You’ve gotten rid of your car, shop the local farmer’s market with your cloth bag, and purchased green tags to offset your vacation. And still not quite satisfied you are doing all you can to reduce your carbon footprint. Adapting your way of life is important so you want to feel like you’ve made strides that impact both the environment and your wallet.
After the rain, Before the Swale: With help from CNT, this parking lot will soon regain its natural drainage and reduce flooding in a neighborhood church.
Over one hundred years ago, the Calumet area on Chicago’s south side was a wetland teeming with wildlife, but with an environment inhospitable to humans. Developers transformed the landscape by dumping molten slag (a waste product of smelting iron ore into steel) into the wetlands. While this created much solid area to build upon in South Chicago, the slag blocked natural drainage patterns. Subsequent construction of impermeable surfaces such as paved roads and parking lots contributed to the problem. Today developed areas of the Calumet suffer significant flooding during periods of high rainfall.
Our Lady Gate of Heaven, a church in Calumet’s neighborhood of Jeffrey Manor, suffers from the kind of flooding seen all over the area: its parking has flooded with three to four feet of water after heavy rain. Not only was this an inconvenience to the church, Our Lady Gate of Heaven rented out space to a Banner School. When CNT approached the church and offered to help, the offer was gladly accepted.
Very soon, Our Lady Gate of Heaven’s drainage problems will be greatly eased. CNT is constructing a vegetated swale that will allow rain water again to naturally drain the ground. Additionally, A beautiful garden will stand where asphalt and rainwater used to burden students and parishioners.
Green Infrastructure approaches can restore the natural drainage functions in heavily developed areas, protecting water quality through natural filtration, recharging ground and lake water supplies, and reconnecting communities with healthy green space. CNT will monitor the volume of water the swale can absorb at Our Lady Gate of Heaven to quantify its performance. This project is one of several monitored demonstrations where CNT is documenting the effectiveness of Green Infrastructure practices in greater Chicagoland’s climatic, soil, and hydrological conditions. For more information, please see our Natural Resources Program.
The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) is a creative think-and-do tank that combines rigorous research with effective solutions. CNT works across disciplines and issues, including transportation and community development, energy, water, and climate change.
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