Coordinated effort brings changes
October 01, 2009 · Matthew Brown

Mount Vernon city engineer Dan Boggs says the city is winding down work on the Lot 32 drainage way, bringing to an end ongoing issues with that property.

Though it will take time to know for sure how successful the work was from an engineering perspective, the project is considered a success from a collaborative perspective, with the city, Mount Vernon/Lisbon Community Development Group (CDG), the Conservation Corps of Iowa, and the citizens of Stonebrook all coming together in different ways to help make the project happen.

Lot 32 has become synonymous with the drainageway between the high school and Stonebrook north of Palisades Road. The land was acquired by the city as part of gift of land from the Stoner family's Mount Vernon Development Group in late 2006. An earlier attempt to seed the drainageway with standard lawn seed never quite worked out, with water stripping the basin bare and rutting the channel.

The recent work to add functionality and beauty to lot 32 involved installing drain tile along each side of the channel, reshaping the channel, installing erosion control technologies inside the channel, and planting of a native seed mix in the channel.

More will be known about the project's success in the next year or so. According to Boggs, a full "freeze-thaw cycle" is necessary to determine whether or not the drain tile is functioning as expected. Asked if he was happy with the outcome, Boggs said: "I'm happy it's done. I'll be real happy when I see how well it functions."

Loren Hoffman, a landscape architect, Stonebrook resident and member of the CDG's design committee, said it will take roughly three years to see the native plantings reach maturity and begin to produce significant biomass above the soil.

Hoffman and Boggs both urged patience from neighboring residents on that point. In the end, Hoffman expects the city will have not only an attractive and low maintenance drainage way, but maybe even an opportunity for education in the community. Once the grasses are established, Hoffmann envisions high school classes visiting Lot 32 to get a firsthand look at the uses of native grass plantings.

Hoffman helped organize a petition in the Stonebrook neighborhood, which served the dual purpose of both motivating the city to commit resources to the project and informing the neighborhood of the particularities of native grasses. Hoffmann said the native grasses have roots that are 9 to 48 inches long. The deep roots make them more resilient than traditional turf grass with roots of only 2 inches, but takes them longer to get established. Once they do, they should be able to choke out weeds and grow to around 15 inches tall. Ideally, they will not require any mowing at all.

Though a final price tag for the project was not yet available, funding for the project was supplied from the city and from grant sources. The CDG, which coordinated some aspects of the project, distributed $30,000 of an E-Community grant for the work, which helped to offset the city for its contribution of labor and equipment. Boggs said that the drain tile work came in slightly over the estimate of $13,213.

The Conservation Corps of Iowa supplied many hours of labor installing the various erosion control technologies used in the project. The corps is an offshoot of the Minnesota Conservation Corps, whose mission according to their website is to provide "hands-on environmental stewardship and service-learning opportunities to youth and young adults while accomplishing priority cost-effective conservation, natural resource management projects and emergency response work."

The corps is partially funded as an AmeriCorps program, and supplements that funding with charges for the labor they provide.

Chris Severson, a crew manager for the corps, said the Lot 32 project was the first time a crew had worked on a watershed project and they really enjoyed the experience. Part of the point of the program is service-learning, she said, so it is good when their skills are expanded by taking on new challenges.

Boggs said of Severson and the crew: "She's proud of her workers and she should be."