As some of you know, I have long been interested in storm-water retention. Looking at these pictures of the flood, I am going to once more enter into the fray. I do not do this seeking anything, it just seems to be a common sense thing to do on so many levels. This is what I think. Take it for whatever you want. One small thing you could do.
Think of the streets as streams. We funnel all the water to a drain at the end of the street, where it is clogged by debris, overflows and run downhill. Each intersection goes downhill and causes a lot of problems. So this is what you could do.
The up and down streets are the river. The east and west streets are the tributaries. In storm-water retention there is a line of thought about point of impact. Where the rain first hits. That’s where you deal with it. Before it can become a monster. Stop it before it gets big. So how do you do that?
To cut to the chase, it mostly has to do plants. It means boulevard rain gardens on the tributaries not the rivers. Stop the water at the point of impact. Catch it before it gets big. And what do you plant? Usually water drawers, usually quite pretty. There are all kinds of combinations, be beavers. Beautiful environments are very easily recreated. So out of these rain gardens you grow flowers. I like flowers. But envision flowers on every street, it would be quite nice. But it’s more than that. You have photosynthesis, which gives you air, clean air, which could possibly make you feel better. Good for the bees, the trouble there in.
I’ll let you take it from there. Try to think about the positive reasons you would do this and consider the negative things as just a problem to be solved. And that concludes my rant for tonight.
