Ohio receives an average of 37.57 inches of precipitation per year. Ohio is also covered with streams, lakes, ponds, wetlands — there is basically water everywhere you look.
If you remember the water cycle, you know that water falls to the ground as precipitation and either condensates, evaporates, infiltrates into the soil or runs off into a body of water. While infiltration and runoff are natural processes, they have been interrupted by human development.
Because more of Ohio is covered with impervious surfaces like roofs and pavement, and less with forest ecosystems, the rate of infiltration has greatly declined. But if this water isn’t infiltrating into the soil it must go somewhere, right? Instead of infiltrating into the ground, this precipitation is running off our roofs, parking lots and roads and is flowing into storm drains and open ditches.
As water makes its journey over these surfaces, it picks up litter and pollutants like sediment, motor oil, household hazardous waste and fertilizers. The water that flows into storm drains and ditches often ends up in a local stream and isn’t treated before it’s released. This means that any pollutants in that water will negatively impact water quality for the fish, macroinvertebrates and humans that use the stream. Increased flow into streams will also increase streambank erosion and flooding.
How you can help
There are steps you can take on your own property to reduce the amount of pollution entering your local stream. If there’s a storm drain near your house, make sure there’s no leaves, trash or other debris on or around it. If you garden or need water for your landscaping, consider adding a rain barrel to one of the downspouts of your house. This will trap and store the precipitation coming off your roof until you are ready to use it. You’ll save money on your water bill too.
Rain gardens
If you want to level up from a rain barrel, you can add a rain garden to your landscaping. A rain garden is a shallow depression planted with native plants that temporarily traps and stores stormwater at or near its source. The deeply rooted native plants hold the stormwater in the basin until it can naturally infiltrate into the ground. Because they only store water for a brief period of time, they are not mosquito breeding grounds.
In addition to mitigating stormwater pollution, rain gardens can also serve as pollinator gardens. Common rain garden plants that support local pollinators include swamp milkweed, Ohio spiderwort, butterfly milkweed, cup plant and many more. You can even plant edible plants in your rain garden. My favorite plant to incorporate is elderberry, although I’ve also heard of pawpaw trees being planted in larger rain gardens.
More information about rain gardens can be found at neomasterraingardener.org.
