From The Johnson County Sun
Team Fire helps build rain garden for area man.
Rex Brick of Overland Park says when his rain gardens are finished, butterflies, dragonflies, birds and other urban wildlife will visit him.
They will be attracted by the gardens' native wild flowers, grasses and plants, said Brick, who has multiple sclerosis.
"Wild flowers, grasses, sedges, bulrushes, some tall, some yellow, some white, some short, broad leaves ... there will be a different variety of textures," said Jason Dremsa of Applied Ecological Services, Eudora, on Saturday. Dremsa provides the technical expertise for the two rain gardens, 100 square feet in the front and 300 square feet in the back of Brick's house.
Rain gardens offer aesthetic and environmental benefits. They protect the quality of waterways such as lakes and streams. Created in a shallow basin, the gardens attract runoff from rooftops that might otherwise wash over oily driveways and roads into waterways.
Also, the native flora planted in the gardens have deep roots that break up clay soils and allow rainwater to soak in rather than flood or run off.
"Native plants have root systems that go down 15 to 20 feet," Dremsa said. "These plants can suck water down and also create pockets, pores and voids for water to move into the ground.
"What we're trying to do is get water to go down in the ground as close as possible to where it falls," Dremsa said.
Five firefighters are helping Brick build the gardens on weekends. Kansas City, Mo., firefighter Chris Lynch assembled the men from Team Fire, a group of about 70 metro area firefighters he formed last year to ride in the Multiple Sclerosis Society's biggest annual fund-raiser, the 150-mile bicycle ride MS 150.
When Team Fire member Eric Huffstutter of Lenexa asked for volunteers to help Brick build his gardens, Lynch stepped forward.
"I thought it would be a good opportunity for the Team Fire guys to help somebody who has MS, to really get to know somebody personally," Lynch said Monday.
Lynch said he has friends with MS and he began riding the MS 150 two years ago. He hit on the idea of Team Fire while riding with friends.
"I thought it would be great to have a lot of firemen ride together for MS," Lynch said. "It would unite firemen too for a common cause."
Multiple sclerosis is a degenerative central nervous system disease that gradually destroys the sheath, called myelin, covering nerve fibers, causing muscular weakness and loss of coordination, speech and vision. It is not fatal and MS patients can live long lives.
Brick said doctors diagnosed his MS nine years ago although he experienced symptoms eight years earlier. He suffered two exacerbations, which are flare-ups causing sudden worsening of symptoms.
After the first one in 1998, which paralyzed his right side for a while, he retired from his job as an information specialist in the U.S. Treasury. The second flare-up in 2004 ended his cycling days.
When he was able, Brick said, he took part in several bicycle rides to raise funds for MS research, including MS 150s, 600-mile rides around New Zealand's South Island, and rides in Australia.
"We love Rex," said Nicole Long, the society's marketing and communications manager. "He is a top fund-raiser and volunteer."
Lynch, Huffstutter and the other three firemen, Matt Thornton, Trevor Houghton and Curtis Edwards, all of Kansas City, Mo., began work on the rain gardens Aug. 20.
On Saturday, they finished the first part of the job, digging the shallow basins. Over the next two weeks, they will build berms, haul away excess soil and plant year-old seedlings, Dremsa said.
"It will take two years before the plants are fully established," he said.
The plants are native and can tolerate flooding and drought periods, Dremsa said.
"The gardens are low maintenance. Once established, they don't need fertilizing or mowing. They are also a great educational tool to get back in touch with the natural world," Dremsa said.
Applied Ecological Services, with headquarters in Brodhead, Wis., is involved in environmental and ecological restoration, Dremsa said.
That means restoring land to presettlement conditions or creating natural areas such as rain gardens, which are actually diverse ecosystems.
AES creates a diverse landscape with a variety of plants, grasses and wildflowers that survive in dry and wet conditions, Dremsa said. They have an open feel, and sometimes include native trees.
"If I look around neighborhoods, I don't see anything natural, like what it used to be 150 years ago, that is, prairie landscapes," Dremsa said. "Building a rain garden is a way to reconnect with the past and also treat your stormwater like an asset instead of as a liability."
Brick said he dirtied his hands helping the firemen but could not work for long.
MS forces him to use a walker or a Segway, a motorized scooter. He has lost dexterity and feeling in his limbs and sometimes suffers vision and memory problems.
MS 150 takes place Sept. 9 and 10. It starts at Longview Elementary School, 1001 S.W. Longview Drive, Lee's Summit, Mo., and travels to Sedalia, Mo., for an overnight stay at the Missouri State Fair grounds. The race continues the next day, finishing at Knob Noster High School, 504 S. Washington, Knob Noster, Mo.
By Mario Sequeira, The Johnson County Sun Writer
