SALISBURY, Md. - Parishioners poured out of Salisbury's Saint Peter's Episcopal Church on Sunday, but they weren't going home.
They gathered for the unveiling of the church's new pervious or permeable parking lot.
Environmentalist Tom Horton calls it the parking lot of the future.
"This kind of parking lot, there's no reason it couldn't be the only kind of parking lot."
Horton says storm drains don't provide the necessary filtering to keep debris out of waterways like the Wicomico River.
"There's really nothing you can do to land from a water quality perspective that's worse than paving. Farming has it's issues, but I'll take farming over paving any day if I have to choose," Horton said.
The parking lot was made a reality through grant funding from the Chesapeake Bay Trust, and through the Interfaith Partnership for the Chesapeake.
The nonprofit's director Matt Heim says he works with followers of all faiths.
"In a time where there's a lot of division in our country, this is an area where I don't see that division. The people I work with and the congregations I work with our really coming together."
"We're healing the Bay but we're also building a community," he continued.
