South Jersey Watersavers partner organizations have spent almost 10 years building rain gardens across South Jersey. These gardens are designed to capture stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces such as roads, parking lots, and buildings, stopping it from running directly into local rivers and streams. The water then infiltrates into the ground, recharging the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer where most of South Jersey gets its drinking water.
In a natural system, most rainwater would infiltrate into the aquifer and from there slowly percolate into local waterways. However, with all of the impervious surfaces humans have built we’ve changed the hydrology of our ecosystems so that most of that water rushes down the stormdrains and from there straight into our rivers and streams. This causes a “flash flooding” event where large amounts of water quickly rush through the system, which leads to erosion and the destruction of aquatic habitat. While the water is running over our roads, parking lots, yards, and farms, it also picks up things like oil, fertilizer, and pesticides which are then carried into our waterways.
By capturing that rainwater and giving it time to percolate into the aquifer, rain gardens mitigate these negative effects. The plants and microorganisms in the soil can even filter out or break down much of the pollution carried by stormwater, before it reaches our streams or our faucets. In addition, all of our rain gardens are planted with native plants, which harmonize much better with our local environment including native pollinators such as bees and butterflies.
Check out this video which will show you many of the rain gardens that we have built in places such as Woodstown, Alloway, Pilesgrove, Vineland, Bridgeton, and at homes all across the region. Special thanks to Randi Rothmel from ANJEC for putting the video together!