Native Vegetation Project Presented To City
April 21, 2023 at 9:51 p.m.
Native Vegetation Project Presented To City
By David [email protected]
The board didn’t take any action, but Mayor Joe Thallemer said he was supportive of it and they would take a further look at the project once it gets closer to starting.
City engineer Aaron Ott said The Watershed Foundation (TWF) was asking the city’s stormwater utility in participate in the project. Brad Clayton, watershed conservationist with TWF, presented the details of the project.
“We’ve been working a lot in the Walnut Creek watershed ... that pretty much contains all of the city of Warsaw in it. Part of that we’ve been working on is, last summer Zimmer Biomet approached us about doing a conversion from turf grass to about 15 acres of a native prairie planting, including some stormwater basins and planting those into native plants to help with infiltration,” Clayton said.
Looking at the specific areas, Zimmer Biomet’s west campus has about 3.9 acres, 2.10 acres and 4.14 acres that will be converted over to a prairie-type planting rather than mowing, he said. Stormwater basins will be planted within the 3.9 and 2.10 acres to a “native basin setting that will help that water infiltrate better,” he said. “Basically, an easy way to think about that is think about it as a large rain garden.”
There are about 3.25 and 1.25 acres along Lake Street. Clayton said the 3.25 acres is the area - by Penguin Point off Lake Street near the roundabout - where he was asking for the city’s help on. The 3.25 acres has a large stormwater basin that they want to be planted to a native basin for water infiltration. The 1.25 acres are in the back.
“We’re also doing some areas close around that north campus, which would be the old Biomet property ... which are some smaller storm water basins, not as big of areas,” Clayton said.
“They’re also looking at working on the culvert area that’s underneath the Boeing Road there on the Zimmer Biomet side that’s got a lot of erosion and is kind of falling apart in that area, so they’re looking at doing a design to fix that as well,” he continued.
Zimmer Biomet also is looking at stabilizing their pond at the corner of Zimmer Lane and Zimmer Road. That area has a lot of “heavy erosion,” Clayton said, “We’re looking at doing a design to basically make that a little bit better so that’s not eroding and coming up closer to the road.”
While the project was originally planned to start this spring, Clayton said it’s been pushed back to the fall. The cost grand total for the first year is $59,267. The cost for the area where he was asking the city of Warsaw to contribute toward - referred to as Area E - comes out to about $8,000 but the city was being asked to pay $5,000 of that cost. The $5,000 would cover the cost of the site prep and seed and install, with Zimmer Biomet taking care of the maintenance from then on.
Clayton said, “Also, they’re looking at doing maintenance for another two years on top of that, either with themselves or through the Stantec company, so grand total you’re looking at about $100,000 between the pond design, maintenance and converting all that 15 acres into prairie plantings.”
The prairie plantings will help infiltrate water down, will be good for wildlife and cut down on Zimmer Biomet’s carbon emissions “quite a bit,” he said.
Their carbon sequesterian numbers - using current modeling - “you’re looking at about five years of taking 21 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year will be pulled out of the earth through these plantings. So that’s kind of where they’re looking at it for. I’m looking at it more from a water quality standpoint where we can absorb a lot more of that water rather than it running off,” Clayton explained.
Along with Zimmer Biomet and possibly the city, other partners on the project include U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which has committed $8,500 toward the project, and TWF, which will help with educational signage and teaching people about the area.
Besides money from Zimmer Biomet, the city and U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Thallemer asked if there were any other funding partners on the project. Clayton said Zimmer Biomet was paying for the bulk of the project.
Thallemer said it didn’t sound like the board had any hurry on making a decision as the project wasn’t starting until the fall. Clayton said they were now looking at a September start date so he was OK with the city looking at it further and asking questions before they made a decision. Thallemer said he wouldn’t mind taking it under advisement for the time being.
Thallemer also asked why they wanted financial support specifically for Area E as it’s not in the city limits and asked if they had to designate a specific area for the funds. The majority of the project is in the city limits and he could see the benefit of the project. Clayton said if the city just wanted to do a blanket $5,000 to cover any of those other areas, they could have that discussion.
Board member George Clemens asked Clayton if he was saying the project would benefit local lakes.
“Yeah, this would benefit local lakes. It would also help your stormwater as well because we’re going to be doing a lot more absorption by putting in native plants at that deeper root system. You’re going to have a lot less runoff on those areas, and you’ll have a lot less carbon dioxide from the mowing and all that in town. So this would be a great project to kind of show off some green infrastructure that I know we’ll all looking forward to in the future, doing some more gree infrastructure projects. I think this will be a great model for the city to look at,” Clayton said.
Ott said besides the direct impact of these specific projects, “One of the stormwater utility’s programs is educating and promoting green infrastructure. This gives us a chance to get some of those in place. Having pilot programs or examples already in place is huge to promoting others to do that, and this will give the community several of these locations for ideas.”
Thallemer said he understood the benefits and was supportive of the project, but wanted to wait until it was ready to roll before making a decision on the funding contribution. Though no action was taken by the board Friday, Thallemer said they would “certainly get involved.”
