Stormwater is one of the largest polluters of surface water in our area. When rain falls to the ground and lands on impervious surfaces (such as roads, rooves, driveways, and more), the water collects all of the pollutants on this impervious cover and dumps them in concentrated amounts wherever the stormwater drains to. Often, the […]
rain gardens
Rain Garden 2014 Growing Season Time Lapse
The rain garden demonstration site at the Middlesex County Extension Center in Haddam (CLEAR and NEMO’s home-base) was installed in May 2012. It was originally installed to be featured in two new NEMO projects, a smartphone application and a “how to” rain garden website, both now complete. The two projects focus on helping people easily […]
Rain Got You in a Depression? Put it in One!
With historic amounts of rain falling on our state this month, it is easy to get a little down. It puts a damper on beach days, picnics, and hikes. Not to make things worse, but did you also know that as all that rain runs off roofs, parking lots, driveways, and roads and into storm […]
NEMO’s New Rain Garden App Getting the Attention it Deserves
It should come as no surprise how excited we are to show off NEMO’s new Rain Garden App (see past blog posts), not to mention the fact that it’s the first UConn app created for the general public. However, we are equally excited about all the attention it is getting. Most recently, NEMO Director Michael […]
Rain Garden App!
I’ve only had my iPhone since May 2011. It’s not that I didn’t think they were cool and useful (I had bought one for my wife a year before), I just was trying to delay joining the “in crowd” for a while longer. Now it seems like I have had it forever, and it is […]
New Rain Garden "How To" Website for Homeowners
CLEAR’s NEMO program recently partnered with the Connecticut Fund for the Environment‘s Save the Sound program to create a rain garden “how to” website, focused on helping Connecticut and New England homeowners build their own rain garden. The Rain Gardens website is meant to be a companion site to both the CT NEMO website and Save […]
NEMO Monitoring Project Looks at Nitrogen Processing by Bioretention
Last week CLEAR’s NEMO Program broke ground on a new monitoring project focused on the Low Impact Development (LID) practice of bioretention. Bioretention is the practice of reducing the quantity, and increasing the quality, of runoff by directing it to a depression filled with plants. This is the same concept as the more widely recognized rain garden, […]
Rain Garden App Coming Soon!
Several CLEAR programs (o.k., since you asked, it’s the CT NEMO, National NEMO Network, and the Geospatial Training Programs) have teamed up to develop a “rain garden” app for smart phones. A rain garden is a vegetated depression that accepts and infiltrates runoff from a rooftop, driveway of other impervious surface. Unlike many “Low Impact […]
NEMO’s Rain Garden Demonstration Site
The NEMO team has just completed its second rain garden demonstration site at the Middlesex County Extension Center in Haddam (CLEAR and NEMO’s home-base). Rain gardens are shallow depressions in the landscape that typically include plants and a mulch layer or ground cover. Their purpose is to help retain water runoff during a storm event, allowing […]
CLEAR Faculty Receive EPA Award
CT NEMO’s Michael Dietz and Chet Arnold have been given the Environmental Merit Award through EPA Region 1, for their work on New England Rain Garden Trainings. To date, they have presented trainings in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. EPA’s Environmental Merit Award is an annual award that recognizes outstanding environmental advocates who have made significant […]
Residential Rain Garden Training
Rain gardens are shallow depressions in the landscape that typically include plants and a mulch layer or ground cover. In addition to providing increased groundwater recharge, they are expected to provide pollutant treatment. Pollutant treatment in rain gardens has been attributed to adsorption, decomposition, ion exchange and volatilization. The CT NEMO Program is teaching a 1.5 […]
Rain Gardens
April 19, 2011 Presented by Michael Dietz, UConn CLEAR A rain garden is a depressed area in the landscape designed to collect and infiltrate stormwater. In addition to treating stormwater, rain gardens can be beautiful additions to the home landscape. This webinar will provide an overview of the functions and features of rain gardens. Learn […]