The Fred Fletcher Park Water Garden
Utilizing Stormwater Not City Water
It was something out of an environmentalist’s dreams: design a park with more than beauty in mind, give it a function. While North Carolina set up regulations to help its rivers with stormwater pollution, Raleigh was making plans to set up a water garden that uses nothing but stormwater to help in that cause. This new water garden inside of Fred Fletcher Park (Raleigh’s city park) is designed to capture stormwater and filter it before any pollution and sediment can be put through to the Neuse River below. Bacteria and other nastiness can also be naturally siphoned out before it gets to the River. This massive forward thinking project was a huge step in the right direction for environmental green living change.
Water Garden Site
The water garden at Fred Fletcher Park is centralized in a woody area of the park, near the intersection of Glenwood Ave. and Washington St. While it is within one of the most polluted streams in Raleigh, it is designed to cleanse the water naturally on its way to the remaining wetland. Patrons will notice the difference in water levels throughout the garden, a design implemented to forge off sediment and debris before moving elsewhere. It has a convenient walkway to carry the outside viewer throughout it.
Park Funding
The Fred Fletch Park Water Garden project received its grant funding in 2005 and additional funding from the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund in 2007. Designed by CDM, the Water Garden was begun in March of 2008 and finished in November of 2008. According to press releases and the city’s website, there will be a dedication ceremony “sometime” in June of 2009. This ceremony is directly brought to the city by the City of Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department.
Park Features
According to the press release, the park offers “An aesthetically pleasing garden after the first growing season is complete and the planted vegetation begins to mature. The garden will have a variety of evergreen and perennial plant species; a new home for dragonflies, butterflies, ducks and other animals; and naturally filtered stormwater that flows into the water garden to clean the runoff before flowing downstream into Pigeon House Branch”
Fred Fletcher Park Water Garden Downloads
These are the concept drawings of the park that were used to lay out the structure. It will give patrons to the park a beautiful map of how the garden is laid out.
Plan View of Conceptual Design - January 2007(444 KB .pdf file)
Panoramic View of Conceptual Design - January 2007(663 KB .pdf file)
Park Address
- Fred Fletcher Park
- 802 Clay Street
- Raleigh, NC 27605
For More Information
- Amy Hathaway
- Water Quality Engineer
- Public Works Department
- 222 West Hargett Street (RM 301)
- Raleigh, NC 27602
- 919-996-3940
Water Gardens Add Beauty And Function
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