Waterfall wonders

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By NICK SWEDBERG

nswedberg@kcchronicle.com

ST. CHARLES - Wearing a black-and-white referee's shirt, Chris Wilson piles long, flat rock in a stack at the base of a basin ridge overlooking 350 people on Wednesday.

Along the basin's edge is a scene not unlike an architectural dig, with sweaty, dusty people hauling rocks and swinging pick axes in taped-off sections.

But instead of excavating, they are installing waterfalls in a competition at the Aquascape Designs, Inc. building off Kautz Road as part of the Pondemodium, a weeklong program promoting the artificial pond and waterfall industry.

The St. Charles-based company is hosting the event and also an effort to turn St. Charles into the water garden capital of the world. They already began with water garden designs in St. Charles and Wayne, and one large waterfall system in Mount St. Mary Park on Route 31.

"We want to create a spring type of effect," said Ed Beaulieu, vice president of research for Aquascape. "It's going to become a wildlife haven."

Both the St. Charles City Council and Park District Board approved the Aquascape projects. The company plans more water gardens for St. Charles.

Wednesday's competition was held as a friendly competition among water pond contractors across the U.S. and Canada.

"It's just for bragging rights," said Chris Wilson, Aquascape contractor development manager.

The competition also helps contractors learn about what others are working on across the country.

"We learn different techniques from each other," said Tim Camp, owner of Union-based Frontier Landscape, Inc. He worked on a split-stream waterfall with about a dozen other contractors on the Illinois team.

A few feet away stands Aquascape's new home office, Aqualand, which touts the second-largest green roof in the U.S. Since it began in 1991, the company has grown to become one the largest providers of water ponds in the world.

The company has installed more than 1,000 water ponds in the Chicago area.

"Aquascape pretty much standardized everything," Camp said.