Innovative Coralville watershed project among 10 to get funding

Ten Iowa watersheds, including five in Eastern Iowa, have received more than $2.3 million in grants to support projects that will improve water quality and/or reduce flooding.

One of those grants, $263,540 to the city of Coralville, will help pay for an innovative street reconstruction project that will substitute “green infrastructure” for concrete as a means to manage storm water.

Other Eastern Iowa recipients are the Winneshiek County Soil and Water Conservation District, $300,000, for improvements in the headwaters of the Yellow River; the Delaware County Soil and Water Conservation District, $60,000, for improvements in the watershed of Honey, Lindsey and Dry Run creeks; the Jones County Conservation Board, $121,698, for improvements at Central Park Lake; and the Howard County Soil and Water Conservation District, $240,000, for improvements in the Silver Creek watershed in Howard and Winneshiek counties.

Coralville City Engineer Dan Holderness said the grant would help fund installation of “green infrastructure” as part of a 2014 reconstruction of a three-quarter-mile stretch of Coral Ridge Avenue between Holiday Road and Oakdale Boulevard.

The project will incorporate bioretention cells and rain gardens, rather than traditional concrete structures, to absorb and convey runoff into an unnamed tributary of Clear Creek, he said.

The project should both reduce the volume of runoff and improve the quality of the water entering Clear Creek, he said.

Holderness said the project will also compare the cost of green infrastructure with that of conventional storm water management.

“We think it can be done for the same price or less,” he said.

As a byproduct, the project will foster natural scenery that most people would prefer to concrete culverts, he said.

The grants, approved by the Watershed improvement Review Board, will be matched by recipients, who will provide $6,523,949 in funding from the local communities to support these projects. As a result, $8.8 million will be going to support conservation work in priority watersheds throughout the state.

“These projects are a partnership between federal, state and local organizations that are committed to improving Iowa's water quality,” said Bill Northey, Iowa secretary of agriculture. “By supporting projects that address runoff and drainage, sedimentation, urban storm water, livestock runoff, streambed and bank stabilization and a number of other issues, these projects are focused on issues that directly impact the state's waterways and water quality.”

The approved projects have already completed watershed assessments that identified critical water resource areas and will focus on implementing specific water quality or flood reduction improvements.

Of the $3 million available to the watershed board this year, at least half must be used to support voluntary, science based water quality practices referenced in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy.

The board consists of representatives from agriculture, drinking water and wastewater utilities, environmental organizations, agribusiness, and the conservation community along with two state senators and two state representatives. It is anticipated that another request for applications will be announced later this year.