By Lauryn Longacre Staff Writer
A recently announced Lawn Stabilization Project will focus on improving the sustainability of the ground area behind Bogar Hall.
The process to revamp this lawn is currently in its very beginning stages.
According to the director of facilities management Christopher Bailey, the project is focused on dealing with the ongoing deteriorating issues the ground in the area has.
“We lost a lot of the good top-soil, a lot of the soil is deteriorated to the point where it’s not growing anything.” There are three specific areas that the project will be focusing on. In between Seibert and Selinsgrove Hall the idea is to have more of a traditional lawn area. The area behind Bogar Hall will have more of a forest theme and to the right of Selinsgrove Hall there will be an open lawn with a possibility of experimentation with certain pollinators.
The area, which was once used as a graduation space, has been worsening over the years due to a combination of problems. One of these problems is the drastic change in the Pennsylvania climate.
“It’s really a local example of what climate change does in space over a rapid period of time,” Bailey said. “So really over the past three or four years, because of the increase of rainfall, you’re getting higher flows and you’re getting sheet flow.”
Sheet flow is the type of runoff that has been stripping away the topsoil.
Another problem the ground area has is the large canopy trees that keep the soil from receiving much sunlight. Bailey said that canopy trees are not very beneficial outside of a forest environment, so the best way to combat both the rain and the canopy trees are to allow the leaves to build up and replicate a forest floor.
“When you have a forest floor with loose soil the depth of penetration of rain is over a foot,” Bailey said. “What we have now with the compact soil from running equipment over and the loss of topsoil is about an inch or two [of rain penetration], it’s like concrete, it doesn’t absorb at all.”
Brian Auman, who has been a landscape architect for nearly 30 years focusing on using natural solutions, said that having a manicured lawn in an area with canopy trees is very hard to grow.
“Are we fighting nature or can we find a plan that works with nature in that environment?” said Auman.
One of the main environmental issues on campus, according to Bailey, is the abundant use of ice melt on the sidewalks. With the regular ice events and to ensure student safety, ice melt, or salt, has been in use very frequently. This has caused harsh damage to the soil as it increases its salinity, or amount of salt, decreasing its fertility.
Bailey said that the campus has been using clean and crushed sandstone to decrease the amount of ice melt being used. Unlike the ice melt, the sandstone creates the three-dimensional surface without putting more salt into the soil.
Bailey and Auman both hope for the project to be completed in less than two years but have noted that its time frame depends heavily on funding. According to Auman, the project would lower maintenance costs and improve the ecology of the area. Bailey proposed that the space could even be used as an outdoor classroom.