A few low impact development (LID) techniques applied in New England

(Boston, Mass. – June 9, 2009) – A series of low-impact development or green infrastructure projects are demonstrating techniques that show promise of improving water quality and stream flow in the Ipswich River Watershed.

Today, local communities and state and federal officials toured four of the innovative low-impact development techniques. Several examples of low impact development and green infrastructure projects funded by EPA in the Ipswich River Watershed include:

- A vegetated or “green” roof, atop a refurbished building that provides affordable apartments for seniors, in Ipswich at Whipple Riverview Place. The green roof is absorbing and retaining rainwater, helping to reduce erosion and pollutants from entering the river.

- At Partridgeberry Place in Ipswich, a 20-lot subdivision is designed as a low-impact development by preserving open space, with the 20 homes clustered on ten acres and leaving 38 acres of undisturbed land. The development also uses narrower roads, “rain gardens” and specially designed grass swales. These features help absorb more of the rainfall that falls on the ground, filtering out pollutants from the paved surfaces and replenishing underground aquifers that flow to the Ipswich River.

- In a neighborhood next to Silver Lake in Wilmington, rain gardens and special permeable paving stones with underlying infiltration beds were installed along the road edge, in the public right-of-way. These colorful pocket gardens and permeable areas hold stormwater and let it soak into the ground, recharging the water tables, rather than running directly into the lake.

- At the Silver Lake town beach parking lot, a variety of low-impact development features help prevent polluted stormwater from reaching the lake. These include four types of permeable paving that allow stormwater to filter through the pavement instead of flowing across it; “bioretention” cells – planted areas that filter stormwater through soils and plantings – and two vegetated swales that replace piped outfalls that previously dumped untreated stormwater directly into the lake.