Jennifer Birchfield, Water Program Director with Save the Dunes, will update the group on several news items and initiatives. Save the Dunes in partnership with the city of Valparaiso, was recently awarded a $607,000 EPA grant to improve a large detention area located at Evans & Roosevelt in Valparaiso. The basin feeds into the Salt Creek watershed and eventually into Lake Michigan. Birchfield said more than 500 acres of developed land drains into the 2-acre Thorgren basin after a storm. That water contains pollutants, such as lawn chemicals, oil and animal feces. The grant money will spur efforts to naturalize the basin to mimic a wetland surrounding to filter pollutants. Concrete will be replaced by a meandering waterway. Turfgrass will be replaced with native plantings that have deep roots that absorb water and pollutants. Save the Dunes officials hope the Thorgren basin will become a model for other basins in the Lake Michigan watershed.

1. Salt Creek Watershed Management

5. Little Calumet Galien watershed

6. Increased Runoff

7. What pollutants are carried with the rain into nearby waterbodies? Water Quality

10. The result

16. Watershed Management

21. Rain Gardens

22. Bioswales

23. Pervious Pavement

24. Green Roof

25. Education and Outreach

28. Thorgren Basin Naturalization and Retrofit

29. Thorgren Basin Naturalization and Retrofit

30. Thorgren Basin Naturalization and Retrofit

32. Thorgren Basin Naturalization and Retrofit

34. Thorgren Basin Naturalization

35. Thorgren Basin Timeline