Just like precipitation itself, the nature of the stormwater management sector is decentralized. Runoff-control infrastructure must cover entire watersheds to maximize its effectiveness, often crossing jurisdictional boundaries. This creates questions regarding who assumes responsibility for stormwater infrastructure construction and upkeep. Further, the ever-growing collection of designs and approaches for stormwater management complicates efforts to develop best practices for operations and maintenance, often forcing communities to make important stormwater management decisions based on incomplete information. For these reasons and more, devising a nationwide strategy to guide and expedite the growth of the U.S. stormwater sector has proven challenging.

In 2015, the release of the inaugural Rainfall to Results report marked the launch of the WEF Stormwater Institute. Like the 2015 report, the 2023 update was authored and reviewed by an interdisciplinary group of sector-leading stormwater professionals and will guide WEF’s ongoing efforts to identify common challenges, enhance information-sharing, and develop new resources to assist U.S. stormwater organizations of all sizes and contexts.

Seven ‘Vision Areas’ for Sustainable Stormwater Management

Rainfall to Results re-visits six vision areas of the stormwater profession that represent the sector’s most pressing challenges or highest-potential opportunities for improvement and adds a seventh area to consider climate change. These vision areas cover the gamut of developments in the stormwater sector from the spread of digital twins, artificial intelligence, and other cutting-edge technologies to promoting interjurisdictional and interdisciplinary cooperation on stormwater management, establishing a set of sector-wide, universally relevant priorities to guide future action.

The visions areas are

• Work at the Watershed Scale,
• Transform Stormwater Governance,
• Support Innovation and Best Practices,
• Manage and Maintain Stormwater Assets,
• Continue to Close the Funding Gap,
• Engage the Community, and
• Plan for Stormwater Resilience.

The report explores each of these vision areas in detail. Each section begins with a forward-looking vision statement that describes ideal future conditions for that aspect of the U.S. stormwater sector. This is followed by a set of three to six specific action items targeted toward researchers, practitioners, regulators, and legislators that will help move the needle toward these ideal futures. Action items are reinforced with case studies from around the U.S. and beyond, highlighting exemplary work underway by stormwater organizations of all sizes and scopes.

New Challenges, New Opportunities

New to the 2023 Rainfall to Results report is a seventh vision area addressing the need for stormwater organizations to better incorporate climate change resilience into their practices.

Report authors describe that stormwater managers must develop proactive, future-facing resilience plans that incorporate the latest authoritative climate change projections. These plans should assess how changing precipitation trends are expected to affect existing stormwater infrastructure as well as incorporate emerging monitoring technology — such as advanced sensors, warning networks, and hydraulic modeling programs — to accurately gauge these effects.

According to the report, many different stakeholders can play a role in this work. State and federal governments as well as equipment manufacturers can help make these technologies more accessible, and the research community can support efforts to standardize and consolidate climate change projections into more actionable data for stormwater managers, the report details.

The 2023 report outlines new opportunities to improve the U.S. stormwater sector and identifies emerging challenges. Report authors draw a parallel between the rise of green infrastructure 8 years ago and the dawn of “smart” stormwater infrastructure today.  In 2015, green infrastructure was considered an unexplored frontier for the U.S. stormwater sector. That same momentum is now building behind high-tech measures with automated controls and sensing capabilities, able to optimize infrastructure operations and improve long-term resilience.

Likewise, the report describes a shift to valuing runoff as an underutilized resource, ripe for reuse opportunities with proper treatment capabilities. This is in contrast to its past reputation as something that required diversion and disposal. The largest-ever federal investment in U.S. stormwater programs is expected to create new flexibility to help stormwater professionals seize these new trends, authors describe.

Read the full 2023 Rainfall to Results: The Future of Stormwater report via WEF’s Access Water platform.

Top image courtesy of PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Updated Rainfall to Results Report Plots Course for Future of U.S. Stormwater Sector appeared first on Stormwater Report.

Wetland connectivity — the degree to which water from wetlands flows into nearby rivers, lakes, and oceans — is gaining increasing attention among scientists as one of the most important factors that determine the type and level of ecosystem benefits wetlands provide. However, determining whether wetlands connect to other freshwater systems can be difficult. For example, water from wetlands may flow into other bodies from either above or deep below ground-level, for only certain parts of each year, or only in instances of heavy rainfall. 

To help watershed managers, conservationists, and regulators make better-informed decisions about wetlands, a research partnership led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed the first-ever classification system to help assess different levels of wetland connectivity. A study published in the journal Nature Water introduces the system and applies it across the contiguous U.S. This system identifies where different types of wetlands exist as well as how their varying levels of connectivity affect local water quality.

“We still have much to learn about how wetlands connect to downstream waters in different geographic regions,” said Mark Rains, University of South Florida (Tampa) Geologist and study co-author, in a release. “This classification system gives us a place to start.”

