David Y. Ige

HONOLULU – Public outreach and educational materials created for the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT), Highways Division, Oahu District, Storm Water Management Program won top honors at the 2016 Pele Awards, an annual design and advertising competition that recognizes the best advertising and design work in Hawaii.

HDOT’s keiki activity book, Hawaii Storm Patrol: New Recruits, and its companion website were created to educate Hawaii youth on the importance of preventing trash from entering Oahu storm drains and nearshore waters. These educational resources won Gold Peles in the following categories:
·        Public Service Collateral
·        Digital/Interactive – Branded Content
·        Digital/Interactive – Public Service

“Our keiki activity book does a great job of introducing the importance of keeping pollutants out of Hawaiian waters in a fun and visually interesting way that young readers can understand,” said Ford Fuchigami, HDOT Director. “To win three gold Pele awards is really an honor and testament to passion we all have for the program and the work that we’re doing.”

Hawaii Storm Patrol: New Recruits follows a talking fish named Malama as he recruits a team of keiki to clean up their neighborhood before a storm hits and can be downloaded at https://www.stormwaterhawaii.com/hawaiistormpatrol/

The activity book was distributed at the start of the school year to 10,145 first graders in public and private schools across Oahu. A plastic Hawaii Storm Patrol badge was included to reward students who completed the activities in the book. The companion website features an electronic version of the book along with a teacher’s guide that offers class discussion questions for facilitated learning and suggested classroom activities to bring trash mitigation to life. Downloadable coloring activities and links to resources are also featured on the interactive site.

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About the Storm Water Management Program
The State of Hawaii Department of Transportation, Highways Division, Oahu District (DOT-HWYS) is responsible for the implementation of the Storm Water Management Program. This initiative is undertaken to comply with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit for the Oahu municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4). The Oahu MS4 qualifies as a large municipal separate storm sewer system since it services a population greater than 250,000 and is therefore subject to permitting requirements under the NPDES Program for storm water discharges. The program is designed to reduce, to the maximum extent practicable, the amount of storm water containing pollutants from entering and ultimately discharging from the DOT-HWYS MS4 into the streams, rivers and ocean that we all enjoy. For more information, visit https://www.stormwaterhawaii.com/