About Catie Wytychak
Catie Wytychak leads the green stormwater infrastructure maintenance program for Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner’s Office. Since 2015, Catie has created a program that provides maintenance, monitoring and educational programs for 35 acres of green stormwater infrastructure. Previously, Catie completed a Master of Science from the University of Michigan, was the Sustainability Coordinator for the University of Redlands and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in El Salvador.
Resources
Washtenaw County Water Resources Commission
Community Partners for Clean Streams
Transcription
Rebekah Warren: Have you ever wondered when it rains, where does all the water go? In a place like Washtenaw County, a lot of it hits rooftops, roads, parking lots and sidewalks, surfaces that don't absorb water. Instead, that runoff can pick up pollutants, carry heat and sediment, and move quickly toward our streams and the Huron River. But what if some of our infrastructure for managing all that water wasn't made of concrete and pipes? What if it was made of soil, deep roots, and native plants? I'm Rebekah Warren, and this is Issues of the Environment. Today, we're talking about an expanding network of public rain gardens in Ypsilanti and across Washtenaw County, and how these seemingly simple patches of native plants are doing some important work for the Huron River Watershed. Our guest today is Catie Wytychak, a water quality specialist with the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner's Office. Catie, thanks for joining us!
Catie Wytychak: Thank you, Rebekah, for taking the time to highlight this program!
Rebekah Warren: Catie, when we think about municipal infrastructure, I think many of us picture concrete, pipes, storm drains, but the county now manages 160 public rain gardens covering about 35 acres, and together, they capture and filter approximately 115 million gallons of stormwater every year. That feels like a pretty remarkable number! So, let's start with the basics. What is actually happening in a rain garden that allows plants and soil to do some of the work that we traditionally ask storm drains and pipes to do?
Catie Wytychak: Yeah, thank you! So, I'll describe how the rain gardens work. But first, I want to say that our program is funded through agreements with the local municipalities that own the public rain gardens. So, I want start with a big thank you to the City of Ann Arbor, City of Ypsi, Ypsi Township and Pittsfield Township! So, they are funding the work that my team coordinates, and they're investing in the long-term care of all of these public rain gardens. So, the public rain gardens have been strategically built to capture stormwater and, most importantly, the stormwater pollution that is running off of our roads, our parking lots, and sometimes even at the base of large grassy fields. The idea is to slow down, soak in, and spread out the stormwater, rather than to let it run out into our municipal storm pipe. Usually, in a typical rain garden, we can capture about the first inch of rain, which is most of our storms. So, the gardens will pool water at about six inches deep, and then, within two days, usually faster. The rain gardens will have soaked in all of that water. So, this means that there's less water flowing directly into our storm pipe. And our goal is to try to capture as much water as possible, as close as possible, to where it lands. In neighborhoods where the stormwater pipes are undersized, a rain garden can make a difference in those smaller storms. But in a bigger storm where we have about two inches of rain fall over a 24-hour period, a rain garden is most likely going to overflow. And when that water overflows out of the rain garden, it goes into a typical stormwater pipe. So, we're really not trying to replace any of our pipes with green infrastructure. We're trying to help and add some capacity, some space, for that water to go and then soak into the ground. So, our typical stormwater pipes, of course, are very important for flood control, but they really are not good at capturing pollutants. And stormwater runoff, as you said, picks up all kinds of pollution and brings it directly out into our streams and our creeks. This is the biggest source of pollution that we're dealing with. And when we build a rain garden, it really is the gold standard of capturing stormwater, capturing that pollution, that comes with the stormwater and filtering the water clean. So, in our public rain gardens, we have something that's a little bit different than a lot of the private rain gardens that you'll see. We have an inlet where the water first comes in off of the road or a parking lot, the water will actually drop down. You can imagine it kind of like the J-trap underneath your sink. When water slows down, all the contaminants, the pollution, has a chance to settle out. And those inlets in the rain gardens give the water a chance to slow down and then the pollution settles out. Then, the water continues on into the planted rain garden. And our team goes back every so often and will actually scoop out that pollution and safely dispose of it. So, we are stopping pollution from flowing directly out into our rivers.
