Luther receives $86k for green parking lot

Luther College has received an $85,979 grant for a new semi-permeable parking lot to replace the current maintenance lot on the southwest side of the campus. The money has been provided by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources through Governor Chet Culver’s I-Jobs program. The surface is designed to control storm water and reduce the impact of flooding.

“Basically we have all of this hardscape between parking lots, streets and buildings,” Rich Tenneson, director of facilities services, said. “So when rain comes, it flows to the streams and river immediately and exacerbates the flood. This is an attempt to self-contain rain water and not allow any of it to flow into the storm drains.”

Tenneson applied for the grant in early December 2009. The project will begin construction over the summer of 2010.

The surface is also meant to be more environmentally friendly. The semi-permeable surface will allow the sandy soil underneath the maintenance lot to filter rain water and melted snow.

“We’re going to create a drainage system where eventually all the water goes back into the ground,” Tenneson said. “There have been studies that show water samples taken from below permeable parking lot surfaces are cleaner and have virtually no motor oil in the samples.”

According to Tenneson, the Iowa DNR is also going to use the new parking surface project as a model for similar future projects.

“The DNR would like to use this project to publicize [these types of surfaces],” Tenneson said. “We’re going to let them because that’s where the money is coming from.”

As for other parking lots on campus, there are only tentative plans for their renovations.

“The rest of the lots are in pretty good shape,” Tenneson said. “Eventually it would be nice to fix the Larson parking lot with the same surface. These lots are the most susceptible to flowing water.”