Powderhorn Lake Neighborhood of Raingardens: A Citizen Based Approach to Stormwater Management
2011 Environmental Initiative Awards
Powderhorn Lake Neighborhood of Raingardens: A Citizen Based Approach to Stormwater Management
Powderhorn Park: A Neighborhood of Raingardens uses a citizen-based approach to improve the water quality of Powderhorn Lake, an impaired water body in South Minneapolis. Major funding for the project was provided by the Environment and Natural Resources Trust fund. Project partners include: Metro Blooms, the City of Minneapolis, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board, the Mississippi River Green Team, the Conservation Corps of Minnesota, Hennepin County Master Gardeners, more than 100 volunteers, and the 122 property owners in the Powderhorn and Central neighborhoods of Minneapolis who installed a raingarden in their yard in 2010.
The project defines a methodology that urban communities across the Twin Cities metropolitan area are already replicating to engage neighbors as watershed stewards of their local water body. The project is action-oriented in that it uses dedicated public education and outreach efforts to facilitate a fast paced and focused approach to the installation of raingardens on private lands. These gardens beautify the neighborhood, reduce the amount of polluted runoff flowing into Powderhorn Lake an impaired water, and in its first year has demonstrated the engagement of perpetual stewards who are aware of the impact that stormwater runoff has to their local water body, and the difference that they can make through simple changes in their landscape choices. The project evaluates both the community engagement and education strategies and assesses the effectiveness of the raingarden installations on private property through a paired watershed study. This project monitors the amount and quality of stormwater runoff from test and control watersheds before and after the garden installations and will demonstrate the impact of individual and community action to address impaired water bodies. Results and “lessons learned” will be integrated into the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) adaptive management by the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board (MPRB), and Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD).
Contributor
Samuel Geer2011-03-18 01:42
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This entry has been selected as a winner in the
2011 Environmental Initiative Awards competition.
Contact Information
About You
First Name
Samuel
Last Name
Geer
Organization
Metro Blooms
Project Contact (if different from yourself)
Project Contact First Name
Rebecca
Project Contact Last Name
Rice
Project Contact Organization
Metro Blooms
Your idea
Project Name
Powderhorn Lake Neighborhood of Raingardens: A Citizen Based Approach to Stormwater Management
Date of Project Completion
December 2012
Category
Environmental Education
Project Summary
Powderhorn Park: A Neighborhood of Raingardens uses a citizen-based approach to improve the water quality of Powderhorn Lake, an impaired water body in South Minneapolis. Major funding for the project was provided by the Environment and Natural Resources Trust fund. Project partners include: Metro Blooms, the City of Minneapolis, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board, the Mississippi River Green Team, the Conservation Corps of Minnesota, Hennepin County Master Gardeners, more than 100 volunteers, and the 122 property owners in the Powderhorn and Central neighborhoods of Minneapolis who installed a raingarden in their yard in 2010.
The project defines a methodology that urban communities across the Twin Cities metropolitan area are already replicating to engage neighbors as watershed stewards of their local water body. The project is action-oriented in that it uses dedicated public education and outreach efforts to facilitate a fast paced and focused approach to the installation of raingardens on private lands. These gardens beautify the neighborhood, reduce the amount of polluted runoff flowing into Powderhorn Lake an impaired water, and in its first year has demonstrated the engagement of perpetual stewards who are aware of the impact that stormwater runoff has to their local water body, and the difference that they can make through simple changes in their landscape choices. The project evaluates both the community engagement and education strategies and assesses the effectiveness of the raingarden installations on private property through a paired watershed study. This project monitors the amount and quality of stormwater runoff from test and control watersheds before and after the garden installations and will demonstrate the impact of individual and community action to address impaired water bodies. Results and “lessons learned” will be integrated into the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) adaptive management by the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board (MPRB), and Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD).
Partners
Who were the project partners? What role did each play in the partnership, and how did the partnership operate?
Metro Blooms - Metro Blooms is the organization responsible for coordinating the education and outreach efforts, as well as coordinating the design, installation, and support for ongoing garden maintenance.
Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF) - Funding for this project came from the ENRTF as appropriated by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR.
City of Minneapolis - The technical review for the project has been provided by Lois Eberhart, City of Minneapolis Surface Water & Sewers Administrator. The City provided GIS services and is providing pre-project monitoring activities to provide an adequate pre-test data set for stormwater runoff quantity and quality.
Minneapolis Park Recreation Board (MPRB) - MPRB is the entity responsible for monitoring the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes and related stormwater discharges. The MPRB has been providing monitoring services for the Powderhorn Lake study. The park board also provided space for a plant nursery at J.D. Rivers Garden.
Minnehaha Creek Watershed District - Technical review for the project was also provided by Udai Singh, MCWD’s water quality specialist, and by Julie Westerlund, the education and communications manager.
Conservation Corps of Minnesota (MCC) - The MCC Young Adult Program provided the labor and equipment to excavate and mulch the raingardens. The installation gave young adults interested in natural resources and conservation a chance to learn about raingardening and urban water quality.
