Let’s welcome June to Seattle with more rain gardens! June 1, 2013 10 am at HPIC, celebrate Community Rain Garden Planting Day and learn about the beautiful rain garden that’s been added to Highland Park Improvement Club’s parking lot. This functional landscape feature is helping prevent polluted runoff from entering the Duwamish River. The soils and the plants were chosen because of their ability to soak up runoff and break down the pollutants.

Spring is here! Gardens are blooming, and everything is coming to life. Some of these gardens are more than just beautiful to look at – they actually help to solve one of the largest sources of pollution problems for Puget Sound and local waterways. Neighbors all over West Seattle are taking simple actions to convert their existing yards, pathways, and driveways to be more water friendly – including the Highland Park Improvement Club (HPIC).

HPIC, in partnership with Sustainable Seattle and King County, is working to battle stormwater pollution by installing a rain garden to slow the flow of rainwater and prevent these pollutants from entering our river. The community-designed rain garden will be a beautiful and functional demonstration of a green infrastructure approach to reducing stormwater pollution. With their new rain garden, HPIC is beautifying
the Highland Park-Riverview neighborhood and helping address the challenge of rain water runoff pollution.

Stormwater runoff is one of the largest sources of pollution in the Puget Sound area. It carries chemicals and oils from roads and other hard surfaces down storm drains. In some areas, including in Highland Park, this combines with our house wastewater. In large storm events, these systems overflow, carrying our house waste and runoff pollutants right into our waterways.

Join us on Saturday, June 1st at HPIC to finish this community-designed rain garden! If you have driven by HPIC recently, you may have seen a portion of the asphalt replaced with soil – that is the area home to the new rain garden. The contractor, Rain Dog Designs, will be on hand on June 1 to answer questions and guide the planting.

On that day, HPIC will also be the host to many other ways that you can get involved at home. Join us for the Yards in the Neighborhood Tour:

•Take part in the planting of the rain garden
•Embark on a short, self guided walking tour to learn about rain gardens
and see demonstrations of green infrastructure
•Meet RainWise contractors learn about incentives and reimbursements for
installing rain gardens and cisterns
•Visit booths and see demonstrations
•Learn five easy take-home actions to help Duwamish River!

When: June 1, 10am to 1pm
Where: Highland Park Improvement Club, 1116 SW Holden
Event is FREE and open to all. Come and go as you please.

The Highland Park-Riverview Yards in the Neighborhood tour is a partnership between HPIC, Washington Environmental Council, Sustainable Seattle, and King County. The tour and HPIC’s rain garden are funded in part by a grant from the King County Wastewater Treatment Division.