BY CAROL FLETCHER
Staff Writer
Suburban Trends- January 2, 2005
The borough is considering using the beauty of a rain garden to manage unattractive stormwater.
Deputy Mayor Bill O'Hearn saw his first rain garden at the University of Pennsylvania's Morris Arboretum and thought of an area by the Ringwood Public Library where a ditch collects and drains stormwater.
"A rain garden is a way of creating a wetland;" said O'Hearn, "with native plants designed to take in stormwater and to filter out pollutants."
Simultaneously, he said, it can control both pollution, and flooding.
Municipal officials began studying stormwater in 2004 after the state developed strict new rules requiring towns to identify and manage stormwater outflows and the pollution they carry.
According to O'Hearn, the state sees rain gardens as nonstructural ways to control stormwater. Since the library's area is within wetlands, there is a lot of stormwater runoff.
The borough will contract with the environmental scientist who designed the Arboretum's garden, employed with the water management firm M2 Associates Inc., to do a feasibility study of the area, O'Hearn said.
"He needs to make sure there is enough of a flow," said O'Hearn, "enough drainage into the area to make it a creative wetlands function.”
If a rain garden becomes a plan, said O'Hearn, the scientist/designer would design the garden with plants that will filter and disperse the stormwater.
Wildlife such as birds and butterflies should be attracted to it, said O'Hearn, and help it become an ecosystem.
Several grants could be used to help cover the project's cost if the borough decides to proceed, O'Hearn said, since it could be considered stormwater education, a park or community improvement.
"It is a natural solution that eliminates the labor of cutting grass," said O'Hearn, "and can be very attractive and provide wetlands habitat for wildlife.'