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Attachment A May 13, 2024 City Council Work Session Rain Garden presentation By Liz Johnson and Nancy Jacobson Why rain gardens are important to Arden Hills? Liz and I are here to share with the City Council why the city's rain gardens are important. We believe the city was under the impression that homeowners would maintain the rain gardens. That has proved to be unsustainable for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include that there are varying levels of gardening skills, physical limitations, and sometimes there is a change of home ownership. It is the City's responsibility to manage storm water runoff in an effort to meet water quality goals set by the Rice Creek Watershed. Rain gardens capture some of the storm water which can slow down the volume of runoff during a rain event and they also filter out toxins and pollutants present in storm water runoff. Both of these actions reduce the storm water burden the city has to manage and contributes to water quality as the water makes its way into our creeks and lakes. As a result, Arden Hills has installed many rain gardens throughout the years. Arden Hills needs to meet its water quality goals for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) via the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit. There could be a penalty if the city is found non -compliant during any audit process. David Swearingen can provide more technical information. Why has the PTRC become involved in this issue? Under the 2024 PTRC Strategic Plan we identified a need to focus on land management, habitat restoration and beautification within the city. Within that category one goal was to create and maintain rain gardens throughout the community. Liz and I initially had concerns about the rain gardens within our neighborhood. Many of our rain gardens have not been maintained and have substantially changed in function and appearance since their installation several years ago. We felt it was important to clarify who is responsible for maintenance of the rain gardens and to come up with a sustainable plan to move forward. Emily Rousseau arranged for us to meet with David Swearingen to understand the city- wide rain garden situation. After meeting with David, we understand that the rain garden project is a much bigger project than just the maintenance of the few rain gardens in our neighborhood. David Swearingen would like to have a city-wide rain garden inventory completed for all the rain gardens. He has documented approximately 100 rain gardens in the city but suspects there are nearly 200 rain gardens all together.