Conserving Vacant Lots in Detroit for Stormwater Control

One of the more impressive ideas for reusing vacant land in downtown Detroit is to create gardens for stormwater control. An article in the Detroit News by writer Kim Kozlowski (December 14, 2015) states that the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and the Detroit Landbank Authority have partnered to utilize a few  open lots for rain gardens. Rain gardens store water temporarily before releasing it to city stormwater systems. And this is important in cities like Detroit that have had problems with overloaded storm systems that can dump urban water, and raw sewage, directly into the Rouge River. In 2014, polluted urban runoff from Detroit and its surrounding areas created undrinkable water supplies for parts of Michigan and Ohio. Joan Nassauer, professor of landscape architecture at University of Michigan, is leading the project’s effort to slow the urban runoff. Nassauer states in the article, “If during a storm we can keep much more water here just below the ground, that reduces the pressure on a city’s system and so there won’t be a big untreatable amount of water that comes into the system” (Article available from the Detroit News online at http://detnews.com/)