Posted in Bay-friendly, children in nature, Galveston Bay, native plants, runoff pollution, stormwater, stormwater wetlands, wetland restoration, tagged children in nature, Dickinson Bayou, floating wetlands, native plants, runoff, stormwater wetlands, texas master naturalist, video, volunteers, water quality, Wetland Restoration Team on February 10, 2014| 1 Comment »
A video about the floating wetlands project at Clear Creek I.S.D’s Education Village in League City arrived today! See it now.
It shows very well what enthusiasm the students, teachers, and volunteers have for developing a natural environment on campus, especially if it means trying something really new–like floating wetlands. The video was created by Kirk Swann, Janice Scott, and the folks in the CCISD Office of Communications. Thanks ya’ll!
Posted in children in nature, stormwater, stormwater wetlands, wetland restoration, tagged children in nature, floating wetlands, parks, stormwater wetlands, wetland restoration on January 28, 2014| 4 Comments »
Signs of an invasion were everywhere on a recent visit to the floating wetland islands at the Education Village. Plants had been devoured from the floating wetlands like they were buffet tables at SouperSalad. The students’ plantings along the shores of the stormwater pond were also missing. All around were footprints and scat from the prime suspect: nutria.
Posted in Galveston Bay, runoff pollution, stormwater, stormwater wetlands, tagged Galveston Bay, parks, runoff, stormwater wetlands, video, water quality, wetlands on December 4, 2013| 1 Comment »
A scene from Cup and Saucer wetlands in Canterbury, NSW, Australia. Source: Sydney Water
Many of us are visual learners, and video-sharing sites like YouTube come to the rescue when we want to gain an understanding of something new and uncommon. That goes for learning about stormwater wetlands too—although good videos portraying them are few and far between. Stormwater wetlands don’t do hilarious tricks or say cute things, and at least for now, they aren’t abundant subjects for filming. However, the key to familiarizing people with their benefits—water quality improvements, habitat, and flood control, among others—is having good examples to which we can refer. Until there are ample stormwater wetland demonstration projects in the Galveston Bay Area, we can rely on “distance learning” through articles, photos, and now, video.
I had a look and curated a few videos to give you the idea of how a stormwater wetland appears.
Posted in Bay-friendly, children in nature, native plants, runoff pollution, stormwater, stormwater wetlands, tagged children in nature, Dickinson Bayou, floating wetlands, native plants, runoff, stormwater wetlands, students, texas master naturalist, volunteers, water quality on November 21, 2013| 2 Comments »
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!
Posted in coastal prairies, environmentally friendly landscaping, native plants, rain garden, stormwater wetlands, tagged lawn reduction, NASA, native plants, prairie, stormwater wetlands, wetlands, wildlife on August 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »
A Yellow-crowned Night Heron stalks the new wetland on the grounds of the Johnson Space Center.
Visiting the Johnson Space Center (JSC), you probably anticipate a vision of a high tech future in space. But to address a more down-to-earth aspect of the space center’s operation, Chris LaChance and I were invited to NASA by Sandy Parker of the JSC Environmental Office to consult on transforming a landscape problem area from boggy lawn to JSC’s first created wetland.
The JSC landscape maintenance contractor, Prodyn EPES, needed a way to deal with the water that pooled in a low spot between a weather station building, parking lots, and a jogging trail. It tended to be too wet to mow, so something else had to be done—and done on a tight budget. At about 2200 square feet, it was too large to be economically practical as a rain garden, which can sometimes require considerable excavation, an underdrain, porous soils, and a selection of predominantly nursery-raised native plants. Chris thought the site had more potential as a created wetland, so she brought me along on the mission.
Steven Mikulencak
Charriss York
Watershed Texas 