A new rain garden being planted in Alpena's Bay View Park is the city's newest project, looking to reduce the amount of contamination going into Lake Huron.
Rain gardens are specifically designed to catch and make use of contaminated runoff. Plants like milkweed, goldenrod, and blue vervain, will be planted in the garden to collect and make use of the runoff.
The planting will be supervised by northern Michigan ecological group Huron Pines.
"These are species that are not only native to Northern Michigan, but have deep roots, and that makes them more drought tolerant and needing not so much care as a typical landscape garden might need," said Chris Engle of Huron Pines.
Right now the water flows into storm drains that empty out into the lake and river, or into those sources directly. This affects Alpena directly, as they use Thunder Bay as a city water source. With the garden, there will be less decontamination needed when distributing water to the city.
According to Engle, the goal is for the plants to be self-sufficient after a couple of growing seasons.
"They'll be established and even self-seeding where there won't even need to be any more new plantings because they'll be dropping their own seed and growing new generations right there in the garden," Engle said.
Huron Pines is seeking out volunteers to help plant the garden on Oct. 14. Information on how to volunteer can be found on their website.
