July 30, 2018

On July 25th and 26th, NRWC, with the assistance of the East Lyme School Department, the Department of Public Works and volunteers from the MIllstone Environmental Stewardship Team, installed a 480-square foot rain garden at the East Lyme High School. Rain gardens catch rain water from hard surfaces like driveways, parking lots and rooftops and soak it into the ground. This keeps rain water, which picks up a variety of pollution as it flows along the ground surface, from entering nearby streams. Organisms and chemical processes in the soil treat the rain water and filter it before it reaches the water table.  The rain garden at the high school, located in a grassy area behind the baseball field, will catch rain water from about 5700 square feet of the driveway and parking lot, and soak it into the ground. Before the rain garden was installed, rain water from the driveway flowed into the storm drain system and was discharged to Latimer Brook. Now, the rain garden will prevent approximately 90,000 gallons of polluted ran water from entering the brook.

This project was funded in part by Dominion Energy.