What might look like an ordinary combination of plant beds and rocks is actually a tool in the fight for water conservation and environmental awareness.
The rain garden at the Town Green is right next to the Third Avenue Parking Deck and is mostly contained within a section surrounded by a brick wall.
Eric Lindberg, the city’s environmental expert, said rain gardens help restore groundwater supply and save the ecosystems of rivers and streams that could be disrupted due to large amounts of stormwater runoff.
“If you pave over everything, there is a lot less wet dirt to recharge those streams when we have dry times,” Lindberg said. “So, the more water we put into the ground, the better we can maintain the flow of those at a more consistent level.”
Lindberg said the problem increases exponentially in urban areas. Atlanta is seeing its fair share as some of the city’s small streams have been reduced to small trickles or don’t flow at all until large amounts of rainfall, causing erosion damage.
Large-scale demonstration
Visitors to the Town Green (map) can see the spouts where stormwater comes out after it is channeled off of the four-level parking deck.
The water then goes into the plant bed where it is soaked into the soil and filtered gradually through layers of soil and gravel.
At the very bottom of the rain garden area is a perforated drain to direct any large amount of rainwater out of the area.
“In the beginning, the stormwater that runs off of the parking deck was just going to run out through a pipe and into the river,” said Brad Jones, the landscape architect and project manager on the Town Green project. “We thought, ‘Let’s funnel it to the side and allow it to be absorbed into the soil.’”
The trees in the rain garden are bald cypress, one of the plants that are well suited to both extreme flood conditions and extreme droughts.
The methodology behind rain gardens has become a big part of stormwater management plans in many urban areas, according to Jones.
“A lot of municipalities, while they don’t do this level of aesthetics, they require more and more of what is called first flush treatment,” Jones said.
First flush refers to the initial surface runoff after a rainstorm, which usually consists of a higher concentration of pollutants.
Bringing it on home
Rain gardens are not just something for city governments to install. Smaller versions can be created in residential areas.
Thanks to the upswing in conservation efforts and the resources found on the Internet, there is a lot more information about rain gardens now than there was 10 years ago, Lindberg said.
“It’s not a hard thing to do and it’s not intrusive,” Lindberg said. “If you are doing landscaping anyway, it’s an easy thing to do.”
Lindberg sad the philosophy for home rain gardens is the same as the relatively large one at the Town Green.
“What you are doing is holding water for just a little bit of time and letting it seep into the ground naturally,” he said.
Lindberg said people can check out other local examples of rain gardens by visiting the Rome-Floyd E.C.O. River Education Center at Ridge Ferry Park (map).
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