Twenty-five miles southeast of Dallas, a boardwalk meanders over a lush, sprawling wetland. Patches of Southern cattail, their velvety hotdog-on-a-stick seedpods swaying in the breeze, mix with plants like American wild celery, whose flexible green blades undulate in the water. Fish slap the water’s surface and insects buzz. Stick around long enough and you might spot a river otter, too.But the aesthetic beauty of the East Fork Water Reuse Project at the John Bunker Sands Wetland Center, the largest manmade wetland in the United States, tells just part of the story.Aquatic plants and sunlight at the 1,840-acre project, finished in 2009, naturally filter treated wastewater from the Trinity River, removing sediment, heavy metals, and nitrogen. The water is then piped back to Lavon Lake, where…
The post Putting Nature to Work appeared first on Texas Monthly.
Read: Read More