Central Community College
IN-24: Natural Wastewater Systems

The CCC-Kearney Center has five onsite natural wastewater bioretention gardens that help capture and treat storm water runoff before being slowly released through groundwater infiltration. The sediment traps help to collect silt/sediment at inflow pipes into basins. Although there are no current municipal requirements for water quality treatment, the natural wastewater bioretention gardens were sized to provide the water quality volume for 80% of the building site. Natural bioretention gardens mimic biological, chemical and physical processes of natural wetlands and our CCC Kearney gardens include native Nebraska plants that soak up water and allow infiltration to greater depths due to longer root structures.

Currently there are large swaths of low to mid-height native grass areas at all sites throughout the site to help absorb storm water runoff which lower the energy and labor inputs required for maintenance.

Also there are rain gardens on the Hastings and Columbus campuses that filter wastewater naturally and mimic wetlands as well that are similar to the CCC Kearney bioretention gardens, but are at a smaller scale.

Stormwater that usually is discharged through the conventional sewer infrastructure, is now filtered through bioretention gardens on campus and naturally infiltrates into the groundwater, which then discharges naturally to the Platte and Wood Rivers in Kearney and Grand Island. The Kearney Center building design does not have a conventional sewer system due to this natural infiltration of blackwater from the parking lots that contains oil and grease from vehicle parking lots. The native plants naturally filter out these blackwater contaminants and infiltrate into the groundwater table, which flows south to the Platte and Wood Rivers.

80% is for the Kearney Center to showcase natural wastewater systems for businesses and government agencies in Central Nebraska, other campuses also have smaller scale bioretention gardens.

https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-11/bmp-bioretention-rain-gardens.pdf#:~:text=Bioretention%20practices%2C%20such%20as%20rain%20gardens%2C%20are%20landscaped,through%20a%20mixture%20of%20soil%2C%20sand%20and%2For%20gravel

Blackwater is runoff from parking lots as it contains contaminants of gas, oil, and grease that are naturally filtered out through bioretention ponds and rain gardens on campus.