Keeping water clean is a top priority for the Green Team at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Woodstock, IL. When members conducted a green audit to identify ways for the parish to become more environmentally responsible, they identified stormwater management as a key concern.

Large concentrations of pollutants enter water systems in developed areas covered with impervious surfaces like roads and roofs. These surfaces don’t allow water to penetrate and route stormwater directly and rapidly into streams. However, as the water drains, it picks up a variety of pollutants from car oil to fertilizer, dumping it into nearby streams. These pollutants often include heavy metals like lead, chromium and cadmium, as well as pesticides and nitrates.

To reduce the silt and pollution in the local waterways and water table, St. Ann’s Green Team built a “Rain Garden” bioswale at the back of the church. A bioswale is a drainage channel with gently sloped sides that is filled with vegetation. It collects and releases stormwater runoff. The St. Ann’s Rain Garden filters silt and pollution from surface runoff water by holding that water in the swale, where vegetation naturally traps pollutants before allowing the clean water to return to the water table.

“One year ago, the St. Ann’s Green Team was established with the goal of helping our church, its members and the community become better stewards of the environment,” according to Carol Lahti, a Green Team member. “At St. Ann’s we take our stewardship of God’s Earth seriously.”

Already, there are more plans to build more bioswale and naturalized landscape areas.