The City of Columbia started construction on the Marion Street Bioretention Project to reduce flooding and improve water quality in the area. The project, which broke ground on Monday, is being funded with $1.9 million from the South Carolina Office of Resilience’s ARPA Stormwater Infrastructure Program.
Located between Elmwood Avenue and Laurel Street, the project will replace outdated stormwater infrastructure with five bioretention cells, or rain gardens. These areas, planted with native wetland vegetation, will help filter stormwater runoff, reducing pollution in the Smith Branch watershed.
“The City is looking to improve the water quality in the Smith Branch watershed through the use of natural filtration in the Marion Bioretention Cells,” says Aaron Marshall, Civil Engineer at the Columbia Water Department of Engineering. “The cells will filter runoff stormwater that ends up in the Broad River. The project will also replace some asphalt with vegetation and upgrade some aging storm drainage pipes.”
The construction phase is being managed by the South Carolina Office of Resilience, in collaboration with the City of Columbia. This project is part of ongoing efforts to address the city’s stormwater management challenges.
