The latest rain garden project at the corner of Waukazoo and Main Street in the Village of Northport wrapped up construction last week.
The project was organized by The Watershed Center — Grand Traverse Bay and funded through an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) grant. It’s also one of several green infrastructure projects completed since 2018 to help reduce village stormwater pollutants that would otherwise drain into Grand Traverse Bay.
“Our goal with this project was to reduce the amount of storm water getting into the drain that negatively affects the beachgoers,” said Sarah U’Ren, program director for The Watershed Center. “As you know, stormwater can contain harmful things like bacteria and other sorts of things that can get into the ground like pesticides, oils, grease… Typically, when we see storm drains next to beaches, we can find high bacteria levels when it rains, so we were concerned about this one because it was right next to the beach where a lot of kids were taking sailing lessons.”
