Milwaukee school plants urban forest for stormwater management

In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) River Trail School hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony and forest planting as it nears completion of an educational green infrastructure project.

The school hosted the event on Thursday, Oct. 6 as it nears the completion of a multi-phase project designed to give students hands-on experiences with business and agriculture while also providing stormwater runoff solutions.

Programming at River Trail will educate students about green infrastructure through the natural stormwater management system incorporated in the design of the urban forest. The trees, along with a series of berms and swales, can mitigate more than 170,000 gallons of stormwater during extreme rain events while providing a water supply for the vegetation. Students will learn ways stormwater runoff can be captured, stored, and infiltrated to support more than 100 new trees and shrubs every time it rains.

When complete, River Trail School will be home to a small forest farm with chestnut, Asian pear, and hazelnut trees. Students will have the opportunity to learn about business and agriculture in a natural setting through a program that teaches them to harvest the fruit and nuts and develop plans to take them to market.

“This project shows students how problems become solutions,” says River Trail Principal Robin Swan. “They will see firsthand how stormwater management can not only reduce runoff but support our forest in producing food such as fruit and nuts.”

“The River Trail School Sustainable Production Forest will further develop the established partnership between MPS and MMSD to green MPS school yards,” said Bre Plier, MMSD Manager of Sustainability. “This partnership is incredibly important to MMSD, not only to manage water where it falls, keeping it out of our sewers, but also to make curriculum connections for students on how to care for our waterways and environment.”

The project comes as part of a partnership between MPS, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD), and Corvias.

The urban forest project at River Trail School is one of many being undertaken as part of the Fresh Coast Protection Partnership (FCPP) between MMSD and its partner Corvias, which was approved and developed to implement and manage green infrastructure projects across the MMSD service area.

The partnership is helping MMSD ramp up green infrastructure implementation to meet the group’s 2035 Vision goal of capturing the first half-inch of rainfall across MMSD’s service area. MMSD and Corvias are working on projects that include nearly 8.5 million gallons of stormwater capture capacity with green infrastructure in support of MMSD’s overarching goals to reduce overflow volumes and localized flooding, and to improve water quality.

GRAEF, a multidiscipline engineering, planning, and design firm headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis. provided civil engineering, landscape architecture, stormwater, survey, and environmental engineering on the project.