Stewardship Partners’ Snoqualmie Stewardship team is widely known for working alongside agricultural landowners on stream and river restoration in our effort to revive salmon populations. But did you know the team also focuses on green infrastructure feature education and installation? In 2023 alone, Stewardship Partners installed 3 rain gardens in the City of Carnation.
It all started in 2015 at a public meeting with a bold idea of installing rain gardens in all the Snoqualmie Valley schools. Soon after, we received funding for our first rain garden at Carnation Elementary School, thanks to the King County Flood Control District’s Flood Reduction Fund and King County Council Funds. With the success of the first rain garden came more funding and a green infrastructure outreach, education and implementation model designed by Stewardship Partners, with the city of Carnation as its pilot model. Now on the docket, Stewardship Partners is focusing on replicating this model with the City of Duvall and it’s a possibility that we will install another rain garden in 2023!
As for the existing rain gardens in Carnation, one was installed at the Carnation Library and is thriving!
Carnation Library Rain Garden
A second rain garden was installed at Carnation Elementary School by our brand new (at the time) restoration crew.
Before & After Carnation Elementary RG2
The third rain garden installation completion in 2023 was a unique one. This one is a large rain garden installed at Griffin Creek Farm (formerly known as Full Circle Farm) to manage not only stormwater but also water from their vegetable processing plant. This unique rain garden is also HUGE at 3,000 square feet. It is the biggest rain garden we’ve installed to date, and it is also the first rain garden we’ve installed on a Snoqualmie Valley, Salmon-Safe certified farm. But it won’t be the last as funding was just received to install a series of rain gardens at Carnation Farms!
Griffin Creek Farm Rain Garden