Sierra Club has been part of the local campaign to encourage the use of rain gardens, stormwater retention basins, rain barrels, green roofs and other low-impact stormwater management techniques instead of the large dams and flood-control reservoirs.

I participated in the League of Women Voters Papio Watershed Tour in September 2006, and this UNL tour provided an excellent opportunity for an update. Wow, there has been a lot of progress!

I hope the following photos by my wife, Mary Anna, and me with the accompanying notes give you some insight into some of the low-impact projects completed in Douglas and Sarpy counties. Why not consider a project for your home, or suggest one or more of these techniques at you place of employment. You can easily visit all of the tour stops except one (Gallup's Roof Garden) on your own.

Stop 1

The Zero Net Energy Test Home (ZNETH)

6462 Woolorth St., Omaha

Features a rain garden and sustainable landscape. Front downspouts feed two 300 gal. cisterns, and the water captured will be used for irrigation, hopefully with a solar-powered pump.

Andy Szatko in the black shirt is a landscape designer and UNL grad student. He was one of the tour leaders.

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Stop 2.

Gallup Campus Roof Garden (Omaha Riverfront) - Although this green roof provides insulation and retains stormwater, the inclusion of some non-drought resistant plant varieties means irrigation is required during periods of hot, dry weather.

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Stop 3.

Metropolitan Community College Fort Omaha Campus - Culinary Arts Building -- New parking lot east of the new building features pervious concrete in parking stalls and conventional concrete for driveways. Stormwater flows into bioretention gardens. Although the pervious concrete costs about three times that of conventional concrete, this solution was cheaper than building a new sewer to the nearest storm sewer at 30th & Sorensen Parkway.

John Cambridge of HDR Assoc. just poured a bucket of water on the pervious concrete. The water quickly disappeared before I could click the shutter! In the right photo John is holding a core sample of the pervious concrete.

Stop 4.

Orchard Park - 5873 N. 66th St, Omaha -- This neighborhood, located on Cole Creek southwest of Roncalli High School, often suffered flooding during major storm events. This project utilized stream restoration and bioretention basins to control stormwater. Information signs (right) were installed to educate residents and park visitors how the changes control stormwater and improve habitat. In the photo below two curb cuts, one on each side of the old storm sewer inlet, allow storm water to flow from the street into the rain garden. The small dam (photo lower right) controls the flow of storm water during heavy rains and also carries the park trail across Cole Creek. The three pipes through the dam regulate water flow reducing storm surges downstream.

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Looking downstream on Cole Creek, those rocks are a "jay hook" to reduce erosion by shifting the current away from the outside bank.

John Royster, Landscape Architect with Big Muddy Workshop, led the tour of this project.

Stop 5.

Saddlebrook School, Library and Community Center -- Completed in 2009, this new building houses all three facilities. In addition to a bioretention garden for parking lot runoff, part of the building has a green roof. The green roof (below) features sedums and other drought-resistant plants so there is no need for irrigation. Visitors can view the green roof by entering the Community Center, go up the stairs to the indoor running track, and view the garden out the east windows. There is a computer monitor at the top of the stairs that displays the temperatures for the green roof and the nearby conventional roof.

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Information about the weather station

Stop 6.

Zorinsky Aquatic Center - 3808 S. 156th St, Omaha -- The parking lot and landscaping for this new recreation facility includes permeable paving (pavers), a bioswale to collect parking lot runoff, and a rain garden. The project was just completed this Spring, and the plantings were not very far along at the time of our visit. It usually takes at least a year for rain garden vegetation to get established.

Stop 7.

Sarpy County Courthouse - 1210 Golden Gate Road, Papillion -- The Courthouse Annex has the granddaddy of rain barrels! Referred to as a water harvesting system, storm water from the 10,000 sq ft roof is collected in the large pipe (see photo right) which drains it to the 6,000 gallon cistern. The water collected is used to irrigate the surrounding  landscape. The vertical pipe with the garden hose attached is the Flush Diverter -- it fills with the "first flush" of rainwater which contains most of the pollutants.

Katie Pekarek, Statewide Stormwater Extension Educator, explains how this bioretention garden (below) was built to handle the stormwater from the flat roof of this section of the Courthouse. There are no downspouts. The water falls to the ground from the holes in the wall. The black arrow points to one of these drains.

Stop 8.

Bellevue Elementary School - 12001 Timberridge Dr., Bellevue -- Water from the parking lot drains into the pipes in the foreground and flows to the rain garden. Designed to pond about  inches of water before excess flows into the stormwater inlet shown in photo below. Ponded water infiltrates into the garden at a rate of about one inch per hour.