Slowing Down the Runoff at Kemptown Park

-Link provided to article originally posted in the
Frederick News-Post on March 1, 2009
_______________________________________________

Click here for printer friendly version (Size: 75 KB)

Although we haven’t had bountiful rains this winter, rain water falling on hard surfaces destabilizes nearby streams because of its quantity and force.  Unable to soak into woods and fields, rain from parking lots, roads, sidewalks and roofs concentrates force and volume and hits our streams hard, causing erosion.

Bryan Seipp with the Potomac Conservancy has been working with Frederick County Division of Parks and Recreation, the Center for Watershed Protection and other Monocacy & Catoctin Watershed Alliance (MCWA) partners to create a $40,000 bioretention project at Kemptown Park, behind Kemptown Elementary School in the Bennett Creek Watershed.  Funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust’s Targeted Watershed Grant Program, the bioretention facility traps oil, gasoline, antifreeze, road salt and other pollutants washed with the rain from the nearby parking lot.  The runoff is slowed down so that it can soak into the ground rather than gushing into the nearby Fahrney Branch and eroding stream banks.

Karen Gardner with the Frederick News-Post visited the site and interviewed Bryan Seipp. Read her article here.