Taking a School by Storm, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s schoolyard retrofit project at Binford Middle School in Richmond, VA, received an honorable mention in the Ultra-Urban category for the 2019 Best Urban Best Management Practice in the Bay Award (BUBBA) contest! This contest is held annually by the Chesapeake Stormwater Network, and the category recognizes the best application of green infrastructure (GI) practices that are built in highly urban areas to reduce flooding and pollutant delivery.

The project was a collaboration between the Alliance, Binford Middle School, Richmond Public Schools Facilities, and a team led by Landscape Designer, Scotty Dilworth, and features rooftop disconnections, permeable pavement and a rain garden. It received an honorable mention for its outstanding use of public art in a stormwater best management practice. Judges found that the cloud sculpture design on the rainwater harvesting system was visually stunning, while effectively drawing attention to the purpose of the project. Learn more about the project on the Chesapeake Stormwater Network’s website.

In addition to this honorable mention for a BUBBA award, the Binford Middle School project has previously won the Dave Pearson Watershed Excellence Award from the Virginia Lakes and Watershed Association and was featured on the Richmond CBS6 news in November 2018. Check out a video clip below from CBS6 news!

More recently, Gita Hirschman, a student at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) produced a more in-depth video about the project. You can watch it now, below!

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