, supporting black and minority businesses and causes, and exploring the best ways to keep doing better.
MM: What are you looking forward to doing this summer?
LBH: We look forward to exploring more of B.C. this summer as we forgo any plans to visit our families in the States and stay locally.
Camping in provincial parks will be open to B.C. residents only this summer - a policy likely aimed at backing up advice from health officials urging people to stick close to home during the pandemic. It was telling how hungry Canadians are to immerse themselves in nature that the B.C. Parks website crashed immediately after opening summer bookings for provincial campsites with more than 50,000 people online at opening trying to simultaneously access the system. I stuck it out on the site for over three hours and was finally able to secure a few good spots!
Our camping trips all of which center around access to water: Porteau Cove in Squamish, Golden Ears, Boston Bar, Birkenhead Lake, Shuswap Lake, and a few days in Tofino with friends. We are excited to shed online learning expectations and leave the tablets and screens behind to make space for the kids to be free-range children once again with campfires, swimming, and forest play.
MM: How have the last few months changed your outlook?
LBH: As we minimize, simplify, pare down our commitments and shed previous expectations, we have taken the opportunity to learn and reflect on what is truly important to us. B.C. is taking steps to reopen society and reignite the economy, so we are in constant discussions to consider how we will re-emerge and re-engage in a way that is more true to our wellbeing - both professionally and as a family.
We are used to living to maximize every minute, juggling the three kids' varied interests, Matthew's rigorous international work travel schedule, my work at Swim Drink Fish and other commitments. We realize the pace left little room for spontaneity, quiet reflection, imagination-evoking play, and simple opportunities to simply be in the moment.
We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn from the complete disruption of the status quo, and it has been a valuable time for us to ask important questions – What have we found that we can live without? How can we cultivate more mindfulness and intention into our day? Where have we found meaning and connection? How can we ensure we remain connected to water, to nature, to each other? How can we dismantle and better understand our own white privilege and listen and learn more fully and be better allies to one another? How can we best raise diversity-aware, inclusive and empathetic kids?
This moment of pause has brought increasing clarity to the things we value most and given us the time to explore how we can build our life more in line with these values and not just return to "business as usual".
MM: What is your favourite fish?
LBH: My favourite sea creature is actually not a fish, it is a cephalopod. Anyone who knows me well might know I am obsessed with octopuses! They are extraordinarily intelligent invertebrates and are constantly surprising scientists with their capabilities. It is satisfying and comforting knowing there is still so much mystery left in the world.
MM: What Citizen Science engagement activities around water are you involved in?
LBH: A few! As I write this, more than one billion people around the world are socially isolating, including Vancouverites, in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. As these measures begin to ease, the conversation about public health and access to the outdoors has never been so urgent. Even before the pandemic began, people were feeling the consequences of nature deficit with Canadians spending as much as 90% of their lives inside. Nature deficit has led to documented increases in anxiety and stress - especially in young people. Additionally, there are ongoing seasonal spikes of bacterial contamination compromising our waters, meaning that Vancouver beach closures are all too common.
Through Fraser Riverkeeper’s Water Monitoring Hub, we are working to combat both nature deficit and beach closures by connecting people to water, collecting water samples, sharing water quality results, and ultimately restoring waters to achieve a swimmable Vancouver. Through this monitoring work, we are growing a movement of citizen scientists who monitor water quality and environmental health, share that data with the public, and emerge as leaders of water stewardship.
As a founding board member, I am so proud of the work Miami Waterkeeper is doing in my home town with its Water Monitoring Hub. Their team monitors 7 sites weekly for bacteria levels at popular recreation spots (that are not monitored by the State’s Healthy Beaches program), and processes the samples at a lab space located at Ransom Everglades School (my alma mater, Go Raiders!), before uploading results onto Swim Guide.
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down our Swim Drink Fish offices around Canada, we quickly refocused on engaging people in citizen science while abiding by the strict social distancing protocols. One of our biggest needs when it comes to protecting our waters is collecting data that helps track health, use, and cleanliness of a waterway over time. Our amazing colleagues in Toronto developed Gassy, a brilliant photo submission tool that encourages people to get outside and practice social distancing while providing valuable data to help us monitor water bodies around Canada. Every time we submit a photo, we feed Gassy, our friendly water monster. We’re training our AI to identify different types of pollution, wildlife, and recreational water users. And every photo we submit helps us strengthen data about our waters.
I love that Gassy helps people feel part of a movement, and it provides a much-needed sense of purpose during these very isolating times. I have been using Gassy with my kids almost every day on our daily adventures, and they love it as much as I do - maybe even more!
Read more from the Checking In with @waterkeepermark series here.
Connect with us on Twitter, @LOWaterkeeper and @waterkeepermark.
