Island County Stormwater Management
Stormwater is rainfall that washes off of the landscape into our ditches, gutters, and eventually Puget Sound. Along the way it picks up pollutants that can harm fish and other freshwater and marine life.
Stormwater management in Island County varies by municipality. In most locations, including Camano Island, stormwater education and formal programs to ensure stormwater facilities, such as rain gardens and detention ponds, function properly once installed, are lacking. This project aimed to develop a network of people and resources to help Island County citizens manage stormwater to reduce pollution in our waterways and ensure that the methods used to manage stormwater are installed properly and continue to function as they were intended.
This project provided free stormwater management assistance to Island County residents, which included installing rainwater catchment systems and designing rain gardens to filter stormwater and reduce flooding of paved areas.
Project staff provided education to landscapers and the public to promote, evaluate, implement and maintain stormwater management practices in Island County with a goal of reducing nutrient and toxin loading into Puget Sound through incentive-based, voluntary stormwater Best Management Practice (BMP) installations and/or retrofits. These “green stormwater infrastructure” practices include rain gardens, as pictured below, bioswales, detention ponds, and other practices that prevent polluted rainwater from washing into streams and Puget Sound.
Snohomish Conservation District assists the residents of Camano Island while Whidbey Island Conservation District serves Whidbey Island residents.
Please contact us for assistance if you are interested in:
receiving free advice on how to manage stormwater on their property to prevent flooding or erosion, or to put the water to work on their land rather than letting it run off into ditches and gutters,
learning how to install a rain garden or find landscapers that can help with this type of project,
training as a volunteer to learn how to evaluate a rain garden or similar stormwater management facility.
Kathryn Wells | kathryn@snohomishcd.org | 425-377-7024
For more information:
www.WhidbeyCD.org/ICStormwaterNTA
info@WhidbeyCD.org | 360-78-4708 or 888-678-4922
Project Partners:
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This project has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under assistance agreement 01J18101 to Department of Ecology. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Environmental Protection Agency or the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.
