Rain Gardens are GREAT!

Hello again!

I hope everyone thoroughly stuffed themselves at their Thanksgivings, because that’s the way it should be.
So, I had a very eventful November. A couple of weeks ago, the Coalition had our 40th anniversary party, which was quite the classy affair. We had about 250 attendees, an incredible turnout and show of support for our organization and our work.

Most exciting for me was that I gave my first stormwater education presentation! I’m really excited about this project, because it’s turning out to be an excellent opportunity to change how people think.

One of my favorite neighborhoods in the St. Louis area is South Grand. It’s diverse and multicultural, right down the street from one of the city’s oldest and most beautiful parks, has great architecture and very good, relatively inexpensive, restaurants.

At the beginning of October, I attended the last of the public meetings on a proposed renovation they are planning for the neighborhood. It’s a part of the Great Streets Initiative, and one of several such projects around the city and county. The idea is to take a street that’s already very popular, and make it “great”; i.e., more pedestrian friendly, safer, beautiful and coherent, and environmentally friendly. Each master plan was presented to the public, which then had the chance to voice their opinions, as well as to influence the plans themselves.

On South Grand, in part due to high interest from residents, the master plan calls for an eventual 50% reduction in pervious surfaces over 8 blocks; eventually, everything from the curb front to the building front will be pervious, including most of the parking lane. They also have proposed rain gardens at 28 corners! It turns out, however, that there just isn’t enough money for that, so instead they were just going to put in grass.
Once I heard that they were going to put in grass (just silly), I decided to try and find a way to get the rain gardens put in sooner, rather than later. What I’ve come up with is to try and kill several birds with one stone: I’m reaching out to neighborhood associations, residents, business, and other potentially interested community groups to organize people around an “adopt-a-corner” project. Rather than pay for someone install and maintain the gardens, I’m going to try to get volunteers to do that work. I’m also exploring ways to get the plants donated.
For those people that aren’t familiar with stormwater issues—namely, the residents and neighborhood associations—I’m wrapping my proposal for community-owned rain gardens in with stormwater education. Last Tuesday, I went to the Tower Grove East Neighborhood Association and talked to the roughly 30 attendees about just that, and it went over really well! The best part is seeing the light bulbs go on over people’s heads and having them get excited about what you’re telling them.
I already have another presentation lined up! It’s so nice to finally have the ball rolling on things, but there’s still a ton of work to be done. Fingers crossed that the rain gardens become a reality!
I look forward to seeing you all next month, and I hope you all have wonderful holidays!

PS: Next time I'll remember to take pictures of me giving the presentation!

Summary of Make a Difference Day

On Saturday, October 24, 2009, Lance and Julia, AmeriCorps members, and Steve Johnson, director of MRCN, met at the Bluffs senior care facility to have a work day on their rain garden. We joined Laura Christianson, activities director at the Bluffs, and began talking about what we wanted to accomplish that day and what more there was to do in the future at the Bluffs Rain Garden. This rain garden is a unique project, as it is so large! The garden was dug by a front loader/bulldozer type of equipment, and runs the length of the building, about 100 feet by 10 feet wide. Obviously we wouldn’t be able to plant and cover this whole area in one day.
We focused our efforts on the back end of the garden, planting on a berm, which was holding back about 1000 gallons of rainwater from the previous days. The berm backs up to a creek and wooded area, so it was most important to get some native plants in there to start holding down the soil and preventing erosion into that creek. We gingerly moved around the edge of the pond, many times almost falling in, but that’s what makes it exciting! Three citizen volunteers joined Laura and the MRCN crew, and we made short work of planting sedges, flowers, a button bush and a tree.
After working for about 2 hours and getting our feet quite muddy, we had done all there was to do for the day. With some more planning, perhaps some more grading the swale for water flow, it will be time to add large rocks, seed and cover with mulch for the winter. What a great rain garden! When complete, it will prevent 1000s of gallons of rain water run off (and pollution carried in that run off) from entering the creek behind their building, and eventually the streams and rivers beyond.

Radio Interview on KOPN

On October 1st, Rebecca and I, from Missouri River Communities Network, were featured on KOPN's Women's Issues, Women's Voices in Columbia, MO. The theme was environmental issues, and we spoke about the problems associated with storm water, and solutions such as rain barrels and rain gardens. We pretty much rocked this interview and got to have some tasty egg rolls from the restaurant across the hallway from the KOPN office on the 9th block of Broadway. You can listen to it here.

1st month of AmeriCorps

Hello moriverlovin’ folks!

This is Julia from the Missouri Clean Water AmeriCorps Program, serving through the Missouri River Communities Network in Columbia, MO.

We are a nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve and restore the historic, cultural, and natural resources of the Missouri River and its surrounding communities, and to encourage citizen participation in these endeavors.

The new AmeriCorps members recently got back from a week of training in the spider-filled Lake of the Ozarks State Park. Learning and growing.
After learning all about AmeriCorps and our supervising organization the MRCN, we made foshees, saw glow worms and then ate sand while camping on California Island. We had spent the evening with River Relief and had the tastiest food around while we were helping with their event on the island.

One of MRCN's current projects is promoting and installing Rain Gardens in residential and institutional land around Columbia. We have been making site visits to help people decide if their property is an appropriate place to put in a garden and how to best do that. We have also been doing lots of upkeep on previously installed gardens, removing invasive species, getting stuck in the mud, planting and laying down cardboard and mulch to keep the weeds away. Each work day we have had between 1-3 volunteers helping to maintain these public gardens. We appreciate all the extra hands, and are always looking for more!

Learn more about the benefits to our watershed and community on our website, www.moriver.org/
OR
Search for info from the Department of Natural Resources, where they are asking the city of Columbia to reduce rain water flow into the Hinkson Creek by 68%!
How can we do this?

LOTS OF RAIN GARDENS!

Rain Garden Workdays

Capen Park Rain Garden (left half)

On every Wednesday through out the month of June we held a rain garden workday. These workdays, held at local rain garden sites in Columbia, consisted of us and the volunteers weeding, planting, and mulching. Here is a little bit more about what we did in detail:

Capen Park
The work done here was weeding, planting, and cardboard mulching (which is laying down cardboard covering it up with mulch). This rain garden was completed on June 24, 2009.

Bethel Park
Bethel Park is still a work in progress due to it having a bad erosion problem that has slowed us down, so technically it is only half done. On our workday we had the volunteers do some weeding and planting, then a crew from JobPoint joined us and removed almost all of the cattails that were in the pond... in about an hour and half!!! Katrina, Lea, and I had tried removing some cattails last fall from this same pond, but were not as succesful.

Rock Bridge High School
This is an existing rain garden that was put in several years ago. We have been working with Glenn Picket to combat the clover and other weeds, as well as add some new plants and mulch. KOMU actually came out and did a little news spot on us while we were out there that day. Although that workday didn't last long, as it was about 95 degrees and humid that day.

You can check out the video or read the article, by clicking the appropriate link:
Video
Article