Rebekah Warren: I'm Rebekah Warren, and this is Issues of the Environment on 89.1 WEMU. Today, we're talking about Washtenaw County's expanding network of public rain gardens with Catie Wytychak, a water quality specialist with the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner's Office. Catie, we've talked about the plants and the engineering and how it's working to help find and mitigate that pollution, slow down the water flow. But there's another piece of this infrastructure that isn't made of concrete or soil--it's people. I hear the county relies on roughly a 100-volunteer rain garden stewards to help care for these public sites. How important are those volunteers to keeping the rain gardens functioning the way they're supposed to? And what does a rain garden steward actually do?
Catie Wytychak: Yeah, yeah! We just love having people volunteer to become stewards of our public rain garden. It really inspires us and keeps us motivated every day. Most stewards will go out maybe once a week, maybe once a month, just depending on what the needs are of their rain garden, and they'll remove weeds, they'll trim, they will plant, they add mulch, they'll try to keep the garden looking really beautiful. And they also notify us if those inlets are getting full of sediment and pollution, so that we can come out and scoop it out. And they're really the eyes and the ears out there looking at all of these 160 public rain gardens. I'll give you one example. We have a group of three volunteers at the Zamboni Rain Garden who have been volunteering for about nine years, and they'll show up every single week throughout the growing season to weed and mulch and plant. And they've inspired me to add an educational sign to expand the garden, so there's a little bit more native plants to rebuild the inlet, so that their last maintenance work to add a pathway. They really have grown the garden to make it more beautiful over the last nine years that they have been working.
Rebekah Warren: That is really terrific to hear! And this isn't just a government program. The county's Community Partners for Clean Streams program offers local organizations a water quality assessment and access to many scholarships of up to $1,000 for projects, such as building or restoring rain gardens. If a local business or place of worship or other organization is listening and thinking, "We have a parking lot. We could do something like this," where would they start?
Catie Wytychak: Yeah. So, all of our public rain gardens are, of course, on public land, but much of the land in Washtenaw County is private. So, through our program, Community Partners for Clean Streams, we can work with any property owner, any organization in the county, who wants to make a change. So, we'll come out and look at your current practices and brainstorm ideas of improvements that could be made. And then, we can come up with a landscape design if you want to build a rain garden or plant along a water body or just put in a native garden. And then, we do offer mini-sponsorships of about $1,000 for partners to help get a project moving along.
Rebekah Warren: And there's a very fun, engaging event coming up! And think about being just a few miles from the Huron River looking at a rain garden in a neighbor or a park. But the water captured there eventually becomes a part of the larger watershed story. And that's what the Ypsilanti Fall River Day is designed to make visible. This year's event is Sunday, September 20th from noon to 3 p.m. at Riverside Park with free kayak trips, educational exhibits, and opportunities for residents to learn more about the Huron River. Catie, what can people expect if they've never been to the Fall River day before?
Catie Wytychak: Yeah, this is a wonderful event! You can come out to Riverside Park and get a free paddle trip down the Huron River. So, you can get into a single kayak or a double kayak at Riverside Park and then paddle down about a 30-minute paddle to another park and a shuttle will actually drive you back. If you want to do a longer paddle, you can paddle all the way out into Ford Lake and then turn around and come back and get the shuttle ride. There also will be exhibitors that are happy to talk to you about environmental issues. They're going to showcase a new wet meadow within Riverside Park that is just being planted and looking for volunteers. And there's also going to be river critters. If you want to bring your kids down and look at some live river animals, those will be there. The metro parks are bringing their big van, and there's going to be ice cream!
Rebekah Warren: It sounds like a wonderful day! And importantly, putting that spotlight on the importance of protecting our Huron River, the importance of the work that public rain gardens can do, capturing and filtering 115 million gallons of stormwater each year, that's roughly the equivalent of 174 Olympic-sized swimming pools. It's a really useful reminder that, sometimes, the most important infrastructure isn't something we see underground. It's something that's growing right in front of us. Catie, thank you so much for being with us today and for helping us understand how something as simple as a native plant can be part of the infrastructure that is protecting our precious Huron River Watershed. Catie Wytychak is water quality specialist with the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner's Office. Issues of the environment is produced in partnership with the office of the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner, and you hear it here every Wednesday. I'm Rebekah Warren, and this is your community NPR Station, 89.1 WEMU, Ypsilanti.
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