Watershed Texas

Students and volunteers launch a floating wetland island into the stormwater detention basin. Photo: Helle Brown

Our first installation of floating wetland islands went into the campus stormwater detention pond at Clear Creek Independent School District’s Education Village in League City. TCWP and the school community launched three islands on November 10

When 72 volunteers, 2 camera crews, and the school superintendent show up to help us undertake something new, it sure is wonderful when it is accomplished with hardly a hitch!

Habitat Club students sort through the wetland plants awaiting Launch Day in the Clear Falls High School greenhouse. Photo: Mary Carol Edwards

This was a culmination of a number of volunteer events: collecting native plants from the habitat garden ponds at Ed White Elementary in El Lago and from ditches near Sheldon Lake reservoir, two afternoons of potting up the plants with the Habitat Club of Clear Falls High School and the Outdoor Club of Mossman Elementary, and making concrete anchors out of 5 gallon buckets with Clear Falls High School teacher Emily Morris’ Interior Design class.

Muddy happy volunteers at Ed White Elementary. Plants for the floating wetlands islands were thinned from the school ponds on Habitat Garden Day, October 12. Photo: Hannah Amsted

Particular thanks goes to Brenda Clift and her Special Education class, who kept the wetland plants well-watered for a month in the greenhouse, Jason Martin of Martin Ecosystems (the floating wetlands supplier) for patiently answering 1000 questions, teacher Emilie Oliver of Clear Brook High School who sent out an army of students willing to work for extra credit on the launch day, and especially to the Texas Master Naturalists who embraced this project from start (planning meetings) to finish (hoisting concrete anchors out of canoes in waist deep water, sharing photos of the launch day).

Teachers and students show off a floating wetland island as it gets loaded onto a trailer for the short trip to the campus stormwater pond. Photo: Mary Carol Edwards

Launch Day volunteers get a quick lesson on how to plant a floating wetland. Photo: Helle Brown

The project began early in the year as a brainstorm between with CCISD science coordinator Terri Berry, Emily Morris (who is a Texas Master Naturalist as well as CFHS teacher), Sheila Brown of the Environmental Institute of Houston at University of Houston Clear Lake, and Mary Carol Edwards of TCWP. Without the ingenuity, persistence, experience and connections of those first three, this project might still be in the planning stages! 

Buckets of wetland plants stand ready as  volunteer plants one of the three wetland islands. Photo: Helle Brown

Charriss and Derek York prepare anchor cables. Photo: Helle Brown.

The EIH crew Sheila Brown (right), Debbie Bush, and her daughter take a shift at the sign-in table. Photo: Helle Brown

These floating wetland islands demonstrate a new water quality improvement technique for the Galveston Bay Area and are the first public installation of floating wetland islands in Texas. They also complement the schools’ interest in developing the stormwater detention pond as an outdoor classroom, supporting curriculum studies with wildlife, botany, water cycle and watershed experiences.

Wetland plants were also added to the shores of the pond. Master Naturalist Diane Forthman and a high school student team up to plant together. Photo: Helle Brown

From giving students an opportunity to be part of a cool project on their own campus to providing an example for other stormwater detention basins in Texas, we look forward to seeing where the ripples from launching the floating wetlands launch will spread.

See more photos from the Launch Day

Read more about floating wetlands

Read a Galveston Daily News article online or archived

The last of the three islands is anchored in place and the volunteers wade back to shore. Photo: Helle Brown