GAINESVILLE, FLA. — The announcement was made on Earth Day, with fortuitous dark clouds gathering the North Lawn. UF’s interdisciplinary team – formed to meet the EPA’s 2012 Campus RainWorks Challenge – had taken first place with their stormwater design project. The team beamed. And then it rained.
The project followed rainwater from the rooftops of the Reitz Union to depths of Lake Alice, then determined areas whereby redirecting the water – through rain gardens or bioswales – pollution could be reduced. Ultimately, runoff that flows into Lake Alice ends up in the Floridan aquifer, the source of drinking water for much of the Southeast.
Members of the team included environmental engineering student Tracy Fanara; agricultural and biological engineering students Natalie Nelson, Angelica Engel, and Wesley Henson; and landscape architecture students Emily Sturm, Hannah Plate, Jayne Branstrom, Tracy Wyman, Jabari Taylor, Gregory Ford, Brenda Lugano, and Joshua Evitt. They competed against 218 student design teams from 42 states.