By Theresa-Marie Wilson ~
With predicted El Nino winter storms on the horizon, three local cities can reap the cash and conservation benefits through a county rebate program.
The StormRewards Rebate Program is funded through a $300,000 grant from the State Water Resource Control Board and offers rebates of up to $999 for rain-friendly projects in the cities of Arroyo Grande, Nipomo and San Luis Obispo.
“The grant required that any project that they fund be drained to a creek,” said Nicole Smith Conservation Programs Manager for the Coastal San Luis Resource Conservation District. “It is a lot easier to say, ‘We will provide rebates to and entire city, such as Arroyo Grande, than it is to say portions of Grover Beach.’ It was a combination of the grant funds itself and from an administrative perspective.”
The first applications started rolling in in December of 2014. Rebates are given to folks who install best management practices on private property.
Projects can be as simple as installing a rain garden, dry well, directing roof runoff to landscaped areas or planting trees. Engineered recommendations for your site are provided free-of-charge, focusing on your specific landscaping and storm water runoff needs.
Storm water is contained on your property, allowing it time to soak into the ground, saving money on water bills and keeping possible pollutants out of streams and oceans. Those pollutants include oil, grease and toxic chemicals from motor vehicles, pesticides and nutrients from lawns and gardens and viruses, bacteria and nutrients from pet waste and failing septic systems
The project looks at where rainwater hits the ground and where it goes after that. Most properties have gutters or downspouts that are either directed to the street or they are directed to a yard. If the yard has claylike soil, runoff to the street picking up pollutants along the way, which enter the storm drains and thereby our creeks.
“The program is really geared towards rainwater management,” Smith said. The goal of the program is to stop that pathway, and to try to infiltrate as much water into any given property that only a very small amount is getting to our creeks.”
The program allows for flexibility as to what property owners do with collected water.
“It is about rainwater management, not just about conservation,” Smith said. “We do support projects where someone installs rain barrels to capture water and then use that water for irrigation on their outdoor land, but we also support rain gardens—a landscape feature that is a depression in the ground backfilled with compost and mulch. By directing your downspouts or other water running off of your property to that depression it is encouraging it to infiltrate into the ground. The mantra in storm water is slow it, spread it, sink it.”
Thus far most of the participants have been residents of San Luis Obispo.
“We have a lot fewer in Arroyo Grande and Nipomo,” Smith said. “We would like to encourage those communities to take advantage of the rebate and also the technical assistance that is available.”
The program guidelines request a 25 percent monetary match from the landowner installing rainwater management systems, thus $300 for the full $999 rebate.
“The way that our rain works here, it is to your advantage to put in the largest system that you can use,” said Smith. “If you actually have a use for that water, you should just go as big as you can. We get all of our rain in a few short months, and then it has to last you the whole summer.”
As a guide, Smith said a single 50-gallon barrels would fill up amazingly fast during even a mild rain. A rain garden will help extend the amount of time future plants will survive with out watering.
The current application period for proposed projects closes November 12. Additional application periods are expected in 2016.
Grant funding expires in 2016; so don’t get caught in the rain without a bucket. For more information, call Nicole Smith at 773-4391 or check out www.StormRewards.org.
