Casey Lake Area Rain Garden Retrofit

Capturing and filtering stormwater by installing rain gardens within the 208-acre Casey Lake neighborhood provided a unique opportunity to target a significant source of phosphorus while educating residents on the role they share in improving water quality.

Priority properties in this neighborhood were identified as part of the Casey Lake Urban Stormwater Retrofit Assessment completed by the Ramsey Conservation District in 2011.

Casey Lake is part of the Kohlman Creek subwatershed, one of our priority protection areas. Efforts to clean up Casey Lake have been underway for a number of years and include shoreline restoration, carp removal and algae harvesting. This rain garden retrofit project was one more way to help improve the water quality of Casey Lake and ultimately Kohlman Lake.

Ramsey County Master Gardeners worked with neighborhood residents to plant most of the rain gardens in early fall of 2014. Supplemental plantings were done by residents and District staff in late June and July 2015.