Classification Improves Strategic Wetland Management

Using existing geospatial data on U.S. wetland coverage and hydrology, researchers identified four major wetland classes. These are based on their surface connectivity to downstream waters and their resulting effects on downstream water quality: riparian; non-riparian shallow (NRS); non-riparian mid-depth (NRMD); and non-riparian deep (NRD).

Riparian wetlands, defined as those that directly adjoin rivers and streams with multiple, aboveground connections, were by far the most commonly identified class in the U.S. These types of wetlands cover about 3.8% of all land area in the lower 48 states and have large effects on downstream water quality. Although the researchers confirmed that riparian wetlands are the most effective for controlling sedimentation, the study describes that they also tend to increase acidification and brownification — negative changes in water color due to high amounts of dissolved organic matter and carbon. 

By contrast, NRS wetlands were the rarest wetland class. NRS wetlands are concentrated in Florida and along the Atlantic coast. Featuring slightly less connectivity than riparian wetlands, these landforms contain permeable but poorly draining soils. They most often connect to downstream waters through aboveground connections, but this connection is not constant. NRS wetlands have the capacity for below-ground flows, but they tend to be shallow and infrequent, the study describes.

Water drains through the soil of NRMD wetlands more easily than NRS wetlands, making below-ground flows far more common than surface flows. They are considered less connected to downstream waters than riparian or NRS wetlands, yet still better-connected than NRD wetlands, which feature exclusively sub-surface flows and only experience above-ground flows during the most torrential downpours. Each of the three non-riparian wetland classes covered roughly 0.5% of total land area in the contiguous U.S.

The study reveals specific insights into how each class of wetlands affects downstream waters, measured by their influence on 11 criteria of stream water quality. They also map the locations of each class of wetlands across the U.S. to help regulators and watershed managers plan wetland restoration and protection efforts. Researchers illustrate how restoring different types of wetlands can help achieve specific goals for downstream waters. For example, the study describes that restoring NRD wetlands can often provide similar rates of nitrate removal and total suspended solids filtration as can restoring the same volume of riparian wetlands, but with the added bonus of minimizing acidification and brownification rates.

The classification system proposed in the study is globally applicable, researchers describe. EPA plans to make the system, as well as details on how to apply it, publicly available online, according to EPA Research Ecologist and lead author Scott Leibowitz.

“Until now, there hasn’t been a way to classify how wetlands connect to other waters at large scales,” said Leibowitz. “This has limited our ability to understand how wetland connectivity might contribute to water quality in watersheds.”

Read the full study, “National Hydrologic Connectivity Classification Links Wetlands with Stream Water Quality,” in Nature Water.

Vital Ecosystems Under Threat

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that approximately 2,600 km² (1,000 mi²) of wetlands were lost in the U.S. between 1996 and 2016, mainly due to human development.

The U.S. Clean Water Act affords protections against development to waterways considered ‘Waters of the U.S.’ (WOTUS) — however, the definition of WOTUS has been ambiguous and subject to various changes since the concept’s introduction in the 1980s. Under the Clean Water Act, protections for wetlands have historically depended upon their ability to impair the quality of other WOTUS, such as navigable rivers and lakes, if degraded or removed.

How EPA gauges this potential, however, has also been the subject of various legal challenges, and ultimately hinges on the definition of wetland connectivity. In general, wetlands have received WOTUS status so long as they are adjacent to other protected waters, even if separated by dikes, barriers, or berms.

On May 25, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Clean Water Act protections for wetlands extended to only those systems “with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own rights”. Under the newly developed wetland connectivity classification system, this ruling means that only riparian wetlands would qualify for WOTUS status — and even then, only if they connect to other protected waters.

Image courtesy of Jose Sabino/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post New Classification System Focuses on Wetland Connectivity appeared first on Stormwater Report.

The event gave participants an opportunity to engage with U.S. decisionmakers about the latest legislative, regulatory, and political trends shaping the U.S. stormwater sector.

The forum also provided a platform for such agencies and organizations as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and American Rivers (Washington, D.C.) to deliver program updates.

“WEF and its partners were overjoyed to see stormwater professionals from across the U.S. convene in our nation’s capital to advocate for solutions to the sector’s long list of challenges, such as aging infrastructure, workforce shortages, and funding gaps,” said Bianca Pinto, WEF Stormwater Practice Lead. “Whether you attended in-person or online, we sincerely thank you for taking the time to join us in our work to push for a stronger, more adaptable, and more equitable stormwater management landscape.”

The in-person event, which also was live streamed, was organized by the Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Virginia) and the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance (NMSA; Alexandria, Virginia) in cooperation with the National League of Cities (Washington, D.C.) and National Association of Counties (Washington, D.C.).

