The Iowa City Constructed Wetland Stormwater Corridor

When you think you have a good green idea, you never know whether it will fly until you offer it to the right folks. Here is a successful one. A quarter century ago, Iowa City wished to facilitate development out onto the flat poorly drained landscape on the southeast edge of town, and retained a local engineering firm, MMS Consultants, to design a big drainage ditch. I thought that a better idea was to create a linear park that would provide suitable drainage via a chain of constructed wetlands. Their man in charge was Ed Brinton, so I began some discussions and correspondence with him. My key letter to Ed is linked here: MMS letter, and he included the concept in the package of options he took to Iowa City officials.

The outcome of subsequent years of discussion, negotiations, field studies, grant writing, public meetings, etc., was that the linear wetland park concept was approved and built. After the park was complete and being used by people and wildlife, I prepared a summary poster in 2006 (with a lot of help from Art Bettis), which provided a chronologic overview of many of the components involved. These included:

1. The Problem
2. The Choices
3. Marketing The Wetland Corridor Concept
4. Design
5. Construction
6. Erosion Control
7. Seedbank and Planting
8. Fauna Returns
9. Wet Bottom vs Dry Bottom Functions
10. Water Quantity and Quality
11. The Hemimarsh
12. Volunteers and Education
13. Cost
14. Acknowledgements

The whole poster is available for your review:

I hope this project encourages you to pursue some of your green ideas.

Happy Earth Day!!!