Water Quality Improvement
The North Mecklenburg Recycling Center offers the best of both worlds: recycling for the public and cleaner storm water runoff.
Three large rain gardens built by Storm Water Services now catch 100% of the storm water that flows off the five-acre Recycling Center site in Huntersville. Rain gardens are BMPs or "Best Management Practices."
This picture tells the story. "Before" shows a sample of storm water runoff as it enters a rain garden at the Recycling Center.
"After" shows that same water after it was filtered by grassy rain gardens at the Recycling Center. |
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Compared with runoff from other commercial sites, storm water at the Recycling Center in Huntersville tends to have higher concentrations of metals, bits of dirt and debris, and fertilizers. That runoff used to go to Torrence Creek, part of the McDowell Watershed. That watershed empties into the lake that supplies Charlotte-Mecklenburg's drinking water.
But now, the storm water runoff is directed to one of the BMPs where many of the pollutants are filtered out naturally.