LEWISTON — This spring might be the last time Dennis Mason has to watch his Webster Street driveway wash away in the rain.

“We have a big hill in our backyard, so the runoff just came down on either side of my house,” Mason said. “Most times, it washed right down my driveway, taking the driveway with it — right onto Webster Street and into the storm drain.”

That storm drain feeds directly into Hart Brook, one of the urban streams the city and the Maine Environmental Protection Agency have been trying to clean up.

Thanks to that cleanup effort, Mason’s yard now sports a 20-foot oval patch of dirt and mulch with a few plants. His front yard was regraded to steer the water into that patch. From there, it soaks into the groundwater gradually, instead of washing down Webster Street.

It’s designed to improve water quality in Hart Brook and the surrounding 2,000 acres of watershed.

“And it may mean we don’t have to regrade my driveway all the time,” Mason said. 

His front yard rain garden is one of three demonstration projects put together by the city and the DEP to show homeowners how they can landscape their yards to keep water from running off.

The gardens, which direct rain runoff from roofs, walkways or yards into special plantings, were paid for with a $12,000 grant from the Maine DEP. The grant paid for two other Lewiston rain gardens and several rain barrels at watershed homes, to collect roof runoff and save it for later use.

Hart Brook wanders from the Lewiston Industrial Park past Plourde Parkway to the Androscoggin River. The brook’s watershed runs from Pleasant Street in the east, Randall Road in the north, Webster Road in the west and south past the Maine Turnpike.

That area includes some of Lewiston’s prime developable real estate, including the proposed Exit 80 retail development. The stream once contained fish but no longer does, according to a 2008 environmental assessment. Continued development along Hart Brook in southern Lewiston means less runoff trickles through the ground to feed and filter the brook’s water table.

The stream is listed as an impaired waterway by the Maine DEP and was given a below-B status rating. B is a middle-to-low rating on a scale that ranges from a high of AA to a low of C.

Mason said he read about the rain garden project last fall and decided to apply. Crews from Davis Landscaping  spent about 16 hours regrading and replanting Mason’s front yard.

“They just dug a big bowl, then refilled it with sand and dirt and finally some mulch,” he said. Water-loving plants were put on top. The garden is meant to be easy to maintain.

“Of course, it hasn’t rained as much since they finished working on it,” Mason said. “I actually had to water it last week to keep them from wilting.”

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