Monmouth U. to plant rain garden on campus WEST LONG BRANCH - The Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute will plant a demonstration rain garden on the university campus on Saturday at 10 a.m. between the Facilities Management Building and the Athletics Building. A rain garden is a landscaped, shallow depression, designed to reduce storm-water runoff by capturing and infiltrating rain and snow melt into groundwater. A rain garden is designed to enhance water quality by filtering out nonpoint source pollutants usually found in stormwater runoff, such as pet waste, litter, pesticides, fertilizers, road salt, petrochemicals and eroded soil. Monmouth University's demonstration rain garden is a restoration project designed to capture runoff fromadjacent parking lots on campus to improve the water quality of Whale Pond Brook. Whale Pond Brook is an impaired coastal stream that runs through the university campus. The body of water is approximately 4.4miles longwith headwaters originating in Tinton Falls and emptying into Lake Takanassee in Long Branch. The rain garden will capture and infiltrate runoff before it enters the body of water, which is expected to reduce nutrient loads and other pollutants that enter the stream at the site. Project partners for the rain garden include Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute, NJ Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership, Pinelands Nursery, Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Monmouth County and CharlesWiddis Associates. The Monmouth University chapter of New Jersey Community Water Watch is helping the Urban Coast Institute with the project. For more information on the rain garden, call (732) 263-5507.