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Sustainable Landscape Systems for Managing Storm Water 2nd Edition
Citation:
Dyke, D., J. Boggs, W. D. Shuster, S. Foltz, P. Grewal, K. Power, H. Utrata-Halcomb, J. Koehn, B. J. Bohl, H. Yang, AND G. D. Derringer. Sustainable Landscape Systems for Managing Storm Water 2nd Edition. Hamilton County Soil & Water Conservation District, Cincinnati, OH, 2009.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
Rain gardens are designed to capture and infiltrate rainwater in the landscape. These gardens are also called "rain water gardens". Rainwater is routed to the garden and filtered naturally by the plants and soils in the garden. This filtration process removes nutrients and pollutants. In its simplest form, a rain garden is a relatively small area of plantings near the drain spout of a building or paved area. However, large highly engineered gardens employing engineered soils and underdrains of varying designs may be required for gardens that receive runoff into a small area from a larger impervious area. While water quality is always important, another primary purpose of installing rain gardens in the MSD service area is to reduce the quantity of rain water entering the storm sewer system. Cincinnati is unique in that it was the first city in the country to have a sewer system. That system is a combined system, which means that all rainwater runoff and sewage from our toilets, washing machines, etc., go into the sewer system together. That can be a problem when heavy rain events occur. The storm water system overflows, spreading whatever is in the system into areas where it is neither wanted nor appreciated, such as streams (Mill Creek, Little Miami River, Great Miami River, Ohio River). There is another problem with the system; it is very old with many leaks and breakage problems. Replacing the system would be impractical, costing billions of dollars. Due to the problems associated with the storm water system, the MSD is under a consent decree with the U.S. EPA to mitigate the overflow that goes into our streams. The program established under the consent decree to accomplish this is the Wet Weather
