West Long Branch, local green company team up to lower pollution, manage stormwater
Residents of West Long Branch, New Jersey, are embracing rain gardens as a simple way to go green. The municipality has teamed up with the environmental consultants at GreenWorks Environmental, LLC, in hopes to promote this easy, affordable method of greening.
GreenWorks will host a “Green Starts at Home” booth for the town’s Earth Day Festival on Friday, April 24th. Additionally, professionals from the green-centric firm attended an environmental commission meeting to educate members on ways to create rain gardens. Now the West Long Branch Environmental Commission is hoping that residents embrace this environmentally friendly technique.
“We think it’s so important to educate the public on the use of rain gardens. They are amazing and really help our environment,” said Joe Hughes, chairman of the West Long Branch Environmental Commission. “And they are pretty cost-effective, too.”
Rain gardens reduce pollution, flooding and erosion by rerouting and absorbing water from impervious surfaces such as roofs, driveways and walkways. They enable stormwater to soak into the ground instead of flowing into storm drains and surface water. Rain gardens are planted with suitable trees, shrubs, flowers, and other plants and allow runoff to infiltrate into the ground and nurture the surrounding plants instead of contributing to stormwater and surface water contamination. Rain gardens can cut down on the amount of effluence reaching creeks and streams by up to 30 percent.
Additionally, rain gardens offer a wildlife habitat and can boost the diversity of birds and butterflies depending on the vegetation grown. They also require less maintenance than lawns and offer a creative landscape feature.
“When adopted community-wide, rain gardens can lower storm drain overload and flooding, which is ideal for a coastal town such as West Long Branch—or any Jersey Shore town,” said Victor Coppola, a GreenWorks environmental planner and scientist.
GreenWorks Environmental, LLC, specializes in green design, green construction, environmental science, and land planning. Based in Allenwood, New Jersey, the environmental professionals possess decades of experience in land use management and planning, environmental processes and green / eco-friendly design, and provide eco-friendly services to homeowners, governmental agencies, allied professionals and developers of commercial, industrial and residential projects. Visit greenworksllc.com to learn more.
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