Forest St. and Magnolia St. Rain Garden
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Forest St. and Magnolia St. Rain Garden
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Forest St. and Magnolia St. Rain Garden
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Where is this located? It’s at the three-way corner of Forest Street and Magnolia in front of Aslan Brewery.
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What’s special about this place? This engineered rain garden is one of four at this intersection. Their installation was part of a pedestrian safety improvement. Look for the other three rain gardens nearby. They are all designed the same way and treat water from Forest and Magnolia streets before sending it to Whatcom Creek.
About Rain Gardens
A rain garden is a bowl-shaped garden that collects, absorbs, and filters the rainwater that runs off hard surfaces including parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, lawns, and roofs. They provide on-site cleaning of stormwater by using special soil mixtures and low-maintenance plants that soak up runoff. The soil mixes used in rain gardens are selected to allow water to soak in rapidly, treat runoff, and support plant growth. Hardy, often native, plants are carefully selected for each site, including wildflowers, grasses, rushes, ferns, shrubs, and even small trees. These plants can have the added benefit of attracting pollinators, providing habitat for beneficial insects and birds, adding beauty, and improving neighboring property values.
Rain gardens can be small and home-made, or they can be engineered with specific materials to be highly effective. Home-made rain gardens are usually applied in smaller, residential systems working to intercept runoff that would otherwise flow onto streets. Engineered rain gardens are a type of bioretention basin and are sized for specific water quality treatment and flow control capacity that includes designed soil mixes and, often, under-drains and control structures. All the rain gardens highlighted on these tours are engineered bioretention facilities.
Water Quality Benefit: Rain gardens can capture sediment and bacteria, capture oil, pesticides, and fertilizers, and use their mulch layer to bind-up dissolved metals. Plant roots also are host to diverse microbial and fungal populations that filter pollution using biological processes.
Water Quantity Benefit: Special soil mixtures are chosen to allow water to soak into the ground. Roots break up the soil so water can soak into the ground more easily. By absorbing runoff from hard surfaces, rain gardens reduce flooding on neighboring property, reduce erosion in streams, and may recharge local groundwater.
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This engineered rain garden stores and treats water with a combination of compost, specially formulated soils, and mineral material.
Water flows through the curb cut at the top of the photo and flows through the plants and soil. The drain removes any excess water that doesn't soak in.
Sediment, grease, and oil that settled here was prevented from entering Whatcom Creek. This sediment is easily cleaned out by city maintenance crew. The curb cut allows runoff in.
This engineered rain garden stores and treats water with a combination of compost, specially formulated soils, and mineral material. Runoff flows out through the under-drain.
There are four engineered rain gardens at this intersection. Each has a similar design and their treated stormwater flows to Whatcom Creek.