Greening the Sligo Watershed

The Friends of Sligo Creek Stormwater Committee, in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the Forest Estates Civic Association, has launched an effort to engage homeowners in managing stormwater on their property using Sligo-Friendly landscaping practices. The immediate goal is to get several rain gardens installed on homeowner property in the Forest Estates community and in the surrounding communities over the next several months. In return for providing support, the homeowners agree to maintain the rain gardens and to use them as part of our outreach efforts to encourage their neighbors to install rain gardens and rain barrels. The homeowners in the initial round of rain garden installations will monitor the effectiveness of their rain gardens with gauges provided by DEP. We will need thousands of rain gardens and rain barrels in the Sligo watershed if we are ever going to be successful in restoring the water quality of Sligo Creek. The Stormwater Committee intends to provide periodic updates on this initiative.

Workday photos at the June 14, 2008 rain garden installation project at Kit Gage's yard.
Planting occurred after the work day.

Photo taken after Kit's rain garden was planted and mulched

Workday photos at the June 21, 2008 rain garden installation project at Holly Olson and
Adam Pagnucco's yard. Plantings will occur this fall.

Workday photos at the July 19 workday at Shawn and Johathan's home at the Forest Estates Community

Workday photos at the August 2, 2008 rain garden installation project at Jeff and Lynn's home in Forest Estates. Jeff in front of his new rain garden after the workday. Mulching and plantings will occur later.

If you have any questions about this effort, e-mail Ed Murtagh.