City turns attention to runoff.

Byline: George Barnes

LEOMINSTER - The city will be greening and cleaning up over the next few years as a local organization that focuses on clean water in the state creates gardens to protect Lower Monoosnoc Brook.

The brook, which runs through the downtown area, faces pollution threats from runoff from streets and buildings. To prevent damage to the river, the state Department of Environmental Protection has recommended The Massachusetts Watershed Coalition in Leominster be awarded $221,900 to help prevent pollution in the brook. The total cost of the project is $394,900. A mix of money from city and private sources will make up the difference.

The project is one of 11 totaling more than $2.2 million that have been recommended as part of the federal fiscal 2010 Nonpoint Source Competitive Grant Program. The projects will help protect Massachusetts' water resources by restoring and preserving watershed areas, constructing storm-water treatment systems, demonstrating innovative technologies, and educating the public on how to protect sensitive natural resources. Ten projects, including the one in Leominster, are based in Harvard, Barnstable County; Cohasset; North Reading; Fairhaven; Amherst; Northfield; and Franklin County. The final award is a statewide training project.

The federal program will pay 40 percent of the cost of the projects. Among the projects is a program to remove noxious aquatic plants in Bare Hill Pond in Harvard. The town received $294,000 for the $497,463 project.

Ed Himlan, executive director of the Massachusetts Watershed Coalition, said the Leominster project will focus on creating water gardens throughout the Monoosnoc Brook's watershed to take pollutants out of storm-water runoff before it reaches the brook. He said it is the second phase of the project.

"The first phase was the creation of 32 rain gardens along road right-of-ways in the city," he said.

Water gardens are sunken gardens filled with plants that absorb the runoff and remove pollutants from the runoff as it flows into them. Unlike normal gardens, he said, they are built

to allow the water to flow off the road into them. He said they are very effective in removing pollutants.

"The main idea here is that storm water and storm-water runoff has a huge impact on water bodies," Mr. Himlan said. "Monoosnoc Brook has really declined over the past two decades."

Mr. Himlan said there is no definite start date for the project, but it should be in late winter or early spring.