Along the southwest edge of campus, between Campus Drive and Parking Lot 1, is the Guilford Run Bioretention Facility, a beautiful and powerful little native plant garden that is well worth a visit. The garden was constructed to catch and naturally filter rainwater flowing off of a 3.5-acre area of UM's Parking Lot 1. It uses low impact development (LID) techniques to help mitigate pollution of the nearby waterway, Guilford Run, and slow down runoff water to decrease flash flooding and streambank erosion. And, since Guilford Run, and the whole College Park campus, are part of the Anacostia River watershed, the garden will reduce the amount of pollution flowing into the Anacostia River, and eventually the Chesapeake Bay.

A campus undergraduate student group, Maryland Sustainability Engineering (MSE), from the A. James Clark School of Engineering, selected the site (then a grassy swale) and designed, constructed, and planted the garden. Construction took place in January 2011, and planting in April 2011. This was a great opportunity for involved students of many different majors to get real, hands-on experience working on a construction site and see their designs realized.

MSE worked closely with the UM chapter of Engineers Without Borders, UM’s Facilities Management Department, and faculty in the A. James Clark School of Engineering. The UM Department of Transportation Services contributed the much