Lakeside Stormwater Project:
Highlights

The Lakeside Project is wrapping up. The data are being analyzed and the final report is being put together. Here are some of the project highlights:

2008

  • A Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices survey was given door-to-door by a Minnesota Conservation Corps college crew and was very successful, with a 72% response rate. An EPA SIDMA survey was also given at a neighborhood meeting.

  • Monitoring equipment (flow, temperature, conductivity, and turbidity) was installed in the neighborhood storm sewer systems from April –November, 2008.

  • Two volunteers willing to read rain gauges were found near the target neighborhoods and were provided with rain gauges, monitoring instructions, and data collection spreadsheets.

  • All residents of the three streets in the target area were invited to a neighborhood meeting in early September 2008. The meeting went well, although it was attended by only about a dozen residents (out of more than 70 households invited). 
2009
  • Installed BMPs on the street whose residents showed the greatest amount of interest in participating in the project because they truly had runoff problems. Twenty-two households accepted some type of BMP. All residents willing agreed to provide at least 10 hrs of assistance with the project, most of which will consist of caring for the BMPs that they receive.
    • Twenty rain barrels capable of holding back over 1000 gallons were installed.
    • Five rain gardens capable of holding back several hundred gallons of water each were installed.
    • The stormwater ditch in which ditch checks were installed should be able to store several hundred more gallons of water.
    • Each of the rock sumps can hold 100-200 gallons of water (6 rock sumps were dug).
    • More than 250 trees and shrubs were planted and fenced on 18 properties to increase infiltration and encourage smaller lawn sizes.
  • The response rate to our follow-up Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices survey was 76%. Some highlights include:
    • There was some increase in stormwater knowledge by all residents, with quite bit of increase in knowledge by study street residents for questions like “where does the stormwater flow to”.
    • There was also an increase in the number of residents who said that it is both the city and property owners’ responsibility to help control stormwater.
    • Most study street residents who received BMPs indicated that they liked them, thought the BMPs might be helping but weren’t quite sure yet, had been maintain their BMPs and would continue to do so, and would recommend similar BMPs to their friends.
2010
  • Monitoring equipment was re-installed in the storm sewers of all 3 streets in March to record flow, turbidity, temperature, and conductivity data to help us better assess how well the BMPs were working.
  • Rain garden workshop, complete with planting a rain garden that we constructed on a willing property owners yard just outside the study area.

    All workshop attendees participated in a walking tour of the rain gardens previously installed in 2009 in the study neighborhood, which looked very nice even after just one year of growth.

2011
  • Data analysis and report writing in progress.