The park near my house in Springfield used to flood every spring, but not this year.

They replaced the old concrete drainage ditch with a natural swale full of native plants about 18 months ago. Now the water soaks in instead of rushing into the street, and I keep hearing people say these 'green' fixes don't work. Has anyone else seen a local project that actually solved a problem like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant8261mo ago

Honestly it's wild how often the simple, old way of doing things works better than the fancy new concrete we keep using.

schmidt.eva1mo ago

Yeah, we had a spot in our town that would always turn into a lake after a storm. They put in some rain gardens and a big patch of that deep-rooted prairie grass a few years back. It was a mess during construction (you know how that goes), but now that area just drinks up the water. It's bone dry after heavy rain when the whole street used to flood.