KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The metro has seen a soggy few weeks, and as of Monday even more rain is in the forecast.
Kansas City’s rain gardens are working overtime to soak up the excess water. The water services department maintains about 15 acres of green infrastructure, which includes the rain gardens.
The rain gardens are designed to help reduce the amount of water that flows into the city’s sewer system when it rains. That helps reduce the number of overflows, which in turn reduces pollution. When there is an overflow, the gardens soak up the excess water and clean it, keeping it from pooling on the streets.
For every inch of rain we get the gardens capture about 300,000 gallons of water, which is nearly seven million gallons of water kept out of the sewer each year.
The Water Services Department also installed permeable pavement to help with the excess water.
“It soaks in through the pavement and into a gravel zone underneath that slowly infiltrates the water into the ground, so it’s one more green infrastructure technique that keeps the water out of the sewer,” said Lisa Treese of the Water Services Department.
The rain gardens were built in 2012, but they’re working overtime now due to the recent weather. They’re part of the Middle Blue River Green Infrastructure Pilot Project.
