U.S. Water News Online
DAVENPORT, Iowa -- An environmentally-friendly parking lot on Rock Island Arsenal that will soak up rain rather than letting it run off into the Mississippi River is up and running.
The porous 48-spot parking lot along the river can absorb several inches of rainfall.
``The water will never hit the river,'' said Leon Hodges, chief park ranger for the Rock Island District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. ``I can't see there being any run-off.''
The lot is divided into three sections. Here's how it works: the first part is a parking lot with a slope of 1 percent to 2 percent and the second is made of concrete pavers placed on a crushed rock base. The interlocking pavers allow water to flow into the ground.
The third section, a bioswale -- or area of native plants, absorbs water the pavers can't handle.
The project came about because the corps needed a parking lot due to a space crunch after the Sept. 11 attacks, Hodges said. River Action, a local nonprofit focused on the river, needed a place to demonstrate the parking lot.
Kathy Wine, of River Action, hopes the porous lot will set an example of how to help curb runoff to, and one day decrease flooding along, the Mississippi.
``If we can show that, then we are doing something great for the Mississippi River,'' Wine said.
The parking lot cost is about 15 to 20 percent more than a conventional lot, Hodges said. The concrete pavers used last longer than traditional parking lots, said Marcus De La Fleur, of Conservation Design Forum, an Elmhurst, Ill.-based group that worked on the project.
Such lots are much more prevalent in Europe due to strict laws regulating runoff, De La Fleur said. He believes the porous parking lots will become more popular in the United States.
``I don't think we have a choice,'' he said. ``It's just a matter of time.''
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