Since the early 2000s, Battle Grove, the bowl-like field adjacent to McIver Residence Hall, has been subject to large amounts of flooding caused by this old pipe.
Jill Coleman, landscape architect, and Sally Hoyt, stormwater systems engineer, have designed a plan to control the flooding in this area.
Coleman said they are creating an aboveground flow of water to slow the rate at which the water travels. Instead of an underground pipe, Battle Grove will have a stream.
“We deliberately made that pipe come to the surface. We didn’t dig up the pipe and point it upwards. We call that daylighting and it just means that the water in the pipe is brought to the surface,” Coleman said.
McIver residents were made aware of the construction in their backyard through an email from the community director, but sophomore Eliza Schnappinger learned about the construction firsthand.
“It wakes me up every morning at 7. It sounds like a lot of beeping, which sounds like an alarm so I kind of freak out, but then I remember there is construction going on right outside my window,” Schnappinger said.
The construction project also implemented a filter process in an effort to improve the water quality.
“It’s a new technique that is designed to filter pollutants from the water as it passes through. On the bottom of the pool is a sand and mulch mixer, which the water filters through,” Hoyt said.
