Pacific Avenue Rain Gardens

Recently, Tacoma has been receiving national and international attention for its approach to storm water pollution. One of the many ways the City has been tackling this issue is through the use of rain gardens, landscaped catchment basins designed to intercept and filter storm water prior to discharging to Puget Sound.

Mike Krautkramer and Jim Hay cleaning one of the two adopted rain gardens (photo credit: Joe Becker)

There are 14 rain gardens incorporated in the recently completed Pacific Avenue Streetscape Project, located along Pacific Avenue between South 7th and 15th Streets. The plantings are a welcome addition to this downtown corridor, and a local artist’s sculpture pieces add a splash of color and whimsy.

In May, Robinson Noble officially adopted two of the City’s rain gardens, located at Rain garden sign15th Street and Pacific Avenue in front of the DaVita Building and the Aviateur French Restaurant. We maintain the gardens to keep them clean and monitor them to verify that they function as intended. Robinson Noble is also sponsoring Wellspring 2014, a two-day conference focused on clean water issues and technologies held at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center on October 14th and 15th. Come join us!

AWWA Subsection Best Tasting Water Competition

2014 water taste test

Photo credit: Peter Haley / The News Tribune

Congratulations to Fruitland Mutual Water Company! On Friday night, they won the sixth annual Water Taste Test, narrowly edging out the City of Puyallup. Head on over to The News Tribune’s website to read more.

Good luck at the PNW Section Conference in Eugene, Oregon this May!

2013 Wellspring Conference

Prairie Line Trail (UWT)

Prairie Line Trail (UWT)
(Photo credit: Dave Laush)

On October 24 and 25, 2013, the University of Washington, Tacoma (UWT) held the 2013 Wellspring Conference, their second annual event highlighting stormwater management and clean water technologies. The conference covered such topics as remediation and filtration systems, the effects of pollutants on biological systems, and regulatory trends. The conference also included a guided tour of three Tacoma locations using current stormwater management techniques: the Prairie Line Trail (UWT), the Pacific Avenue Streetscape Project stormwater filtration improvements, and the Point Ruston Development, where the ASARCO Smelter once stood.

Chuck Couvrette and Dave Laush of Robinson Noble attended the conference and found it very informative, illustrating the many engineering and consulting opportunities to keep our local waters clean. A number of new stormwater cleanup standards are proposed for 2015, and while it is not clear how much retrofitting of older systems will be needed, it does appear that existing systems will be included in the standards.

Red is Good, Green is Bad

Noble’s Notes: “A quarterly recollection from 40 years of service to the groundwater community.”

By John Noble

[Ed. Note: The following article originally appeared in our first newsletter edition, published in October 1999.]

Some things that are so obvious turn out to be not true at all. One of these is predicting the presence of iron in ground water – perhaps the most common and pervasive water quality problem with wells in much of the country. Ground water with dissolved iron commonly looks as pure and pristine as a mountain stream. However, it tastes like rusty pipes. The taste is bad enough, but let the water stand in air overnight and the iron will precipitate out into a red floc which is truly ugly. When I used to canvass domestic wells in Western Washington, under negative comments of quality, the commonest was “red water” or “too much iron”. Many drillers I have known have bypassed zones of red sands and gravels that are obviously rich in iron. They wanted a satisfied customer for their finished well. Unhappily, they were often dead wrong. The obvious problem was not really there at all. Continue reading