Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and the nonprofit RiverLink have partnered to create an on-campus wetland area that is reducing stormwater runoff, improving water quality in Haith Branch and the French Broad River and serving as an outdoor classroom.
An asphalt parking lot at A-B Tech has been transformed into a wetland that collects and cleans stormwater runoff from 16 acres of hard surfaces across the campus. Instead of flowing into storm drains, rainwater now spreads out and soaks into the ground, allowing native plants and soils to naturally filter out pollutants.
“Haith Branch was previously inundated with large sediment loads caused by erosion from the volume of stormwater entering from campus parking lots,” says Helen Burrell, a biology instructor at A-B Tech involved with the wetland project. “For years, I have taken students to sample macroinvertebrates and chemical parameters in Haith Branch,” she says. “We sampled areas above and below where the sediment entered the stream…