Almost a year ago I guest-posted on Landscape Architecture Resource’s blog about Toronto’s forward-thinking adoption of green utilities like trees and soil to help treat stormwater. In that post, I discussed a Silva Cell stormwater proof-of-concept installation that we completed, in conjunction with the City of Toronto and Ryerson University, along The Queen’s Way in Toronto, ON.

In this installation, the Silva Cell was designed to serve as a bioretention swale under the sidewalk and parking lay-bys of a major thoroughfare. The Silva Cell system, which was two Cells deep, was filled with a bioretention soil mix to slow, clean, and store rain from average rainfall events on-site. New trees that were planted would bring additional power to this stormwater management system by “pumping” water up through their trunks and out of the system, as well as by evapotranspiring water with their canopies. Stormwater monitoring equipment was installated to track the flow quality of infiltration and quality of water in and out of the Silva Cell system.

Due to a City of Toronto strike and some boring construction nonsense, the testing data ended up not being available by Fall 2009, as we originally thought. However, we’re pleased that we’re on track to have the monitoring data available by Fall 2010. We look forward to sharing it with our partners and clients then.