Thurston Pond, Millers Creek

Because I promised myself that I would try to keep this blog positive (and to balance my next post, which will be critical), I thought I would share the cool work that is going on around a tributary of the Huron River known as Millers Creek.

I read about it in the Huron River Watershed Council newsletter.

Runoff and erosion during storm events have created a situation where the water quality of the creek has been greatly degraded. In fact, Thurston Pond, which is part of the Thurston Nature Center, right by Thurston Elementary School, got so degraded that it could no longer be used by the AAPS Environmental Education field trips! (It is still a beautiful little nature center and pond, though, which you can read about here.)

So--Huron River Watershed Council has spearheaded an effort to clean up the water quality of Millers Creek. So far, it seems to be fairly successful.

I would just like to highlight the involvement of the Thurston Elementary PTO, which is a project partner, and the students of Thurston Elementary.

From the Millers Creek web site:

From the Huron River Watershed Council web site:

Thurston School Rain Garden

Thurston School students from the third grade and school neighbors helped Millers Creek by capturing rainwater in a school rain garden. HRWC and JFNew provided planning and design work, site prep, plant materials and educational signs and in June of 2009 we converted a grassy depression that was receiving rainwater runoff from the school's roof into a 1,400 square foot rain garden. The site's heavy clays were replaced with a rich porous soil and then planted with water-loving native plants. As a result, the rain that runs off the school roof now flows through the garden, infiltrates through the soil and is taken up by the plants.