One of my personal favorite ways to explore a city is via Google Street View, the Google Maps extension that allows you to immerse yourself in 360-degree panoramic views of a seemingly infinite number of points on the map.
Unfortunately, Street View has not always been kind to the MWMO’s little corner of the world. In fact, if you drag and drop Google’s little Pegman on the street in front of our building, you’ll see nothing but a pile of dirt. That’s what our location looked like five years ago, when construction crews were just beginning work on what would become our Stormwater Park and Learning Center.
Obviously, this doesn’t do justice to our distinctive campus, which was designed to provide an inviting place for the public to learn about stormwater and water quality issues. So, we decided to take matters into our own hands and produce our own Google Street View tour of the MWMO’s Stormwater Park and Learning Center.
(Note: If you’re on a mobile device and have trouble viewing the embedded Street View images below, click here.)
The image above is what you should see from the street in front of our building. If you pan to the right you can see our cistern peeking out from behind the native plant landscaping. You can also see portions of our tree trench, which allows excess stormwater runoff to flow into our main rain garden, which is below:
If you pan to the left in the image above and follow the path down to the river, you can basically observe our entire stormwater treatment train, including a series of rain gardens and a filter media test lab that cleans the runoff from our parking lot. (BONUS: Watch a video about our treatment train.)
If you wander inside the building, you can see our popular classroom spaces, which are available for reservation by community groups and partners whose goals are compatible with our own. You can use the form on our Contact Us page to request a reservation.
We also have spaces for exhibits and interpretive displays (both on the first floor and second floor), which we’ll be filling out this fall with a new climate change exhibit and a Magic Planet digital globe.
One of my personal favorite views is from our green roof, which is maintained by the MWMO staff. The green roof is not always open to the public (primarily for safety reasons), so this is a nice way to enjoy its expansive views:
BONUS: Note the hydroponic gardening setup in the far corner of the green roof.
Our Street View images cover pretty much our entire facility, so there’s lots to explore. Enjoy the tour, and check out our Stormwater Park and Learning Center page for more information.