The Mississippi River Green Team: The Green Team was critical to the planting of the gardens and worked alongside Metro Blooms landscape designers and other community volunteers. The Green Team is a hands on youth group dedicated to learning about green industries that provided much of the assistance in planting the gardens.
Hennepin County Master Gardeners: The Master Gardeners provided plant expertise and design advice for community members at the neighborhood workshops and contributed to the project through their volunteer time and planting efforts
Project volunteers: Over 100 neighborhood volunteers worked alongside the 122 property owners in the Powderhorn and Central neighborhoods of Minneapolis to plant the gardens. In addition, the local branch of the company Oracle provided assistance in establishing the nursery space for the plants.
Innovation
How is the partnership and/or project goals, outcomes and process innovative or groundbreaking?
Powderhorn Park: A Neighborhood of Raingardens has value both as a process for planning stormwater interventions and as a model for public education based on partnerships between neighborhood groups, local governments, and groups dedicated to environmental protection. By bringing together each of these groups to act in concert to achieve a defined goal, this project generated a greater understanding not only about the local environment, but also about neighborhood organizing and grassroots action. This process helps participants understand how their individual actions can best contribute to a neighborhood effort to reduce runoff and restore native plant communities. A facet of this process that distinguishes it from other efforts is the degree to which neighborhood residents, students + young adults, and community organizations were responsible for much of the planting and outreach for the project. By involving these groups in a hands on way, they gain a greater understanding of their capacity to affect change.
The partnership model used in this project coordinates private landowner activities, non-profit services, and incentives for private land improvements that can be used and applied by other non-profits, even those with a non-environmental focus such as providing affordable housing or creating job training opportunities. However, this approach has particular value in implementing sustainability initiatives. It provides an educational framework that empowers people to implement environmentally beneficial improvements to the private and public realm. Metro Blooms strives to continually improve this process for further use with cities, watershed districts, and neighborhood partners.
Goals
Describe the project goals
The Powderhorn Lake project has three principle goals.
Education, Awareness, and Participation: This goal is to spread awareness about the issue of non-point source pollution, and to educate community members about what they can do to improve water quality in their own yard. The purpose of this goal is to catalyze neighborhood residents to act and change their living spaces so that they shed less runoff and integrate more habitat for wildlife. By including a broad array of partners in the process, Metro Blooms hoped not only to spread awareness of environmental issues, but also to encourage better communication between community members, non-profits, and government agencies.
Consultation, Design, and Installation: The second goal is to to install approximately 150 raingardens in the project study area. This involved extensive outreach and one-on-one education with homeowners to teach them about how the raingarden fit into their landscape and be designed to capture as much water as possible.
Ongoing Stewardship, Monitoring, and Further Work: An important goal of the project is to monitor the effectiveness of the gardens by comparing runoff volume and pollutant loading rates from both the test abd control watersheds. In addition, Metro Blooms will continue to work in the Powderhorn Neighborhood to help project participants care for and maintain their gardens and to develop new programming so that other residents can create gardens of their own.
Outcomes
What were the outcomes of the project (if completed)? What have been the outcomes so far, and what are the anticipated future outcomes (if ongoing)?
The Powderhorn Lake project has already achieved many successful outcomes.
Education, Awareness, and Participation: Through a strategic series of workshops, raingarden parties, door-to-door canvassing, and other educational activities, Metro Blooms recruited over 120 households that were interested in having a raingarden installed on their property. To assess the effectiveness of different techniques, Metro Blooms conducted surveys with project participants to learn which methods were most effective in eliciting participation. In addition, the project sought to make an impact through the media by involving Mark Pedalty, a UMN filmmaker to document the process, and by working with National Geographic's show Expedition Blue Planet to spread awareness about the project and the issues it aims to address.
Consultation, Design, and Installation: Designers from Metro Blooms consulted with every one of the interested participants to answer their questions about raingardens, determine the most suitable location on the property for a garden and design it in such a way that it ould be attractive and easy to maintain. These designs then were then used to plan the installations of 122 gardens in the summer of 2010. To install the gardens successfully required careful staging of plants and landscape materials, scheduling with property owners, and maintaining oversight and quality control for all of the gardens. More installations are planned for 2011.
Ongoing Stewardship, Monitoring and Further Work: Stormwater Monitoring continues, and while it is still too early to assess the data, this project will provide valuable insights into how urban stormwater management can be made more cost-effective and multi-functional. Metro Blooms continues to work in the Powderhorn Neighborhood to promote the use of raingardens and help those persons that participated in the project to maintain their gardens and make additional changes to their property to reduce runoff, such as downspout redirection, installing rain barrels, or boulevard gardens. These efforts involved helping to coordinate a Community Clean-up for Water Quality to prevent debris from entering the storm sewers. Other efforts included working with the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association to cost-share raingardens installed by neighborhood residents and planning a maintenance event for spring 2011.
| 107 weeks ago Powderhorn Lake Neighborhood of Raingardens: A Citizen Based Approach to Stormwater Management has been chosen as a finalist in 2011 Environmental Initiative Awards. | |
| 113 weeks ago Samuel Geer updated this Competition Entry. | |
| 113 weeks ago Samuel Geer updated this Competition Entry. | |
| 113 weeks ago Samuel Geer submitted this idea. |
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