Two St. Croix schools have installed innovative “green” storm water management systems, with the help of the Virgin Islands Resource Conservation & Development Council, Inc., and its partners, the Virgin Islands Departments of Planning & Natural Resources and of Agriculture.
Rain gardens and bio-swales at the Pearl B. Larsen Elementary School and Seventh Day Adventist School are demonstration projects and are open to the public to come see how they work.
The biggest cause of pollution in our coastal waters is non-point source pollution, according to the council. That’s runoff from roads, parking lots and lawns that carry dirt, pesticides, fertilizers, and oil into storm drains to guts and beaches. Every drop of rain that you keep on your property helps to keep our coastal waters less polluted.
A rain garden is a shallow depression planted with native or naturalized, non-invasive plants. It is designed to slow, capture, and infiltrate rain to reduce storm water runoff. Designed to drain water within a day, rain gardens serve as mosquito death traps, since mosquito eggs need more than 48 hours to grow into larvae. Native plants are preferred because they are drought-resistant, accustomed to our area’s soils, and attract butterflies, birds and honey bees.
Teachers from Pearl B. Larsen and Seventh Day Adventist schools participated in the council’s 2007 rain garden installation at the VIWMA Greenhouse Program and were so excited by the practice that they requested the council’s assistance in building rain gardens at their schools. As a result, V.I. RC&D sought and received grant funding from the DPNR Nonpoint Source Pollution Management Program and the Rutgers University Cooperative Extension to design and install rain gardens at the two schools, plus a third rain garden designed and awaiting construction in the vicinity of Guy Benjamin School in Coral Bay, St. John. DPNR and Rutgers provided funds for project materials and supplies, and Rutgers engineers evaluated each site and prepared the engineering plans and designs.
V.I. RC&D also received support for rain garden construction from the V.I. Department of Agriculture for construction supervision at both schools and equipment and operator contributions for the Pearl B. Larsen rain garden, and from SDA church member Charles Richards of Richie’s Equipment Rental, and students and staff of both schools, who donated their time to build the school’s bio-swale and rain garden, and plant, mulch and weed the rain garden.
“It is each and everyone’s individual commitment to the rain garden projects that essentially has created a strong team effort that benefits the whole community,” said project manager Dee Osinski.
“The rain garden is a double blessing to the St. Croix SDA School,” said SDA Principal Kodzo Ekpe. “It enhances the physical beauty of our school, and at the same time serves as a water retention structure for our grounds. We are grateful to the Virgin Islands Resource Conservation & Development Council for its genius at work!”
“Students and staff at the Pearl B. Larsen Elementary School are very happy about our rain garden,” said teacher, Vilma Bigelow. “We have been able to witness firsthand the positive function of the garden after our first rainfall, where the water that normally runs down the hill onto the parking lot was retained in the rain garden area.”
It is one of V.I. RC&D’s strategic goals to provide pollution prevention technology transfer and education
to Virgin Islanders in order to alleviate storm water flooding and pollution problems throughout the territory. This project is funded by a Nonpoint Source Pollution Management Grant received from the V.I. Department of Planning & Natural Resources and a CSREES Regional Water Quality Grant from Rutgers University Cooperative Extension to demonstrate the use and effectiveness of storm water control and pollution prevention practices.
Further information about the School Rain Garden Demonstrations or about V.I. RC&D can be obtained by contacting the council office at 340-692-6932, extension 5, or by visiting the website www.usvircd.org .
