An innovative pollution prevention system at UC San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography has won awards from engineering societies and garnered kudos from a regulatory agency. The project, designed to protect an offshore Area of Special Biological Significance, incorporates a sophisticated system of water-diversion structures, bioswales vegetated with native plants and four swimming-pool-sized “media filters.”
Native plants in landscaping features called bioswales remove silt and pollution from storm water runoffs. Credit: Kimberly McConnell, UCSD.