Girls Fix High School's Storm Water Problem

April showers bring River Hill rain garden

Normally I skip by these feel good stories about kids winning the science fair with a Bay related project or similar items.  This one seemed pretty good, though.  It's a useful project, it actually address Bay issues in a reasonable way

Every year, a pipe behind River Hill High School in Clarksville drains six billion gallons of unfiltered water into the Chesapeake Bay.

That's changing, however, thanks to a new rain garden unveiled recently at the school. The new rain garden provides 2,000 square-feet of bio-retention: rocks, soil and plants that clean the water of pollutants before it goes to the Bay.

"Every single time it rained, something like 200,000 gallons of water would go through that pipe, even with just one inch of rain," said Danielle Fallon, 17, a junior at River Hill and one of the driving forces behind the rain garden.

Fallon has spent the last three years getting the project up and running through the G/T Intern Mentor program, working with River Hill's Youth Environmental Coalition, the Green Building Institute and the Chesapeake Bay Trust.

I hope the students math and research skills are better than the reporters.  Assuming it rained an inch a day, for a total of 300 inches per year, 200,000 gallons per inch of rainfall would total 60 million gallons per year. But what's two orders of magnitude when you're trying to make a point?  Oh, and the actual annual rainfall for Baltimore is more like 40 inches annually, so make that three orders of magnitude.  And if the girls gave the reporter the figures and he ran with it, it's still his error...

The project was made possible through a $5,000 "mini-grant" from the Chesapeake Bay Trust, said Connie Chen, president of Youth ECo, 18, and a River Hill senior. An additional $2,500 was raised from the community, she said. The garden was planted by students over the course of two April weekends.

All the plants, Chen said, are native to Maryland, which means they require less maintenance and don't need fertilizers. The pollutants fertilize the plants, Chen said.

"We got really into making something tangible, something that would make a difference for the Bay," Chen said. "This was just laying there, waiting to happen in our backyard."

Good for them.