Green Solutions for Cleaner Water

It’s no surprise that we get a lot of rain—the Pacific Northwest is a temperate rainforest, after all. How we manage that rain once it hits the ground is important, especially in our region, where we’re experiencing rapid growth. In many places, the pervious soil of forests, farms, and undeveloped land is being replaced with impervious surfaces like roofs, roads, and parking lots, which can lead to increased flooding and water pollution.

Traditional stormwater management focuses on simply capturing water through drains and catch basins. However, green stormwater infrastructure such as rain gardens and bioswales capture rain and allow it to soak slowly into the ground. These stormwater technologies not only reduce flooding and erosion, they also filter water and allow it to percolate into the soil, recharging groundwater.

In 2021 we continued to be at the cutting edge of green stormwater infrastructure, promoting and implementing these innovative vegetated systems. Our Community Conservation team installed 14 rain gardens, six of which were clustered in an Edmonds neighborhood. These rain gardens are located just blocks away from a 1,000 square-foot bioswale that we constructed in 2020. Both projects were completed in partnership with the City of Edmonds.

Our largest project this year was a 1,500 square-foot bioswale that we installed for North Creek Christian Fellowship. The church’s drainage ditch wasn’t functioning properly and, as a result, stormwater was flooding the parking lot, walkways, and retention pond. Our Community Conservation crew re-excavated the ditch, regraded the culverts, and added engineered soils and native vegetation. 

This was one of the largest per square footage green stormwater infrastructures we’ve installed,” said David Jackson, Community Conservation Program Manager. “It’s about 12 times as large as our average residential rain garden. This bioswale will be able to capture and filter a significant amount of stormwater.”

One of our partners, Seed2Fork, has acquired North Creek Christian Fellowship’s church building and is retrofitting it to create an education center. As part of our agroforestry program, we’re working with Seed2Fork to plant a two-acre urban food forest. The bioswale and food forest will provide excellent opportunities to showcase real life examples of sustainable farming and green infrastructure.

“I’m incredibly proud of what our staff has accomplished, working through another year of the pandemic and record-breaking summer heat and winter rain,” said David. “They’ve done an amazing job.”

In 2021, our involvement in stormwater innovations went beyond green infrastructure projects. We also completed The Puget Sound Urban Tree Canopy and Stormwater Management Handbook and its corresponding Technical Report in cooperation with King Conservation District and Brandy Reed, the district manager of Whatcom Conservation District. Read more about this here.

We’re looking forward to another exciting year of stormwater innovations!