UW-P students help keep gunk out of lake

By Michael Burke

Sunday, October 23, 2005 2:04 AM CDT

RACINE - The little white flag with red lettering warned that the patch of grass had recently been sprayed with a pesticide. Just downhill from the flag was Root River.

The proximity of the two seemed to perfectly illustrate what a University of Wisconsin-Parkside class was trying to do there Saturday. On Make a Difference Day, Chris Evans' Introduction to Environmental Science class was digging four rain gardens along the Root.

The rain gardens, about 10 by 15 feet each, lie between Dodge Street and the river, near the Main Street bridge's northern end. Each garden is a level, scooped-out zone that will be planted with moisture-tolerant native plants.

Runoff will fill each rain garden, where two things will happen to that water, Evans said. Some will be filtered as it descends through the soil. And some will be picked up and used by the plants.

"It's like a buffer zone," said sophomore Alan Dosedla.

Because the rain gardens were built several feet from the river's edge, and at the bottom of a steep slope, "it was one of the more important sites that we had," said junior Samantha Wasem of Camp Lake. "It would catch a lot of the junk before it went into the river."

Such as the pesticides used on the lawn area above.

Working with Wasem was Rehana Mohammed, 25, of Paddock Lake, who's planning to teach high school biology.

"We didn't really know about rain gardens before this class," she said.

The four gardens will be planted with a total of about 600 plants from Taylor Creek Nursery in Brodhead. The plants - including rushes, asters, penstemon and cardinal flower - will be set in the ground about one per square foot.

The gardens won't just be functional, Mohammed said, and she was looking forward to coming back when the native plants are thriving.

"It's going to look beautiful," she said.

Evans said her students have been designing theoretical rain gardens for several years, but this was the first time they've actually gotten to build them.

"Some of the students in the past have been complaining that they didn't get to actually do it," she said.

The UW-Extension has a "terrific manual" that shows how to build and plant a rain garden, step by step, Evans said. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Web site also has instructions.

"Anybody could do it," Evans said.

On The Net: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/ water/wm/nps/rg/#How

Special Offer: Get 5 Weeks of the Journal Times for $7!