Most of southeast Wedgwood and portions of Bryant, View Ridge, and Hawthorne Hills is located within the City’s North Union Bay basin. An urban watershed defined by the City’s stormwater and sewage infrastructure. The basin is one of numerous Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) basins where stormwater and sewage combine and overflow (aptly named) during significant storm events. During these events, untreated stormwater and sewage from the basin outfall in Union Bay near the Center for Urban Horticulture.
As part of the City’s compliance with its National Pollution Discharge and Elimination System (NPDES) permits, the City is implementing a CSO Reduction Plan developed in 2010. This plan identifies a Priority B basin and has set a target goal of providing an additional 71,000 gallons of control. To accomplish this, the City plans on using Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) Improvements, which includes rain gardens, bioretention swales and cisterns. One of the ways the City has helped achieve their targets is through their RainWise Program, which incentivizes home owners to disconnect their roof drains and store or infiltrate their rooftop water on site.
The gist of the RainWise Program is that the City will essentially pay for a City-approved contractor to size and construct/install a rain garden or cistern on your property if your home is in the North Union Bay basin. Rain gardens have been built all around the City and has successfully controlled millions of gallons of stormwater. A lot of attention has been paid to a couple rain gardens in Ballard that didn’t infiltrate as they were supposed to (see HERE and HERE). However, numerous successful examples of rain gardens can be seen HERE.
More information on rain gardens can be found on the 12,000 Rain Gardens Initiative website or watch the video below. For more information on the SPU’s RainWise Program, you can email » or call (206) 633-0224.
Can’t we find ways to repurpose our history and landmarks without always destroying the character of the neighborhood? I don’t want to live in boxy modern buildings, strip mall streets… That site is a breath of fresh air in its surroundings.
What is “environmentally sensitive” about that site?
Many parts of Wedgwood have very sandy soils which make those locations a great candidate for rain gardens that capture all impervious surface run off. Follow the link to see a project I did in Wedgwood in which 100% of all roof and impervious surface water runoff was infiltrated in the new raingarden bioswales. Beautiful and effective in keeping stormwater out of our watersheds and improving Puget Sound water quality. Other homeowners could do this in their own private yards. This property was only a 6,000 SF lot. Let’s do it! Linda