Anchorage: Rain Garden Program

1. Rain Garden Program - 2010 Activities
In 2010 the MOA Rain Garden Program worked with residents, schools, and local
business partners in the public and private sectors to support the construction of over
thirty new rain gardens in the municipality! For the last three years the program has
consistently doubled its participant involvement and rain garden incentive distribution
each year. The program supported seven rain gardens in 2008, fifteen in 2009, and
thirty-one in 2010, for a grand total of fifty-three rain gardens incentivized. The Rain
Garden Program has been offering incentives supported by grant funding from the US
Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) beginning in 2007. This year WMS won a grant from
USFWS to extend the incentive program to support all types of vegetated Low Impact
Development (LID) applications through November of 2012.
Of the thirty-one rain gardens constructed this year, there were six rain gardens
with a high level of community interest and involvement. Two rain gardens were
constructed in partnership with local middle and high schools. Two more gardens were
constructed as demonstration rain gardens in partnership with the Anchorage Parks
Foundation Youth Employment in The Parks program at the local senior center and the
popular Westchester Lagoon Park. Finally, two more rain gardens were incorporated
into municipal pedestrian and park improvement projects at Jewel Lake Park and
Blueberry Road.
Photos: Left, Dimond High School, testing soil saturation rate. Middle, YEP, Westchester
Lagoon pre-construction lecture. Right, Gruening Middle School, checking depth of
excavation.

2. Education: This year the Rain Garden Program participated in a number of organized
presentation series, summer fairs, and school classroom activities. By attending a
variety of events we were able to reach a wide section of the community. In schools the
Rain Garden Program presented at the Dimond High School Science Career Fair,
Gruening Middle School National Junior Honor’s Society Meeting, Mear’s Middle
School Science Classes, Alaska Pacific University (APU) Sustainability Council and APU
Watershed Management Course. During the summer the Rain Garden Program offered
a seminar at the Alaska Botanical Garden’s Fair and the Houston Middle School Garden
Symposium. We had a table at the local Creek Clean-Up Day, Alaska Department of
Fish and Game Fish Fry Release Educational Event, and at the Spenard Farmer’s Market,
Ask an Expert Booth. For organized training and educational seminars we presented at
the Senior Center Monthly Staff Meeting, the OLE! Hydrology Course Series,
Opportunities for Lifelong Education, the engineering firm USKH organized Low
Impact Development Design Guidance training, the Library Summer Seminar Water
Your Mind, stormwater education presentation with information on native and invasive
plants, and lastly, the Youth Employment in the Parks, Westchester Lagoon, Pre-
Construction Rain Garden Presentation (middle photo above). We also hosted an in-
house training for local contractors and landscaping businesses in the spring.
Site inspections: These are one way the Rain Garden Program verifies the awarded
incentive goes toward a well designed rain garden or LID feature. The bar graph below
illustrates the distribution of site inspections completed during 2010 and groups them by
color based on when they were performed during the building process.
Site Inspections per Month in 2010
14
12
Inspections
10 Pre-Build
8
Mid-Build
6
4 Post-Build
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3. Website: The AnchorageRainGardens.com website has been a valuable tool for
communicating events and furthering education to the public. This year there were a
number of instructional pages added to the website under the Demonstration Rain
Gardens section. Participants have commented that these printable illustrated rain
garden construction examples are the best resource they used during the project. In
addition to the handouts we have added a Google map to the News and Events page.
This map shows visitors the exact location of all demonstration rain gardens in the
MOA. If visitors are interested in touring a couple rain gardens to see what they look
like they can use this map to locate all the rain gardens on public property.
Website Usage for 2010
In-Kind Contributions: This year alone the municipal projects that included rain
gardens and rain garden home owners have more than matched the amount of
incentives the Rain Garden Program has been able to award.
Rain Garden Owner's MOA Incentives In-Kind Hours
Contributions Awarded of Labor
TOTALS: $163,601.07 $17,624.73 1048
Municipal Project Contributions $145,747.42 $5,982.50 73
School Match via Donations $764.50 $173.09 160
Home Owner's Contributions $9,103.10 $6,969.14 795
Non-Profit Organizations $7,986.05 $4,500.00 20

4. Photos: The following page contains pictures of seven rain gardens constructed in the
MOA this year. From left to right and top to bottom the rain garden pictures are:
1. MOA Blueberry Road Pedestrian Improvement, curb cuts direct runoff from the
sidewalk into the rain garden.
2. Private Residential Rain Garden, incentivized by the Rain Garden Program, garden is
filling with runoff collected from the roof gutter system at the time the picture was
taken.
3. MOA Senior Center, Gardens Coordinator and MOA Rain Garden Program
Coordinator sitting just inside the edge of the new public Senior Center rain garden.
4. Dimond High School, AP Environmental Science class standing behind their new
public rain garden.
5. MOA Jewel Lake Park public rain garden.
6. Exemplary Private Residential Rain Garden
7. Gruening Middle School, National Junior Honor’s Society club members exploring the
extent of their excavation job before they filled materials into their new public rain
garden.

5. Rain Gardens in the MOA! 2010 Construction
See photo captions on
previous page.