July 2019

Atlantic States Legal Foundation (ASLF) is pleased to announce that our rain garden project is under construction. The first four gardens, all located in Syracuse’s Skunk City neighborhood and funded by the Environmental Facilities Corporation’s Green Innovation Grant Program (GIGP), are being built this summer. Once finished, these gardens will capture up to half a million gallons of stormwater runoff annually from nearby hard surfaces, such as driveways, sidewalks, roofs, and roads. The diverted runoff will slowly infiltrate into underlying soils rather than flowing into and potentially overwhelming the combined sewer system.

ASLF adopted a design with 2.5 feet of soil media above 1 foot of drainage stones. The thick soil media layer allows the gardens to handle the higher level of contamination found in the street runoff, and the drainage stone layer provides vast void space to store captured runoff. The end result will be less contaminated stormwater runoff and reduced discharge of untreated sewage into area streams.

These projects will produce other community benefits as well. Each garden is planted with native species, creating habitat for insect polinators, birds and other urban wildlife. Plants were chosen to ensure a vibrant and long-lived display with bloom times scattered from spring through fall and varicolored, textured leaves and branching structure adding all season interests. ASLF is also experimenting with different design forms. Two of our gardens feature rectilinear borders lined with concrete bricks and a more industrial flavor, while the other two are designed with gentler and more organic curves. ASLF will observe whether the design language affects public reaction to green infrastructure, vandalism rates, and project longevity.

This project, which is part of our CEDARS (Creating Ecologically Dynamic And Resilient Spaces) program, was only possible with the help and collaboration of many other organizations, including the Environmental Facilities Corporation, the City of Syracuse, Onondaga County, the Syracuse Land Bank, Syracuse University, SUNY-ESF, Syracuse United Neighbors, and Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today. ASLF invites anyone who is interested in rain gardens, green infrastructure, urban green spaces, native plantings – or just beautiful gardens – to visit these sites for themselves. Our first four rain gardens, which will be completed by the end of August 2019, are located at 124 Hoefler Street, 125 Hoefler Street, 305 Herriman Street, and 322 Cadwell Street in Syracuse. Don’t forget to check out the interpretive signage that will be installed at Herriman Street site for more  project-specific information! If you have additional questions or want more information about the project, you can also contact us at atlantic.states@aslf.org.