Citizens Bank parking lot bordered by Woonasquatucket and Moshasssuck Rivers.
Citizens Bank parking lot bordered by Woonasquatucket and Moshasssuck Rivers.
Project: Citizens Bank Rain Garden Demo
Location: Providence Map It
Description:
Dense urban development challenges stormwater retrofits. Keeping the retrofit sufficiently far from foundations and in small spaces between other utilities requires the skills of engineering and landscape design. The Citizen’s Bank parking lot was designed to comply with stormwater regulations, but the addition of a rain garden will demonstrate the coordination of gray and green infrastructure to cleanse run-off before returning it to a body of water.
The project also demonstrates the partnership between corporate business, the City, and environmental groups to solve urban problems. It will help to build a base of articulate advocates, as we work with existing efforts to enhance understanding of the connections between the economy, environment and people’s well being.
It will improve the quality of water discharging into the Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck Rivers that are polluted with de-icing sand, excess nitrogen, fecal coliforms, and low dissolved oxygen. Estuarine in downtown Providence, these two rivers support herring and eel runs, and sufficient fish life to attract loons, mergansers, and herons, as well as the vegetarian dabbling ducks. Nonetheless, as heat and nitrogen conspire to reduce oxygen, fish-kills occur.
Plastic bottles and other plastic trash floating from stormwater outfalls diminishes the aesthectic and tourist value of the rivers which are the setting for renowned WaterFire.
Public education opportunity in this heavily trafficked area will introduce the concept of getting water into the ground and getting away from the idea of water a conveyor of debris — litter, sewage, and pavement run-off.