Johnson County has just 0.006% of its untouched prairie left, according to Matt Garrett, who is the natural resource manager for Johnson County Parks and Recreation District. Restoring the natural prairie is critical to the area’s ecosystem and natural water systems.
“It just sucks all that stormwater directly in the ground. The roots on some of those plants can be 10, 14, 16 feet deep. And it just locks a lot of that pollution in the ground and it keeps it from getting into the creeks, keeps it from getting into our stormwater basins,” Garrett told KCUR’s Up To Date.
While Garret’s department has planted over 1,000 acres of prairie in the last five years, a new $1.19 million grant from Johnson County will allow the parks district and two local nonprofits to speed up prairie planting and other critical habitat restoration projects in the region…