April showers bring May flowers, but for Detroit residents citywide, increasingly heavy spring and summer rainfall brings the possibility of damaging floods along with the new foliage.
Insufficient infrastructure and a worsening climate crisis are the main culprits. Detroit’s public green spaces and private yards offer opportunities to explore creative approaches to green stormwater infrastructure (GSI).
The Wayne County Family Aquatic Center has long served as a neighborhood waterpark at Chandler Park. On the park’s other end sits a lesser-known water feature that serves both the local environment and the community.
Chandler Park’s marshland, installed in 2019 in a previously swampy area at the corner of Dickerson and Frankfort streets, is capable of collecting over 2.5 million gallons of stormwater runoff.
As impressive as the water management sounds, Alex Allen, president of Chandler Park Conservancy, says flood mitigation is just one part of broader imaginings of how park infrastructure can serve communities.
“About 15 years ago, a group of residents and stakeholders came together to reimagine Chandler Park,” Allen said. “One of the things they came up with was to use Chandler Park as a conservation campus to teach people how you can use stormwater management in a park as an educational place.”
‘Example of how we can do stormwater in the community’
Similar explorations bridging GSI and community education are unfolding at Eliza Howell Park on the city’s far west side. Sidewalk Detroit’s outdoor strategist, Alexus Boone, says stormwater was top of mind when developing Eliza Howell Park’s recently announced master plan.
The area behind the park’s sledding hill is “holding water every time it rains, so for our master plan, we are going to make that into an established retention pond and put boardwalks over it.”
Sidewalk Detroit is trying to make an impact on surrounding areas, but Boone says she’s unsure whether the bioswales are mitigating flooding from nearby Telegraph Road or Fenkell Avenue.
“I don’t know if it can stop that much water.”
The Chandler Park Conservancy’s Allen shared a similar sentiment.
“Helping the water table in the community was kind of a secondary thing … There’s still a lot of flooding in people’s basements when we have massive storms. Our marshland helps a little bit, but it really serves as an example of how we can do stormwater in the community.”
The tension between the scale of Detroit’s stormwater management issues and the utility of GSI can be found in private backyards.
Elizabeth Garrett, a homeowner on the east side, says she was inspired by local spaces and organizations to create a rain garden in her backyard.
“I moved in and was dealing with water in the basement,” Garrett says. “I learned about green gardens and thought that was the cheapest way to deal with that issue.”
Unfortunately for her wallet, and similar to the projects Chandler Park and Eliza Howell Park, Garrett says the greatest benefits aren’t in filling gaps in stormwater infrastructure.
“I’ve been having it for a while now, and it honestly hasn’t stopped the flooding,” she says.
“I think people should still do it. It’s having a great benefit — the garden has definitely increased my pollinators. There are tons of birds in my yard, it’s so nice to see the bees and butterflies. I do love it, and I’m glad I have it.”
Chandler Park’s Allen says that while green stormwater infrastructure isn’t a complete solution, the marshland is a great addition to the park’s atmosphere.
“It is a nice place to come and meditate. We have an educational plaza out there,” he says, adding that it’s both educational as well as “just a good place to come and chill out, just relax.”
This article first appeared on Planet Detroit and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.