Over the weekend, hundreds of volunteers participated in Earth Day events throughout the Central Ohio region. More than a dozen people donated their time to help plant a rain garden at Linworth High School in Worthington. The idea for the rain garden came from Linworth alumna Sara Rampersaud. Rampersaud talks about why the rain garden is a good idea, "during periods of heavy rainfall, all the water gets sent to the sewer system which tends to overflow and when that happens in combined sewer systems, all raw sewage including hospital, industrial, human waste gets poured into our local lakes and rivers mostly the Olentangy". The rain garden project involved several local businesses that made donations of time, labor and products. James Maze is a partner with Custom Image Landscaping. They designed the rain garden. Maze says they used mostly plants that are native to Ohio, but there are also other characteristics of the plants as well, "they don't mind having wet feet as we call it. They don't mind being temporarily flooded and they are also able to withstand small periods of drought."
The completed rain garden is capable of diverting up to 36,000 gallons of water annually.
Kim Fox, WOSU News.