Flood control project results in children’s park

The flatness of California’s central valley and the rapid growth of the valley’s Fresno-Clovis metropolitan area necessitated a unique approach to stormwater management.

At the same time, the critical importance of water conservation and the need for recreational open space presented an unparalleled opportunity for stormwater system design. Beginning in the late 1950s, and building on the concept of stormwater retention and recharge, the Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District (FMFCD) now serves an urbanizing area of 300 square miles and a population of 600,000.

The system, on average, captures and recharges to groundwater 31,500 acre-feet of rainfall runoff, equaling 90 percent of all area stormwater runoff.

During the summer months when surface water is imported for irrigation, the system is used by water agencies to achieve additional groundwater replenishment.

In total, the district’s stormwater system replaces 35 percent of the groundwater pumped annually to meet urban needs. Yet groundwater recharge is only one of the secondary uses of the stormwater system. By far the most popular use of the basins is for neighborhood parks. Basins in residential areas are excavated to shallow depths with flattened side slopes.

Finished basins include trees, turf and sprinklers. Through a contract with parks and recreation departments, such sites are made available for development as active playgrounds. Today, five basins are outfitted as active playgrounds and 12 serve as passive parks.

The most unique component of the system is a recently completed park for disabled children. Presented with a flood control basin that had extra design flexibility, Sloan Johnson, then a District Board member, challenged FMFCD to focus on unmet recreation needs by constructing a special needs park, and while many parks were “accessible,” none had been found to be wholly usable by disabled children.

The FMFCD Board of Directors began a fund drive to raise $250,000 for the extra costs of such a project. The park, which opened on June 8, came in $12,000 under its $1.2 million budget.

Total community gifts and grants exceeded $320,000, and thousands of volunteer hours were invested in design, fund raising, landscaping and construction.

Because it is in an excavated basin, the park’s features are arrayed at three different elevations. The lower tier has a permanent two-acre lake, which also is a groundwater recharge unit.

Two observation decks give children an unhindered view of evolving aquatic habitat and wildlife. The five-acre middle tier has an open turfed play area and a wheelchair basketball court. Two interpretive mazes incorporate a variety of paths, textures and colors to provide visual and sensory stimulation.

Upper-tier features include picnic and arts and crafts pavilions, small and older children’s play areas and a frontier area and mining town. The park includes a stair/ramp structure for mobility training and rehabilitation and a raised grassed platform, which serves as a therapy platform. The success of the park clearly stems from a reversal of traditional thinking.