Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Over the past six Mondays, we’ve learned where New Jerseyans can turn for help with water resources (e.g. stormwater management challenges), urban infrastructure issues,  and landscape rehabilitation issues. The Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability (CUES), in partnership with County Extension Agents, provide this wealth of knowledge and practice – an incredible resource – to farmers, county and town officials, Sustainable Jersey team members, town engineers and planners, school planners, school officials, and others, and always with an eye toward environmental justice.

Today is the final guest blog in our series from CUES, which takes a look at the value of rain gardens as a community building and robust educational tool for kids and adults alike.

New Jersey has gone through a high degree of urbanization since Lincoln created the Land Grant College system to help find solutions to local problems in our communities. One of the most significant changes associated with this urban boom is the addition of impervious surfaces that do not allow water to penetrate into the soil – asphalt, concrete, roof tops and all manner of building materials. These impervious surfaces are being added to New Jersey’s landscape at a rapid rate. As of 2007 New Jersey contained 800 square miles of concrete and asphalt, and in the five years between 2002 and 2007 the state added the equivalent of 9 football fields (including end zones) of new impervious surface every day!

We construct impervious surfaces for many good reasons, but the environmental impacts are significant when rain water cannot infiltrate to recharge groundwater supplies and natural flow paths for water are changed, causing polluted stormwater runoff to end up in our streams. A low cost method for cleaning stormwater and slowing the speed of runoff is to route rainwater to areas where native vegetation and soil can capture, treat and infiltrate it. But because of the amount of development in our State, natural areas that were once plentiful in the landscape have been greatly diminished. In the early 1990’s a Maryland builder added bioretention areas – drainage depressions containing native plants – to a residential development, and the Rain Garden concept was born. These planted areas mimic natural ecosystems that have been replaced by impervious surfaces by slowing stormwater flow and providing ideal locations where the water can infiltrate into the ground.

The Rutgers Environmental County Agents, working with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Water Resources Team, have been busy demonstrating and building Rain Gardens all over New Jersey! A great example of the Rain Garden program occurred this past year at the Village Elementary School in Holmdel, New Jersey. (more…)

Now that you’ve been seeing those crocuses in your yard and around the neighborhood, and the daffodils are poking through the ground too, are you starting to think about your garden?

The National Wildlife Federation‘s website has a superb section on gardening tips and resources that includes how to attract birds, butterflies and other wildlife to your yard, how to use native plants (and even a map that helps you find plants native to your region), as well as tutorials on building bat and bee houses and many other interesting and useful articles designed to help you create a sustainable haven for wildlife in your neighborhood.

And once you’ve made your garden the favorite gathering spot for all the furry and feathered friends in the neighborhood, you can register your yard as a certified wildlife habitat, and share your photos with the National Wildlife Federation’s Flickr group.

Photo by Craig Pitts

Continuing our series of Environment Stories, this next post is from Education Program Director Ross Danis, whose visit with the folks at the Pinelands Preservation Alliance reminded him how important it is to be passionate about your work.

Planting the Seeds of Change

Sometimes chance encounters during our site visits to grantees and prospective grantees leave an indelible impression. Recently I visited with the folks at the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, and on the way back to my car, I met a staff botanist whose wonderful story of his work touched me at an unexpected moment.

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