Peconic Estuary Program seeks volunteers to help plant rain garden downtown

With your help, downtown Riverhead will have a rain garden to filter out pollutants that would otherwise be discharged into the Peconic River.

Volunteers are needed to spend a few hours planting a rain garden on Heidi Behr Way on the riverfront, Saturday April 23, beginning at 10 a.m.

The rain garden, sponsored by the Peconic Estuary Program in partnership with the Town of Riverhead, will reduce stormwater runoff into the river. Rain gardens provide habitat for wildlife and pollinators and reduce the amount of runoff from parking lots, rooftops, and streets that flow into the Peconic River and bays. The garden will act as a barrier to trash, oil and gasoline, bacteria, and other chemicals from the parking lot, which would otherwise be washed by rainwater directly into the river.

Rainwater will be filtered through sand, gravel, and root systems within the garden and will be dramatically cleaner, before making its way to the waterways and groundwater supply.  Storm water runoff prevention improves water quality, reduces nutrient pollution, and helps restore our natural resources.

Learn more about your local estuary, all its amazing bays, and how you can install green infrastructure projects on your property at PeconicEstuary.org  Please visit our website to learn more about bayscaping for the environment, our Homeowner Rewards Program that pays you for planting your own rain garden, and how you can get involved with water quality testing and educational programming within the Peconic Estuary watershed.

The Peconic Estuary is one of 28 estuaries in the nation to receive the designation as an “Estuary of National Significance” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Under the Clean Water Act, stakeholders of the Peconic Estuary watershed are charged with developing and implementing a comprehensive conservation management plan with priority topics including: harmful algal blooms, nutrient and chemical pollution, protecting living habitats and critical lands, and climate change resiliency.

Since 1992, Peconic Estuary Program has been an innovative partnership of local, state, and federal governments, citizen and environmental groups, businesses and industries, and academic institutions with common goals of improved water quality and ecosystem health through the Peconic estuary and surrounding watershed. Through outreach and education, the Peconic community can share in the responsibility of conscious land use to benefit our precious marine waters.

For more information on the Peconic Estuary Program, the PEP Riverhead Rain garden, the Homeowner Rewards Program, or other educational programming please click here to contact Sherryll Jones, PEP Education and Outreach Coordinator or call 631-727-7850 ext.353

Source: Peconic Estuary Program press release