Game of Floods - Foggy Hollow
Landscaper and Resident
Assignment: Read the role assignment and background reading below, then answer the questions at the end.
Role Assignment:
You and your family rent a house in Foggy Hollow. You started working for a local landscaping business part-time in high school, and now you work there full time. You are now married with two small children. The basement of your house floods frequently, and you are frustrated that your landlord doesn’t seem willing to do anything about it. You are worried that the damp environment is unhealthy for your kids. You are interested in ‘green engineering’ solutions to flooding – you know from your landscaping work that swales and rain gardens help with drainage.
Background Reading:
Rain gardens are small gardens planted in depressions in the ground. They are designed to collect and absorb stormwater. They reduce flooding on small scales by guiding the water into the ground, and they also help absorb pollution and keep it out of run-off.
Students Design Low-Impact Landscape to Reduce Stormwater Runoff
High school students in Kentucky became proficient in using the EPA’s Stormwater Calculator. When their county planned a new library, they put their skills to work.
Based on: https://toolkit.climate.gov/case-studies/students-design-low-impact-landscape-reduce-stormwater-runoff
Mount Washington, Kentucky, a commuter town close to Louisville, has grown in population over the last ten years. With that growth comes new schools, new libraries, and other urban development. Recently, the Bullitt County Library Board purchased a 1.25 acre plot of land in the city’s downtown to build a new library. The city has a requirement that all new development projects must include a plan to manage stormwater, but unfortunately the library board’s drawings didn’t meet those needs.
Left to right, Bullitt East High School students Eliza Love, Isaac Shelton, Haley Steinmetz, and Gavin Blain.
Stormwater management is important to reduce both flooding and pollution. When natural surfaces are entirely covered in pavement (for example, a parking lot), then any rain that falls cannot soak into the ground – it flows off the surface. This increases flooding, and it also increases pollution because the floodwater does pass through the soil (which acts like a natural filter). New developments can avoid some of these problems through ‘green engineering’ of landscapes – in other words, by including features like rain gardens and swales, which allow floodwater to drain into the ground, and also by capturing stormwater in cisterns or rain barrels.
Dale Salmon, who works for Mount Washington’s Stormwater Quality Program, saw the problematic library plan as a huge opportunity for learning. Salmon sponsors a student group, “Youth Chamber of Preservationists,” made up of four Bullitt East High School juniors. The group is focused on the preservation of Mount Washington’s past while caring for the future of the community. The group had been using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Stormwater Calculator for months, and they were ready for an opportunity to apply what they learned in the classroom to help solve a real problem in their community.
Calculating How to Save the Rain
The student team used EPA’s Stormwater Calculator to estimate current runoff on the proposed library site. Then, they developed a proposal for the site that included bioswales, rain gardens, and a pair of 1,000-gallon cisterns to capture roof runoff from the building. The proposed green infrastructure, also called low-impact design, reduced the water needs of the new facility to almost zero. The team used the Stormwater Calculator again, to estimate runoff from the site
Students calculated appropriate sizes for green infrastructure features to handle increased rainfall indicated by future climate scenarios. The rain garden shown here will help capture and filter water from impervious surfaces like parking lots, streets, and roofs. By allowing water to soak into the ground where it falls, green infrastructure practices can help manage localized flooding and stop pollutants before they enter nearby streams.
The net result of the students’ proposal was a reduction in annual stormwater runoff from the site of more than five inches. That may not sound like much, but to put it in perspective, stormwater captured through green infrastructure on the site over the next 20 years could fill 456 18-wheeler tanker trucks. There were also other benefits to using green infrastructure in the new library design. “Low impact design is more affordable, it’s attractive and easily maintained,” Salmon acknowledged.
Building Smart
The students presented their proposal to the Library Board. After considering the costs and benefits, the Board changed the plans to include green infrastructure features from the students’ plans.
According to Salmon, “These young people have helped change the mindset on how we use and conserve water in our community. They have helped create a model of development that I can point to as an example of how to build without creating more runoff in our community, helping to preserve habitat in the Salt River ecosystem.”
Student designs for the library included calculations for sizing rainwater cisterns like this one, which are used to capture and store roof water onsite.
The University of Connecticut's Tolland County Extension Center's rain garden located in Vernon, CT. (top photo) the day the rain garden was installed. (bottom photo) the same rain garden several years later.
Questions:
1. How do green engineering features like rain gardens and bioswales reduce flooding?
2. How do green engineering features like rain gardens and bioswales reduce pollution?
3. What did the students do to convince the library board to adopt green engineering?
4. Answer this question in character as a Foggy Hollow resident and landscaper (see the role description at the top). Suggest one green engineering solution that you think might help with your wet basement problem, and why?
Once you have answered the above questions, move on to Part 2 here.
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