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Bob Manthei: The idea is to help alleviate some of the rainwater
that goes in our sewer systems. We have an older sewer system here, and it's called
[combined sewer systems], and they're under a lot of stress.
Jason Berry: It's an historic community so we have things like
combined sewer overflows, CSO's.
combined sewer overflows, CSO's,
Ald. Nancy Thompson: We've had tremendous flooding in this area for a number of years;
and we're happy now that we're going to get some help here today
to alleviate some of the flooding in this area.
Bob: So part of the idea is that if we could plant rain gardens in some of the open spaces
with native plants, they will help absorb that rain water before it gets in our sewer system.
Nancy Pollard: Well, we've had an amazing group of volunteers work here today,
both master gardeners and community volunteers,
and we went from bare soil, in just a short time, this entire garden:
six beds planted in an hour and we're now mulching the beds. So I just think it's
totally amazing when a plan comes together like this.
Jason: What's really special about this event to me
is that it's not the City of Blue Island [alone], that we were able to bring in the park district,
we're able to bring in the school district,
and MPC has helped coordinate so much of that. But also that Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources is here.
We have the State, we have the University of Illinois, the master gardeners,
so many other resources have come into this one little community.
It's great to see local governments, state governments, county governments
working together to really make an impact in our neighborhoods.