By Charla Wurm-Adams
cuwrm@wbcowqel.com
The new parking lot at Lowe-Volk Park is both aesthetic and environmentally friendly. That was the message presented by the Crawford Park District Saturday.
The Park District had its grand opening of the project that will use a new permeable paved parking lot in front of the Nature Center as part of an overall plan to slow and filter storm water on its way to the Sandusky River. Rick Wilson is an environmental specialist and engineer for the Ohio EPA and explains the project which was funded by an EPA grant.
“What it does is provides an opportunity for the communities around here to see alternative ways to manage storm water,” Wilson said. “It was done as a part of a larger grant for this water shed which is the Loss Creek Watershed and it included a grant of Soil and Water Conservation District for agricultural practice implementation.”
The plan included redoing the parking lot which now has an area of pavers as part of the surface. Also included are rain gardens.
“Well what we did here was help Crawford Park District install a unique to the county system of practices to handle storm water, permeable pavement, wetlands, a treatment train, a rain garden,” Wilson said. “The goal in both cases is to reduce nutrient loads to the local streams which all lead to Lake Erie. So with both Urban runoff and Agricultural runoff, our main goal is to reduce the rate amount of run off through putting in the best practices we know to accomplish that.”
Wilson is a Bucyrus High School graduate.
Oberfield’s manufactured the pavers and had a representative who explained how the rain water is handled with all the different layers. It was pointed out how in winter when the sun melts the snow and it often refreezes causing potential accidents. With this system, it is not a problem because the water drains into the earth.
The project is completed and is working very well to not only improve the environment, but has also become the law for managing storm water in many situations around Ohio.
For more information, you can call Rick Wilson at (614) 644-2032 Grant Section Division of Surface Water or email him at rick.wilson@epa.state.oh.us.