THUNDER BAY – Habitat for Humanity has partnered with Eco Superior to build an environmentally friendly rain garden at a recent home build.
Julia Prinselaar, a program co-ordinator at Eco Superior said it’s part of a larger project, called Rain Ready Thunder Bay, as a way to help manage storm water in neighbourhoods and communities across the city.
“We’ve got a front-yard garden,” Prinselaar said, explaining the latest project. “So it’s going to take runoff from the rooftop of (the homeowner’s) house. The house was built last year, and so it’s partly a demonstration project in the neighbourhood.
“It’s educating the public on what can be done, what homeowners can do and for communities to come together to take ownership to help manage storm water on the lot level.”
Essentially rain gardens are landscaped depressions, a lot like a regular perennial garden with the added function of diverting water.
“They capture runoff from a hard surface, like a rooftop or a driveway, and basically the water is meant to be held there for a short period of time and reduce the volume and flow of runoff into municipal storm drains,” Prinselaar said.
“It’s to the city’s benefit because we are reducing the volume of runoff that could potentially flow into storm drains in the city. So it’s reducing that burden. When you see more of these in communities and neighbourhoods, you can start to see a collective impact on help toward reducing flooding.”
It also helps with water quality, the runoff treated in the ground naturally before making its way back to nearby waterways, in this case, the Neebing and the McIntyre rivers.
“And we also see the community partnerships. We’re bringing people together,” she said.
Habitat for Humanity’s Dion Horton, the build co-ordinator, said it’s a great partnership, adding his organization and the families they help want to be good neighbours. This is a perfect way to do it, he said.
“We want to be as green and friendly to the environment as we can be,” Horton said. “When Julia approached us wanting to help get a grant and start doing rain gardens in these homes, we were very excited and very eager to partner with her,” Horton said.
“It’s to be better neighbours, beautify the city and protect the water run-off.”
Homeowner Ron Sawchuk said he was only too happy to take part.
“It will be nice for other people to get involved,” he said, knowing his home will be a showcase of what can be done with rain gardens in the city.
