Andrew Knizner
ask002@marietta.edu
Marietta College recently implemented a new environmental initiative to help decrease water pollution – a phenomenon called Rain Gardens.
According to Jesse Daubert, a board member of the local nonprofit Friends of the Lower Muskingum River, a rain garden is “a bowl-shaped or saucer-shaped garden with deep, loose soil, designed to absorb storm water run-off from impervious surfaces such as roofs and parking lots.”
At first glance, the thick strip of wild flowers, shrubbery, and young trees that runs between the Harrison Hall parking lot and the sand volleyball court may look like a garden gone wrong. The rocky bed, dug shallow into the ground, was actually created to collect the rainwater flowing off the impermeable surface of the parking lot.
“Water from these surfaces are diverted to these gardens and then the water is allowed to slowly infiltrate…the ground and become absorbed by the native plants in the garden,” Daubert said.
Building rain gardens has been a small step in a large mission that FLMR has created in “restoring, protecting, maintaining, and promoting the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the Muskingum River.”
Marietta College is home to two rain gardens. The first garden, which flows through campus and joins the Muskingum River near the Harmar Bridge, was constructed by FLMR two years ago and is located between the tennis courts and Goose Run, the waterway between McCoy and the DBRC.
“Somebody may have a little oil or antifreeze leaking out of their car that may get washed off,” Katy Lustofin, associate professor of biology and environmental science and board president of FLMR, said. “Those pollutants will wash into the rain garden and the plants will take that water up, and they will actually [keep] the pollutants from flowing into Goose Run. It’s basically using plants as a filter for water.”
Although rain gardens may not be the most effective way to prevent pollution in local waterways, every bit counts. In 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory showed that the Ohio River has more harmful chemicals released into it than any other river in America. The report also stated that the Muskingum River is the ninth most polluted river in the country.
While rain gardens can be expensive depending on the soils, rocks and plants that are purchased for building, they can be completed on an economical budget by collecting rocks as well as transplanting or growing plants from seed.
FLMR always tries to grow “native plants [and] plants that encourage pollination by native bee species,” Daubert said.
Creating a rain garden also brings life to new ecosystems.
“I know our rain garden attracts a lot of pollinators,” Lustofin said. “We have purple cone flowers which not only feed butterflies, bees, and humming birds, but in the fall… you will see a lot of goldfinches, which love purple cone flowers.”
Lustofin highlighted the ingenuity of the project.
“I love the fact that a simple landscape feature in your yard like a rain garden can also help keep the water quality in your neighborhood clean,” she said.
