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One of two rain gardens is near completion and a new site has been identified for the other as Nash Community College takes the plunge to handle its stormwater issues.

“They just put a river rock border around the mulch bed of that first rain garden, so it should be ready for plants once it gets a little warmer,” said Sound Rivers Environmental Projects Coordinator Clay Barber.

The second rain garden’s new location is slated for a low-lying area at the Early College High School, but there are a few steps needed before construction begins: utility companies identifying what, if any, utilities are located there, and the engineering team determining how much water flows into the site.

“It’s a low, grassy area that has a drain in the middle, so it feeds into the underground network of storm drains. It’s catching a lot of runoff and sediment from the Early College High School parking lot,” Clay said. “It looks like when it rains there’s a couple of inches of standing water in the parking lot and on the sidewalk and nobody likes to have to walk through that — we like to solve problems when we find them so this will be a couple of birds with one stone, you know?”

Kris Bass Engineering and Backwater Environmental are working with Sound Rivers to construct the stormwater projects, courtesy of a state Environmental Enhancement Grant. In addition, a third project — the widening and repair of an eroded swale across the campus — is almost ready to start.