by Tori Sturk

Special to the Sounder

Our Orcas Island Middle School marine science class with support from Russel Barsh, director of Kwiaht, a science laboratory based out of Lopez Island,  has been reading and studying about rain gardens and constructed wetlands for some time, and we have been having some big rains.

Our marine science project was from Sept. 26 to Oct. 17. The goal was to determine how efficient Island Market’s rain garden and the constructed wetland in Eastsound worked at filtering out light oils before allowing the water to continue its journey to the sea The results were amazing.

Island Market’s water entering the rain garden contained 1.64 percent oil and exited the system containing only .42 percent oil.  The garden had removed 74 percent of the oil that was on the streets before the rains had come.

The constructed wetland’s water entering the system contained .46 percent oil and only contained .18 percent oil upon exiting to the sea. The wetland had removed 61 percent of the oil present.

The rain gardens and constructed wetlands have been helping our sound, and, if we keep this up, we are going to have great success on helping our marine life and helping ourselves.

Tori Sturk is an eighth grader at Orcas Middle School.