CitiesGoGreen - December 2008 - (Page 13)

10,000 Rain Gardens in Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri has a regional, five-year plan to encourage residents and organizations to install 10,000 rain gardens to capture stormwater. Here’s how they’re doing it. by Lynn Hinkle, ASTRA Communications, Inc. Left: Lynn Hinkle and David Dods after installing her rain garden. Above: David Dods planting a rain garden with a neighbor. W hen Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes announced a regional initiative called 10,000 Rain Gardens to “help Kansas City retain more water” and improve water quality, not many people were familiar with rain gardens, a stormwater best management practice. A shallow depression planted with native prairie plants, a rain garden is a natural way to capture runoff from a downspout or driveway and divert it to waterloving plants with deep roots. Many of these plants attract butterflies and birds, making the gardens both functional and beautiful. After the six-week publicity campaign in early spring of 2005, 41% of citizens correctly identified stormwater as the number one source of non-point source The initiative inspired a more aggressive pollution of area streams and rivers. Among 4,700 surveyed, 81% said they Green Solutions funding effort as part of were willing to use native plants in their Kansas City’s sewer plan to protect water landscaping to improve water quality. quality from combined sewer overflows. Hundreds of rain gardens have been A shallow depression planted with native prairie plants, registered at the project’s website a rain garden is a natural way to capture runoff from a (www.rainKC.com) and the push is on downspout or driveway and divert it to water-loving to get more rain plants with deep roots. gardens registered this year. Rain gardens can be planted in the fall before the City council members requested that 20% first hard freeze. A fund called “Garden of the $2.3 billion plan be spent on Green Angels” is being established to help non- Solutions as a result of the successes that profits and other worthy groups purchase Portland, OR and other cities shared from rain garden plants on a budget, and is their best practices in stormwater mitigapart of the Community Foundation. tion and public involvement. 13 December 2008 http://citiesgogreen.com/issues/december-2008/features/10000-rain-gardens-in-kansas-city http://citiesgogreen.com/issues/december-2008/features/10000-rain-gardens-in-kansas-city http://www.rainKC.com http://www.RainKC.com http://citiesgogreen.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CitiesGoGreen - December 2008

Citites Go Green Contents In Motion We’re Taking Steps 10,000 Rain Gardens in Kansas City Chicago Center for Green Technology Connecticut’s ‘One Thing’ Green Infrastructure for Stormwater Management Philadelphia The Economics of What Matters New Context: New Possibility

CitiesGoGreen - December 2008

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