Rain garden at Huntington Beach helps divert pollutants from stormwater

A rain garden designed to keep Huntington Harbor free of pollutants from stormwater runoff has been installed at a known flooding area near Gold Star Battalion Beach.

Rain water runoff pools on Browns Road before rushing down a hill, through the beach parking lot, picking up pollutants and road debris, continuing over the sand and finally going into the harbor, said Garrett Chelius, deputy director of the Department of Maritime Services for the town.

Witnessing this at every storm, Chelius said there needed to be a solution to help keep harbor waters clean. The idea for a rain garden was a natural solution after discussions with groups the town has partnered with on other water quality initiatives, he said.

"We want to keep nitrogen and pollutants from reaching the water," Chelius said. "So, it makes sense to catch the water upland before it reaches the harbor."

A rain garden is an area populated with plants that captures and retains stormwater so plant roots absorb the water and any pollutants before it goes into a body of water, Chelius said. 

Chelius said the town works with The Rotary International and Cornell Cooperative Extension in a coalition called REACH, the Rotary Environmental Action Coalition of Huntington, on water quality initiatives such as growing sugar kelp, which absorbs pollutants in seawater, and oyster shell recycling.

The group decided to use plants donated to REACH from ReWild Long Island, a Port Washington-based organization that promotes sustainable landscaping, to create a rain garden.

Two weeks ago, volunteers with REACH began creating the garden in a section of the park where the flooding problem was most significant. 

They put in about 200 plants from 13 species with names like switchgrass, wild columbine, pink tickseed and New York iron weed in three beds of 360, 600 and 675 square feet.

Duong Vu, a member of ReWild Long Island, designed the gardens. She said she was looking for specific native plants that support the biodiversity and ecosystem of the area and are "coevolved with the insects here and have a deep root system to soak up the water before it gets to the Sound."

The garden was paid for with $3,000 in donations from REACH and ReWild Long Island and was built at no cost to the town, Chelius said.

The Huntington Fire Department has volunteered to use a truck with a 750-gallon capacity to water the garden for the next couple of weeks to help the plants get established.

Huntington Fire Department Commissioner Anthony Annunziata said the closest spigot to the garden is about a football field and a half away.

"I said ‘that’s going to be a long hose and uphill,’ ” he said. "So we’re happy to help out and do what we can for the community."

Save the Sound, an environmental nonprofit, recently released its 2024 report card on the quality of Long Island Sound. Huntington’s six harbors, Lloyd Harbor, Huntington Harbor, Huntington Bay, Centerport Harbor, Northport Harbor and Northport Bay received grades between B-plus and C, according to the report card. Huntington Harbor received a B.

Peter Linderoth, director of water quality for Save the Sound, said, for bays, the group looked at hypoxia, water clarity, chlorophyll a, seaweed abundance and oxygen saturation in issuing overall grades.

He said while a B is a good grade, it leaves room for improvement and installing the rain garden is going in the right direction.

"Green infrastructure is a wonderful solution to reducing nitrogen-rich stormwater runoff that enters many bays and harbors, so that’s a great step toward cleaner water," he said.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, which advocates for environmental policy, also supported the project. 

"As the rain creates stormwater runoff, it’s very important to capture the first inch or two where the majority of contaminants are contained," she said. "Rain gardens are a nature-based solution to pollution."