LEWES, Del.- The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays has partnered with the Chapel Green neighborhood in Lewes to convert an old septic drainfield into a native wildlife habitat. This land conversion is an essential step to ensuring a cleaner future for our inland bays.
Septic drainfields were once a popular way for communities to handle their old sewage. In drainfields, septic effluent is pumped from homes into a field where the effluent once discharged onto the ground is filtered by various layers of gravel and earth before reentering the groundwater.
Unfortunately as time goes on, drainfields can wind up being a big source of pollution for area waterways. Nitrogen and phosphorus in drainfields builds up over time and eventually runs off into waterways resulting in poor water quality as algae builds up.
Chapel Green had a large desire to take this old pollution source and turn it into a source of pride for the community, where neighbors could gather and enjoy the wildlife in Sussex County. Chapel Green’s HOA reached out to the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays for help.
“This is the first time that I know of that we are turning a developed landscape that was out of forest resources back into a forest and in between the forests were are going to have a meadow, so this will be 10 acres of natural area,” explained Meghan Fellows, Director of Science and Restoration at the Center for the Inland Bays.
The Center for the Inland Bays is using the Community Water Quality Improvement Grant program to help pay for this transformation.
It has been a community effort transforming this old drainfield into a new natural area. Recently the community came together to plant 10 mini forests in the field.
People who live in the Chapel Green neighborhood pitched in to help plant the 10 mini forests at the site of the old drainfield.
“We had kids out here, families actually brought their children out here, they were mulching and digging holes and spreading the mulch, and laying newspapers down,” explained Jean Rothenberger, the President of the Chapel Green HOA.
This summer more work will be done as grassy areas will be treated with herbicides and then sunflowers will be planted to help loosen the soil in the field. After these steps are complete, the Center for the Inland Bays will be planting native wildflower seeds throughout the meadow.
The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays is hoping to do similar projects in the future with other communities across Sussex County.