I had the good fortune to participate in the Summer Science Institute this summer at the University of Florida. We spent a good part of one of our days at SEEP (Stormwater Ecological Enhancement Project) where we took a guided tour of a real life example of a how natural agents can be utilized to help treat stormwater runoff.

In the evening we met with Dr. Chuck Lawrence who demonstrated how these concepts could be illustrated in the classroom with materials that we could find at the local hardware store. He said that there was a lot of trial and error, and his is certainly more complex than what I'm aiming for but figured that I'd post the details of the first run. Here's a link to the original blog post about that day during the Summer Science Institute.

Materials List:

• 1 Section of Gutter
• 2 End Caps
• Sealant/Adhesive
• 20' 7/16" Hose
• 1 7/16" Elbow (input)
• 1 7/16 Straight (output)
• 2 Fasteners
• 1 Low Output Pond Pump

1. End Caps: I put a heavy bead of the sealant/adhesive around the end caps and put them in place.

2. Drill Input Hole: Drilled a hole just wide enough for the fitting to fit through.

3. Place Input Elbow: Put a heavy bead of sealant around the outside of the hole and inserted the elbow.

4. Inside Input: More sealant on the inside, a plastic washer (to occupy some space) and the inside fitting.

From here it was off to Ace Hardware, to pick up some fittings to make the supports and then to school to start putting things together.

I decided to try just securing the top with a T and 2 elbow fittings which seems to be sufficient.

On the bottom I went with a T a couple of elbows and a few inches of the 1/2" PVC for support.

The final support structure, for now. I'm going to have to look at this again and maybe use another T fitting on each side of the base to provide more lateral support but this might work for now.

Time to test things out and sure enough the water is flowing.

Here's a view of the drain, where you can see the pump in the basin.

And a couple of views of the "completed" simulated wetlands.

I let it run for a couple of days and came back to find the basin empty. I shut the pump off and just let the water sit to see if it was a leak in the basin or if the water was running down the bottom an missing the basin. After a couple of days the basin was still full so I added a drain to ensure that the water would run straight down.

I also decided to go back and redo the supports so that they would be more stable by making the bases longer and staggering their direction.

The next step was installing some barriers to the flow so that all of the soil wouldn't get washed away. Called on Mr. Sakiotis from John Hopkins Middle who can solve any mechanical issue as I was trying to use wood or the gutter pvc but neither worked very well. He took an old plastic lid from a storage container and we cut them out individually then used silicone to put them in place.

You can see, hopefully, that holes were drilled into the barriers at different levels so to mimic a wetlands. At the top the holes were placed at the bottom so that water would flow through the gravel similar to highlands groundwater, and at the bottom the water flows over the top to mimic an aquatic environment.

Well, we finally got down to doing some collecting and planting. Mrs. Pacowta came by to share her expertise in biology and the outdoor classroom with students as they gathered... and planted.

The images of where we are now are below and click here to see all of the days images.

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