Shoreview, a northern suburb of St. Paul, is adding a stretch of pervious concrete!  Exciting, no?  I am very curious to see how it works out.

Things that are cool about it:
1. Rainwater filters through soil underneath the concrete instead of rushing through a storm sewer and into our rivers and lakes (carrying salt, sand, and oil with it).  Theoretically, the soil filters out these impurities before the water reaches the groundwater level.
2. It saves the money of installing and maintaining a storm sewer.

Things that are decidedly not so cool:
1. Keeping the concrete’s pores open for optimum draining requires monthly vacuuming with a special air-brush streetsweeper, which apparently Shoreview is going to purchase.  That seems kinda high-maintenance, huh?

Anyway, as with so many “green” technologies, you gain some things and lose others.  It’s still a step in the right direction though and perhaps this research and development that Shoreview is participating in will lead to further innovation in this kind of technology.  So I say, excellent!

Read the story here.  (I’m not linking to StarTribune.com merely to drive traffic, I honestly read it every single day even though I work there.)