HAGERSTOWN – Chesapeake Bay Trust Program Officer Megan Diehl visited Hagerstown Community College recently to complete a post-project site visit at the newly planted bioswales in parking lot O.
The Antietam-Conococheague Watershed Alliance was awarded $39,000 from the Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns grant to design and replant 11 stormwater swales with over 8,000 native plants.
A bioswale is a shallow, vegetated channel designed to manage stormwater runoff by slowing its flow, filtering out pollutants, and allowing it to infiltrate into the ground. It’s a form of green infrastructure that mimics natural processes to improve water quality and reduce flooding.
Since August 2024, the project, called “Putting the ‘bio’ back in bioretention,” hosted numerous workdays for volunteers to prep, plant, water and weed the beds, and offered outreach on the importance to treating stormwater runoff to protect local waters.
The grant also provided job training for local grounds crews to earn the Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional certification and learn stormwater best management practices.
Volunteers invested hundreds of hours on the project. Volunteers included HCC students and staff, ACWA members, Washington County Master Gardeners, Chesapeake Conservation Landscape Council staff, local scout groups, Middletown Valley Bank employees and United Way of Washington County volunteers.
HCC and ACWA are thankful for all of the volunteers and partners who helped make this project a success.
Readers can visit the bioswales in parking lot O on HCC’s campus and watch them bloom throughout the summer and fall.
To learn more about the project, readers may visit www.acwamaryland.org/news/acwa-awarded-a-2024-cbt-g3-grant.
