Stormwater in New York City is everybody’s and nobody’s problem. Rain falls everywhere: on public property, on private property, everywhere. But even with PlaNYC in the works and ambitious stormwater management initiatives inching closer to home via Chicago, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, New York has yet to make a dent in the approximately 27 billion gallons of stormwater-induced sewer overflow that contaminate our waterways every year.
In the summer of 2009, members of the North Brooklyn Compost Project, a volunteer-run compost pile in McCarren Park, Brooklyn sought permission to retrofit a section of vegetation on N. 12th Street to manage the stormwater from the road. Compost, in addition to literally bringing dead city soil back to life, can help absorb and detox polluted urban runoff. We had noticed a long grassy strip between the sidewalk and gutter where the old slate curb had already sunken to the level of the roadway. Here, water pooled into the vegetated area during rainstorms whereas an intact curb would have hurried the rain down to the storm drain on the corner.
This eureka moment led to a game of “What If?” What if we took out a section of the curb and brought the water into the vegetated area on purpose? What If we planted a rain garden there? What If all gutters around the city had similar depressions in them where soil and plants could thrive and drink up some of the extra rain? What if the air was cooler and cleaner? What if the sewers no longer overflowed when it rained?
via urbanomnibus.net
