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Sound Rivers was back at Vance-Granville Community College this week to take a look progress on its newest stormwater infrastructure project — a rain garden.

Last week, Backwater Environmental wrapped up construction of a regenerative stormwater conveyance system on the Henderson campus. This week, the goal was to eliminate flooding and erosion occurring in front of Building 7.

“They had an erosion problem — erosion and sediment runoff — so, hopefully this will solve this problem, said Sierra Stickney, Sound Rivers’ stormwater education coordinator and Resilience Corps NC AmeriCorps member. “It’s a pretty deep rain garden, with media on the bottom and then soil on the top where the plants are, so stormwater runoff should be able to infiltrate the soil very well, so it’s going to help mitigate the amount of water that runs into the storm drain. Right now, they’re in the digging phase. I’m looking forward to going back next week to do some plantings.”

Next Sound Rivers’ Campus Stormwater Program projects list is a fix, rather than new construction of green stormwater infrastructure. A broken pipe leading from a campus retention pond to a nearby wetland is causing its own erosion problem.

“Instead of water going directly into the wetland, it’s being spread out where the pipe is broken,” Sierra said. “We’re going to get that fixed next week.”

The work being done at Vance-Granville Community College is funded by a 2021 Environmental Enhancement Grant, awarded by the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office.

Resilience Corps NC AmeriCorps is a service program of the Conservation Trust for North Carolina, funded by a grant through the North Carolina Governor’s Commission on Volunteerism.

Like the stormwater work Sound Rivers is doing on campuses across the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico watersheds? So do we! Donate to support the Campus Stormwater Program today!