Joydeep+Mukherjee+Forested+Rain+Garden+Action+Plan

This past Saturday (May 5th), I went to the Forested Rain Garden at Umstead State Park to volunteer for the maintenance of the garden. The garden was installed in late 2015/early 2016 to streamline the movement of stormwater at the parking lot into the medians. All the stormwater runoff can be treated from the 1 acre impervious parking lot, and trees will be able to grow in this garden area as well. These trees will be beneficial to visitors as they will provide ample shade for visitors to park their cars under, especially in the hot summer. The internal water storage zone will improve nitrogen treatment and increase the annual volume reduction at this parking lot. I learned from this experience the importance of an effective stormwater control system. Since this parking lot is located in a State Park that is full of wildlife, engineers from NCSU decided to create this project to prevent polluted water from entering streams and natural habitats in the surrounding area. This system also makes it easier to treat any pollution in the water by concentrating all runoff stormwater into a single storage zone. This project at Umstead State Park relates to what we studied in class about water pollution and resources.