Mysterious Cisterns? (Austin, Brushy Creek, Celeste: neighborhood, school, live)

[catholicdad]

I just moved here from Alabama. What do you call those brick miniature amphiteater pits you have on every street corner? I've lived all over the USA but I've never seen these foreign contraptions. Apparently they collect rainwater?

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by catholicdad

I just moved here from Alabama. What do you call those brick miniature amphiteater pits you have on every street corner? I've lived all over the USA but I've never seen these foreign contraptions. Apparently they collect rainwater?

You talking about the curb cuts for wheelchair access?

The are scooped out, and have a textured surface of red brick tiles with big nobs, that look kind of like giant Lego blocks.

[G Grasshopper]

No, they are for collecting the torrential rain that Texas sometimes gets, due to tropical storms from the Gulf. They prevent flooding. As far as I can tell, the water just soaks into the ground afterwards, which is better than having run-off in the streets, as it goes into the aquifer. At the school near me, when the structure (I'm not sure what to call it) collects a lot of water, they have a system of spraying it out onto the adjacent land to help in the process of re-absorption, but I haven't seen that in a lot of places. I know these things are puzzling when you come from somewhere else. But they actually make a lot of sense.

[owlman]

Is the OP talking about retention ponds? Although, I haven't seen many brick ones.

[cBach]

In Alabama you have giant ditches on the side of each street which eventually drains into a creek or stream.

Here, we have retention ponds to catch rainwater. It would not make sense to have all rainwater drained out quickly like in AL since we get rain so infrequently. This way, water gets reabsorbed. It is a far better system IMO.

[Trainwreck20]

The main purpose of the retention pond is to create an identical run-off rate from a developed site as there was before the development. The 'soaking in' is not the goal so much as the reduced rate of run-off which results in large amounts of sediment and contaminants reach the creeks and rivers (and the aquifer via karst features).

The more paving you have, the bigger your pond needs to be. Some of the newer ones are made to be 'attractive', such as the one out in front of CostCo off Mopac, where the walls are limestone block.

OTOH, I am not sure this is what the OP is talking about .

[catholicdad]

Yes, I'm referring to the "retention ponds" as you call them.

In Alabama, we have lots of rain and lots of mosquitoes, so we avoid letting water collect in pools like that. I notice you don't have many mosquitoes here. The Academy store here did not sell any bug repellent near the front, and when I went to Enchanted Rock, I did not encounter any bugs.

[RooCeleste]

Originally Posted by catholicdad

Yes, I'm referring to the "retention ponds" as you call them.

In Alabama, we have lots of rain and lots of mosquitoes, so we avoid letting water collect in pools like that. I notice you don't have many mosquitoes here. The Academy store here did not sell any bug repellent near the front, and when I went to Enchanted Rock, I did not encounter any bugs.

Oh we have mosquitos, and plenty of them! Just wait, especially if we have a rainy summer. Last summer wasn't bad in that respect because it was just so dry - that was the ONLY good thing about it!

[10scoachrick]

Originally Posted by RooCeleste

Oh we have mosquitos, and plenty of them! Just wait, especially if we have a rainy summer. Last summer wasn't bad in that respect because it was just so dry - that was the ONLY good thing about it!

Ah, it's not too bad south of Brushy Creek . Those 40mph Gulf winds just blow all the bugs up to Celeste's house!

[BevoLJ]

I think what your talking about is a detention pond, not a retention pond. Retention ponds hold and keep that water. Detention ponds hold water for a small period of time (2-3 days). Like when you see one of the walls is a bunch of bundled rocks, or little openings or pipe at the bottom of the wall. They are the ones you usually see off developments and roads. Retention ponds store water permanently. Retention ponds have little fish or are treated and mosquitoes shouldn't be a problem. Detention ponds are usually dry unless it has just rained and don't keep the water long enough to have mosquitoes.

Anyway, the reason for them is to control flooding and run off of areas that are developed. Like if someone builds a shopping center or housing development above a neighborhood (Austin being so hilly this is very common) there is a huge risk of erosion and flooding to those below.