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The board didn’t take any action, but Mayor Joe Thallemer said he was supportive of it and they would take a further look at the project once it gets closer to starting.
City engineer Aaron Ott said The Watershed Foundation (TWF) was asking the city’s stormwater utility in participate in the project. Brad Clayton, watershed conservationist with TWF, presented the details of the project.
“We’ve been working a lot in the Walnut Creek watershed ... that pretty much contains all of the city of Warsaw in it. Part of that we’ve been working on is, last summer Zimmer Biomet approached us about doing a conversion from turf grass to about 15 acres of a native prairie planting, including some stormwater basins and planting those into native plants to help with infiltration,” Clayton said.
Looking at the specific areas, Zimmer Biomet’s west campus has about 3.9 acres, 2.10 acres and 4.14 acres that will be converted over to a prairie-type planting rather than mowing, he said. Stormwater basins will be planted within the 3.9 and 2.10 acres to a “native basin setting that will help that water infiltrate better,” he said. “Basically, an easy way to think about that is think about it as a large rain garden.”
There are about 3.25 and 1.25 acres along Lake Street. Clayton said the 3.25 acres is the area - by Penguin Point off Lake Street near the roundabout - where he was asking for the city’s help on. The 3.25 acres has a large stormwater basin that they want to be planted to a native basin for water infiltration. The 1.25 acres are in the back.
“We’re also doing some areas close around that north campus, which would be the old Biomet property ... which are some smaller storm water basins, not as big of areas,” Clayton said.
“They’re also looking at working on the culvert area that’s underneath the Boeing Road there on the Zimmer Biomet side that’s got a lot of erosion and is kind of falling apart in that area, so they’re looking at doing a design to fix that as well,” he continued.
Zimmer Biomet also is looking at stabilizing their pond at the corner of Zimmer Lane and Zimmer Road. That area has a lot of “heavy erosion,” Clayton said, “We’re looking at doing a design to basically make that a little bit better so that’s not eroding and coming up closer to the road.”
While the project was originally planned to start this spring, Clayton said it’s been pushed back to the fall. The cost grand total for the first year is $59,267. The cost for the area where he was asking the city of Warsaw to contribute toward - referred to as Area E - comes out to about $8,000 but the city was being asked to pay $5,000 of that cost. The $5,000 would cover the cost of the site prep and seed and install, with Zimmer Biomet taking care of the maintenance from then on.
Clayton said, “Also, they’re looking at doing maintenance for another two years on top of that, either with themselves or through the Stantec company, so grand total you’re looking at about $100,000 between the pond design, maintenance and converting all that 15 acres into prairie plantings.”
The prairie plantings will help infiltrate water down, will be good for wildlife and cut down on Zimmer Biomet’s carbon emissions “quite a bit,” he said.
Their carbon sequesterian numbers - using current modeling - “you’re looking at about five years of taking 21 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year will be pulled out of the earth through these plantings. So that’s kind of where they’re looking at it for. I’m looking at it more from a water quality standpoint where we can absorb a lot more of that water rather than it running off,” Clayton explained.
Along with Zimmer Biomet and possibly the city, other partners on the project include U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which has committed $8,500 toward the project, and TWF, which will help with educational signage and teaching people about the area.
Besides money from Zimmer Biomet, the city and U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Thallemer asked if there were any other funding partners on the project. Clayton said Zimmer Biomet was paying for the bulk of the project.
Thallemer said it didn’t sound like the board had any hurry on making a decision as the project wasn’t starting until the fall. Clayton said they were now looking at a September start date so he was OK with the city looking at it further and asking questions before they made a decision. Thallemer said he wouldn’t mind taking it under advisement for the time being.
Thallemer also asked why they wanted financial support specifically for Area E as it’s not in the city limits and asked if they had to designate a specific area for the funds. The majority of the project is in the city limits and he could see the benefit of the project. Clayton said if the city just wanted to do a blanket $5,000 to cover any of those other areas, they could have that discussion.
Board member George Clemens asked Clayton if he was saying the project would benefit local lakes.
“Yeah, this would benefit local lakes. It would also help your stormwater as well because we’re going to be doing a lot more absorption by putting in native plants at that deeper root system. You’re going to have a lot less runoff on those areas, and you’ll have a lot less carbon dioxide from the mowing and all that in town. So this would be a great project to kind of show off some green infrastructure that I know we’ll all looking forward to in the future, doing some more gree infrastructure projects. I think this will be a great model for the city to look at,” Clayton said.
Ott said besides the direct impact of these specific projects, “One of the stormwater utility’s programs is educating and promoting green infrastructure. This gives us a chance to get some of those in place. Having pilot programs or examples already in place is huge to promoting others to do that, and this will give the community several of these locations for ideas.”
Thallemer said he understood the benefits and was supportive of the project, but wanted to wait until it was ready to roll before making a decision on the funding contribution. Though no action was taken by the board Friday, Thallemer said they would “certainly get involved.”
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