Niantic Watershed Rain Garden Initiative
The Niantic River Watershed Committee has obtained funding through a Dominion Foundation Environmental Stewardship Program grant to encourage and assist watershed residents to install rain gardens on their property. Rain gardens are shallow, bowl-shaped gardens that are integrated into existing landscapes. Rain gardens are designed to intercept and infiltrate storm water runoff, capturing contaminated runoff so that pollutants do not end up in our rivers and streams.
For more information about the Niantic Watershed Rain Garden Initiative, please visit the Rain Garden Initiative page on this website.
If you live in the Niantic River watershed, have a stormwater runoff problem that you would like to correct and are willing to install and maintain a rain garden on your property for a minimum of five years, please contact Judy at judy.rondeau@comcast.net or 860-774-9600, ext. 13.
To see rain gardens in action, check out this YouTube video by TreePeople of a project utilizing rain gardens in a Los Angeles neighborhood to manage stormwater runoff. TreePeople is a non-profit organization in Los Angeles “focused on growing a sustainable, climate-resilient Los Angeles–one with sufficient tree canopy, healthy soil, and locally sourced, clean water–even for the most urban neighborhoods.”
Small Farm Best Management Practices
In 2017, the Niantic River Watershed Committee will be providing outreach and technical assistance to small farm owners who wish to learn methods to manage stormwater runoff on their fams, Geared toward small producers and private farm owners, this program will assist farm owners with diverting clean water to reduce farm runoff, managing heavy use areas, and adopting manure best management practices (BMPs). For more information, please visit the Small Farm BMP page on this site.
This project is funded in part by a Dominion Foundation Environmental Stewardship grant.