Going Green with Storm Water!

The Virgin Islands Resource Conservation & Development Council, Inc. (VI RC&D ) and its partners, the V.I. Department of Agriculture and the V.I. Waste Management Authority, invite the public to visit our Rain Garden demonstration project installation at the V.I. Waste Management Authority’s (VIWMA) Green House Program in Estate Lower Love, St. Croix. The Rain Garden was installed at VIWMA's Green House on November 29 & 30, 2007as part of a hands-on training [see newspaper ad].

The biggest cause of pollution in our coastal waters is non-point source pollution. That's runoff from roads, parking lots and lawns that carry dirt, pesticides, fertilizers, and oil into storm drains to guts and beaches. Every drop of rain that you keep on your property helps to keep our coastal waters less polluted. Every drop matters. Every drop counts.

A Rain Garden is a shallow depression, planted with native plants, designed to slow, capture, and infiltrate rain. Designed to drain water within a day, rain gardens serve as mosquito death traps, since mosquito eggs need more than 48 hours to grow into larvae. Native plants are drought-resistant, accustomed to our area’s soils, and attract butterflies and birds.

We invite all interested parties – government agency personnel, local engineers, architects, landscapers, hotel personnel, contractors, teachers and students – to visit the Rain Garden to see the practice in action and to learn how to design, install and maintain a Rain Garden. It is one of our goals to provide pollution prevention technology transfer and education to Virgin Islanders in order to alleviate storm water flooding and pollution problems throughout the Territory.

For assistance in designing and installing a Rain Garden at your school, home or work site, please contact the V.I. RC&D office at 340-692-9632 x.5 or vircd@usvircd.org.