(Riverton, WY) – Gutter bins were recently cleaned out of 19 drains with a haul of over 500 pounds of sediment, leaves, samaras-the papery seeds from the elm trees, trash, cigarette butts, microplastics, and a handful of beer cans.
“A worthwhile haul of pollution was removed from our storm drains and, thus, our watersheds,” said Amanda Ablard, Lower Wind River Conservation District Communications/Education Coordinator.
The process of placing the gutter bins started in 2022, when Cathy Rosenthal, Lower Wind River Conservation District District Manager, met with Kyle Butterfield, the Public Works Director at the time.
Cathy was familiar with the gutter bin product and manufacturer; Brian Deurloo with Frog Creek Partners, a Casper-based company, from the work and gutter bins they placed in stormwater drains across Cheyenne and Sheridan to help alleviate non-point source pollution.
“It’s an important thing for us because one of our roles and missions of the LWRCD is protecting water quality, and addressing non-point source pollution issues,” Cathy explained. “We do have some impairments in our district, fortunately, the Wind River isn’t one but we are trying to do what we can with landowners and constituents to be proactive and alleviate concerns downstream.”
The city also considered this an important initiative and agreed to support it. After various meetings with the new Public Works Director Brian Eggleston, Brian Deurloo and LWRCD, City Engineer Brendan Thoman put together a list of stormwater drains across Riverton where he thought the gutter bins would be most effective.
Frog Creek Partners and LWRCD measured over 20 drains of different shapes and sizes, on Brendan’s list and came up with a total of 19 that would work with the retrofitted gutter bins and mundus bags to collect debris.
The district determined it could fund the 19 gutter bins after voting to designate this as an urban water quality, conservation-led project. The city’s contribution as part of this partnership, is to the cleaning and maintenance of them.
They were finished and installed in October 2023. According to Brian Eggleston, they are scheduled to be cleaned twice a year, in the fall and spring. They inspect the gutter bin locations and other storm inlets during heavy storms that produce significant runoff to ensure the drainage is flowing.
“With limited staff, we focus in areas that have traditionally high drainage flows, but encourage citizens to notify the Public Works Department if issues are observed,” he said. “This allows us to dispatch teams to deal with those issues. The gutter bins have proved effective in keeping debris from entering our storm system, and flowing downstream. We did have an issue with one gutter bin this spring where the device captured so much debris in a short time, the water was inhibited from draining normally, and crews had to be dispatched to clear the bin, so water could drain more effectively. That being said, the gutter bin does what was intended to do, preventing debris from entering the storm system.”
“It’s been a little bit of an experiment so far,” Cathy shared. “We’re within the first year seeing how things come out, and we’ll be tracking it year after year to see how much these 19 bins capture and evaluate if future installations may be needed.”
Learn more about the Lower Wind River Conservation District by clicking here.
