The City of Mesa's plan to reduce stormwater runoff and pollution has received one of the top honors at an event known as the "Academy Awards" of the environmental community. Mesa's Low Impact Development (LID) Toolkit has earned the coveted Crescordia Award for Public Policy/Plans at the Arizona Forward Environmental Excellence Awards gala Sept. 12.
LID is a stormwater management method that engages native materials and simple tools to reduce runoff and pollution. The toolkit provides a user-friendly menu of LID methods, best practices and construction details that help communities restore washes and enhance streetscapes or parks while cooling down cities at night. Mesa's LID Toolkit is a guide for the City, its businesses and developers, which showcases low impact development as an approach to land development or redevelopment.
Mesa recently used LID strategies for Mesa Urban Garden and the Southern Avenue Streetscape projects. Both projects feed stormwater to the landscape area, reducing water needs and filtering much of the stormwater, rather than sending it to a storm drain where it may pollute natural waterways.
The Crescordia Award (Crescordia is a Greek term that means "To Grow in Harmony") is the top honor in its category and sets standards for the exceptional physical, technical and social development of our state.
The City of Mesa also received an Award of Merit for Healthy Communities/Sustainable Communities for Riverview Park. The park, which reopened in 2014, offers a number of amenities for a healthy, active lifestyle including a 50-foot high rope climbing tower, expanded playground with a 300 foot bouldering wall, a 1,000 square foot splash pad, a five acre urban fishing lake and fish habitat and a convenient pedestrian path that connects to Sloan Park, the spring training home of the Chicago Cubs. In keeping with practices of sustainability, native and low water use landscape plantings were selected and energy efficient lighting was used on the ballfields and parking lots.
Arizona Forward, in partnership with SRP, presented the Environmental Excellence Awards, Arizona's oldest and most prominent competition of its kind.It spotlights distinguished projects throughout the state of Arizona that demonstrate a high level of environmental commitment and contribute to the state's overall sustainability.
Public Information and Communications
Contact: Kevin Christopher
Tel. 480-644-4699
kevin.christopher@mesaaz.gov