Sierra Club Miami Group partnered with the Fairview-Clifton German Language School Parent-Teacher Organization, the Green Sanctuary Team of St. John’s Unitarian-Universalist Church, the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute, and students of UC DAAP, to propose a series of stepped rain gardens and infiltration systems to reduce and filter the stormwater flooding into combined sewers from parking lots shared by the school and the church.
With increased rainfall in our region, stormwater will contribute more frequently to sewer backups and combined sewer overflows, resulting in basement flooding of susceptible buildings and the discharge of raw sewage into the Mill Creek at Mitchell Avenue.
The proposal has been approved for a $20,000 grant. In addition to the stormwater runoff reduction benefits, the project will provide outdoor learning experiences for students in botany, ecology, and climate resilience. It will also serve to showcase and incentivize similar efforts to remedy impervious pavement runoff throughout the city.
