By Jeff Clemetson | Editor

Median project beautifies while cleaning stormwater

Solving problems is what engineers do. And when a team from the city’s Public Works Department (PWD) realized there was Proposition 84 grant money available from the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), they did some “quick, dirty engineering calculations” to see if they could solve several problems at once – get funding, clean stormwater and give University Avenue a much needed facelift. The plan they came up with was to re-do the street medians along University Avenue and incorporate a concept that would also filter runoff water.

“They drew it up on a napkin basically to start,” said Greg Humora, director of La Mesa’s PWD. “And then they had to prove it would work, which they were able to do.”

The result was a $2.3 million award for the project along University Avenue between La Mesa Boulevard and Harbinson Avenue.

Revitalizing the streets that lead into La Mesa has been an ongoing project for the city. El Cajon Boulevard and Fletcher Parkway have already gone through upgrades, as well as the streetscape along the La Mesa Village.

“University is the next one on the list,” Humora said. “It’s been a target for action for us for quite some time to go ahead and revitalize the corridor, redo the landscaping, make it more pedestrian friendly, more walkable, more attractive, to try to spur development out there.”

The new medians will clean stormwater naturally by directing runoff from the street into a concave area that contains vegetation and three feet of a special biomass soil that filters pollutants before reaching a pipe below that connects to the stormwater system.

“Right now we have asphalt medians out there, so rain hits it and it runs off and there’s pollutants on there — it doesn’t help with the stormwater quality at all right now,” Humora said. “So when we’re done, rain will go into the basin and get treated but the new medians are also going to grab stormwater off the street that’s dirty and has pollutants and funnel that into the basin and get treated as well.”

Humora said SWRCB awarded the grant money to the project because they appreciated the creative solutions and this project met the goals for improving water quality.

“Because there were resources available, it was just a case of somebody coming up with a concept that made sense for them,” he said. “We had to demonstrate to them that we are going to improve water quality, they want to see how many square feet of stormwater can get transformed. This concept is pretty new. There’s small scales of this but, regionally, I’m not aware of anything this big.”

In addition to the medians, the sidewalks along University Avenue will also be planted with trees, making walking along the avenue much more pleasant during the hot summer months.

Construction on the new median project is slated to begin in June and will take nine to 10 months, Humora said.

At the April 12 La Mesa City Council meeting, when the project was approved, there was some discussion as to how the construction will affect traffic, especially during the school year.

Humora said he hopes a portion of the project will be completed before school begins and added that although there are four nearby schools, including Helix Charter High School, none of the schools are on University Avenue, so traffic in front of the schools’ drop-off areas should not be affected to a great degree.

“It’s always a challenge when doing construction to minimize the impacts, but the schools definitely load the streets up,” he said, adding that students who are able, should walk or ride bikes to school to help ease traffic.

—Jeff Clemetson is editor of the La Mesa Courier. Reach him at [email protected].