Forest Hills North

Hayley Blair, Brookelyn Guynn, Alizabeth Hicks, Margaret McDonald

Introduction

The purpose of our project is to plant trees on the Forest Hills North campus to help manage storm water runoff within the Lower Grand River Watershed.

Eileen Boekestein, Environmental Education Coordinator for the Lower Grand River Organization of Watersheds (LGROW) spoke to our class about an active grant for watershed management that will allow trees to be planted on school campuses throughout the Lower Grand River Watershed.

We also got a crash course in the iTree design and iTree species apps from a representative of the Davey Resource Group, Inc. We used these apps to select the appropriate species for our location, as well as the specific locations we would plant the trees. We also had to consider the land in real life.

At Forest Hills North, our team met with Danny, the campus groundskeeper, to tour the campus land and discuss what the school’s wants and needs were in regards to this grant, as well as to scope out planting locations.

This helped us determine that the best watershed management plan for this campus was to plant trees as well as install a rain garden, all with the goal of targeting the non point source pollution problem on this campus, largely caused by erosion of the creek bed.

Smart Tree Tip Sheets

Background

One of the first steps was immersion and this consisted of talking with LGROW and understand what our purpose for this project was. Then our next step was meeting with the grounds keeper of Forest Hills Middle school.

This interaction led us to understand that we needed to plant more trees in this area to help with runoff. Trees are very important in creating a plan for stormwater management. Trees create channels for water with their roots which helps to limit erosion, they also hold water which helps to decrease the amount of runoff. Their major problem was too much water gathering in the west side of campus, near an old baseball field. There is also a creek located right there so we knew this was an important area to implement more trees. Runoff is where there is too much development of impervious surfaces, which in this case would be the concrete parking lots and school buildings, so rainwater can no longer infiltrate into the ground and turns into runoff.

We then used this knowledge and ideated while in class to create our plan on Itree to find the best areas to be most productive to reduce the runoff rates. We brainstormed ideas of what was important about stormwater management and should be included in our presentation. We then used Itree Species and the Smart Tree Tip Sheets, we cross referenced recommended tree species and decided on the best species to suit our projects.

Using Itree design we placed all of our trees and ran the software to see what outputs our trees would have and this allowed us to decide our trees were placed in the best areas for this campus. This created our prototype of tree species to be added to the campus for review by peers.

Our watershed

Forest Hills North is located in the Lower Grand River Watershed. Depending on where a river or creek is located will establish what watershed it is designated in West Michigan. The Lower Grand River Watershed is a significantly large watershed that encompasses 1,861,468 acres and counties includes; Ottawa, Muskegon, Kent, Montcalm, Ionia, Barry and Eaton. The organization that we are in collaboration with is LGROW and below, we have included a link to their website.

Methods

We used iTree Design and iTree Species to decide what trees best fit and where it would be most efficient to place them. Starting with iTree Species, we chose native trees that had low allergenicity and high water infiltration. Next, we dropped those trees onto a map using iTree Design, and recorded the data it gave us. We determined how many trees to use in a certain area according to how much vegetation there was around it, its proximity to a parking lot or building, and the elevation.

Forest Hills Northern Campus

Problems: creek bed erosion, flooding, not enough green infrastructure

Desires: rain garden

Old Baseball Field = New Rain Garden

Real-life image of field

The area is surrounded by trees and nature, a perfect place to add a rain garden.

I-Tree Design image

When thinking about where to put trees, we decided that having trees within the rain garden would be perfect for this area.

When Brookelyn and Alizabeth went to do a walk through at Forest Hills with Danny, he had mentioned something about taking an old, un-used baseball field and making it into a rain garden. Upon visiting, we realized that this would be an excellent place to have a rain garden on campus. It was an important decision to include seven trees with a rain garden being surrounded by these trees. Forested watersheds are very important and continuing to grow. One of the approaches mentioned in an article from Journal of Cleaner Production, that caught my eye was approach 3.2 because it is the approach of revegetating areas after disturbance (Brandt). I think that this is a huge part of our project and specifically the area that I was delegated to place trees. This old baseball field has been unused for a while now at Forest Hills and surrounding it there are lots of natural vegetation and trees. This rain garden would not only be a great way to help manage stormwater but it could also be an extremely educational area for students and the community.

Why a rain garden?

Rain gardens are one of the best ways to intercept stormwater with a variety of different types of plants (ex. shrubs, trees, perenials and flowers). Rain gardens are a perfect way to introduce green infrastructure, as well as educate the Forest Hills community.

Five American Elm trees and two White Oak trees in the old baseball field in addition to having a forested rain garden.

These two trees were the best for this designated area because they do well in moist, well-drained soils and they contribute in intercepting stormwater.

Norway spruces and red pines on the hill to reduce erosion effects and storm water force

These conifers are appropriate for this location because their root system remains strong on the slanted landscape where water runs the fastest, contributing to erosion.

One Red Maple tree and one American Basswood on a small hill at the edge of the campus.

Both of these types of trees have high infiltration and a large canopy, so we placed them between Leonard Street and part of the schools parking lot to collect runoff.

One tulip tree and one red maple located in the front of the middle school.

These trees will help lower energy costs because of their large canopy and help to infiltrate-runoff.

COnclusion

We decided the best design for this campus would include 21 trees. With careful consideration of tree species, our choices were the Tulip Tree, White Oak, American Elm, American Basswood, Red maple, Norway Spruce, and Red Pine. Using our knowledge of the campus layout and the application of Itree Design we placed our trees, and are going to see a total of 457,068 gallons of stormwater incepted, $3976 of cost benefits, and 50,042 pounds of CO2 sequestered. We are also recommending that a bioswale and rain garden be placed on the westside of campus where a baseball field is no longer used. This is located right by the creek and will help to sequester a large amount of runoff water from entering into that creek. This plan was designed specifically for Forest Hills North to create a better campus that has less creek bed erosion, standing water, and more green infrastructure.

Annotated Bibliography

Cappiella, K., Scueler, T., Tomlinson, J., Wright, T. (2006). Urban watershed forestry manual part 3: Urban tree planting guide. United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

This manual discusses the many facets of using trees as a form of urban watershed management. This aid is useful in selecting the appropriate species based on the conditions of the location you desire to plant trees at which is exactly what we had to do for this project.

Brandt L., Butler-Leopold P., Handler S., Janowiak M., Schmitt K., Shannon P., Swanston C., Ontl T. (2019). Adaptation Strategies and Approaches for Forested Watersheds. Journal of Cleaner Production. (13). 51-64.

This research article is discussing the different strategies and approaches to forested watersheds, especially today with the ever changing climate.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2013). Stormwater to street trees: engineering urban forests for stormwater management. 1-31.https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-11/documents/stormwater2streettrees.pdf

This article gives a report on trees placed in urban areas, specifically along roads, and that existing green infrastructure does not properly mimic natural patterns of nature and are often too few.

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