Mark Snyder wrote: I went on a walking tour last year and saw examples of how rain gardens, rain barrels, green roofs and pervious paving were used by different homeowners. Pretty exciting!
Peter Vevang writes:
To follow on that, I work for a landscape architecture firm and have used a system on a residential project called ECS, they originate from out West where it is really dry or even in the desert. Rehbein Companies here in MN installs a variant of it called the Muellner System. Basically, there are plastic, sub-surface channels you can place in your lawn or garden that will capture and store water. You can actually capture all the typical runnoff from your home if you have a big enough lawn or garden space to hold it.
For a local example, this system is installed in the little lawn at the NE Co-op. The lawn is almost always naturally irrigated with runnoff except in extremely dry situations, and then you just run a garden hose in it for a few minutes and you are good to go. It is also possible to combine this system with a cistern so that you never have to pay to use city water to irrigate your lawn or garden.
You can also put fertilizer into the system, and it will go directly to the roots of the plants so it doesn't run off into the storm sewer. It makes an almost perfect, extremely lush lawn, so if the ecological and economic benefits don't work for you, maybe the aesthetic ones will. It is so good, it is sometimes used in golf greens and sport fields. You can also do away with traditional irrigation systems that have to be blown out every fall, so it is less hassle to maintain. The only drawbacks are that it needs to be installed in a flat area. and you need to dig up the top foot of your site and install a technically designed profile. So it is more expensive than traditional irrigation.
Here is a flash demo of how the system works. http://www.ecsgreen.com/flash/ECSSystem2.html
The city might want to look into this kind of thing for residential applications. Grants to homeowners and businesses to prevent runnoff might be a way to avoid having to upgrade the storm sewers and it also protects our lakes and rivers.
Peter Vevang Audubon
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