What goes into a rain garden?
A bit of earth. Shovels. Rakes. And college students.
Twenty-one college students labored under clear blue skies on a crisp, Saturday morning. They dug, raked and hauled dirt in the middle a parking lot between Waverly Avenue and Marshall Street.
“It was amazing how much interest there was,” said Alison Carey, 20, a junior majoring in environmental policy at the Maxwell School. Some volunteers brought friends along too, Carey said.
“I was not sure how many people would want to do manual labor on a Saturday morning,” Carey said, “But I had so many volunteer responses.”
Two more shifts of volunteers were expected to arrive throughout the day.
The goal: Help install the first rain garden on Syracuse University’s campus.
The initiative was funded as part of Syracuse University’s focus on sustainability and “going green.” The rain garden helps capture stormwater run-off and will serve as an enduring sign of SU’s commitment to sustainability, say people close to the project. Syracuse, like many cities, has partially combined sewer and stormwater run-off systems, said Dr. Rachel May, SU’s coordinator of sustainability education.
Since many surface areas in the city and suburbs are paved and impervious to water, large amounts of rainfall can overwhelm the sewage and stormwater systems causing raw sewage to spill directly into local waterways like Onondaga Creek, May explained.
The Waverly Avenue rain garden will cover 400 square feet and capture up to nearly 2,000 gallons of water runoff, according to those familiar with the design. The site was chosen because of the high amount of water run-off, said May. The parking lot that surrounds the garden sits on a slope next to the building which houses Student Health Services.
It wouldn’t be a garden without plant life. Nick Zubin-Stathopoulos, 26, designed the garden. He’s a graduate student at SUNY-ESF specializing in landscape architecture. To pick the right plants, Zubin-Stathopoulos consulted with experts for help in identifying local species which could both tolerate salt and occasionally being dry. Thankfully, Syracuse salt marshes provided a natural selection, said Zubin-Stathopoulos.
So-called “green infrastructure” projects have gained popularity among county leadership. Recently Onondaga County announced the Green Improvement Fund, which offers to give businesses and non-profits up to 100 percent of costs for executing projects similar to SU’s rain garden.
Back at Syracuse University, May also encourages personal use of green infrastructure. “It doesn’t have to be as big as this particular garden, but you want places where there’s good drainage,” May explained. “You can do it in your own back yard.” For more tips and how-to info on rain gardens and other green infrastructure projects that can be done at home, check out Onondaga County’s site at ongov.net
Paul Brockwell can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.