A stormwater retrofit project aimed to improve water quality in the Bradley Hewletts Creek Watersheds is in progress on the campus of University of North Carolina Wilmington.
The work to replace sections of conventional asphalt at Randall parking lot with permeable pavement began in late June and is expected to be complete in about a week. This type of pavement allows stormwater to pass through to the ground underneath, rather than flow directly into storm drains.
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The North Carolina Coastal Federation, UNCW and the city’s Heal Our Waterways Program have been working with Coastal Stormwater Services Inc. and DiMaio Concrete, both based in Wilmington, on the stormwater retrofit project.
The project is one of numerous that have taken place since a watershed restoration plan was adopted in 2007.
“This collaborative initiative continues to make great strides towards achieving the goals within the Bradley and Hewletts Creeks Watershed Restoration Plan. We’re thrilled to see more nature-based solutions to help protect Bradley Creek come together through the hard work and determination of this partnership,” Anna Reh-Gingerich, watershed coordinator with Heal Our Waterways, said in a statement.
Since 2019, the university, the Coastal Federation and Wilmington have installed several rain gardens and numerous parking lot paving retrofits.
“We are pleased to have this parking lot help reduce runoff and be able to showcase these techniques along with our campus rain gardens as a living classroom,” Feletia Lee, UNCW’s chief sustainability officer, said in a statement.
Sponsor Spotlight
This stormwater retrofit project was supported by the North Carolina Division of Water Resources’ Environmental Protection Agency’s Section 319 Water Quality Program.