Insights From State and Federal Leaders

The event began with a welcome from forum organizers. Then, Evan Branosky, Chief Stormwater Policy Advisor for the Virginia Department of Environment Quality (VDEQ), delivered the keynote address. He described innovative ways that state governments can support stronger, community scale stormwater management programs.

Branosky discussed recent VDEQ efforts to consolidate years of VDEQ guidance and resources into a centralized Virginia Stormwater Handbook. This guide grants communities in the state easy access to up-to-date information on regulations, funding mechanisms, design specifications, and more. He also described a regional partnership between the state government and Virginia Tech (Blacksburg) that focuses on developing innovative approaches to stem the tide of nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture into the Chesapeake Bay via runoff. His remarks also included plans to launch a new, statewide trading platform for water-related commodities in 2024.

Next, policy staff representing both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives talked about NOAA efforts to substantially update its Atlas 14 program using funds from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The upcoming Atlas 15 program will provide more accurate, up-to-date, and dynamic precipitation frequency data to assist in stormwater infrastructure planning across the U.S. — crucial information for designing climate-resilient flood-control systems.

Later in the day, EPA personnel briefed the audience about EPA’s recent actions to support stormwater infrastructure implementation as well as coordinate research, information sharing, and regulation. Among others, these actions include

• a new website that provides guidance on best practices for off-site stormwater management,
• the launch of a new public-outreach toolkit known as Stormwater Smart,
• a new EPA publication on disaster-resilient green infrastructure design, and
• an update on the Green Infrastructure Federal Collaborative — an initiative launched in 2021 to coordinate green infrastructure facilitation activities across the federal government.

EPA representatives also discussed ongoing research on such topics as stormwater reuse, source control, integrated planning, and emerging contaminants.

Recommendations From the Stormwater Sector

Before each annual National Stormwater Policy Forum, WEF and NMSA develop a list of recommendations that outlines ways the federal government can help U.S. communities and utilities better manage stormwater. This year’s Recommendations to Improve the Stormwater Program in the U.S. documentspecifies four key funding and policy priorities for the next fiscal year.

Although the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized an unprecedented level of funding for various stormwater programs, many of these provisions have not received full appropriations stipulated under the legislation. WEF and NMSA urge U.S. Congress to fund fully these previously authorized programs during the fiscal year 2024 budgeting process. One example of these programs is establishing Centers of Excellence for Stormwater Control Infrastructure Technologies.

The recommendations document also calls for new federal infrastructure funding options, several of which could be easily established by modifying existing programs. As only 1.8% of Clean Water State Revolving Fund loans have been used for stormwater investments over the program’s 30-year duration, authors call for a new grant program for regional stormwater infrastructure that would eventually mature into a full-fledged Stormwater State Revolving Fund program.

Another recommendation is to create two new federal programs that target specific technical needs in the stormwater sector. In one program, federal agencies should allocate resources to help communities develop local- and regional-scale computer models that more accurately track real-time rainfall and flooding during storms, as well as provide more detail about forecasted precipitation. The second effort should target source control for stormwater pollutants of concern by establishing a permanent EPA program focusing on keeping per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), microplastics, and tire-wear derivatives out of runoff.

A Sneak Peek at Results From 2022 MS4 Needs Survey

WEF also unveiled preliminary results from its 2022 National MS4 Needs Assessment Survey, which take stock of common challenges faced by regulated stormwater organizations throughout the U.S. This third installment in the biennial series was administered from late 2022 through early 2023.

Just under 650 organizations responded. They represent agencies of all sizes and geographic contexts. Three similarly ranked challenges emerged: aging infrastructure, funding needs, and staffing challenges.

Respondents also indicated they needed more information how to access existing funding and financing opportunities to support stormwater programs and infrastructure, as well as best practices for long-term, post-construction monitoring and maintaining of stormwater infrastructure performance.

Survey results also highlighted a need for proper protocols to help stormwater managers develop long-term infrastructure resilience plans as the effects of climate change become more apparent. Over 90% of respondents had not prepared a forward-looking stormwater infrastructure resilience plan. Additionally, nearly 75% of respondents had not updated local design standards for stormwater infrastructure according to recent data on the increasing volume and frequency of precipitation in their region. This preparedness gap, respondents report, largely results from a lack of proper funding to support long-term planning activities.

WEF plans to release full findings from the 2022 National MS4 Needs Assessment Survey later this year.

Top image courtesy of Bianca Pinto/WEF

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post National Stormwater Policy Forum Provides Updates on State of U.S. Stormwater Sector appeared first on Stormwater Report.

Francine Kelly-Hooper, Ph.D., an Ontario, Canada-based expert in contaminant forensics, has devoted nearly 20 years of her career toward searching for a better solution. Since 2004, Kelly-Hooper has investigated stormwater pond sediments. Her research stretches across Canada and beyond to identify the substances sediments contain, the human and ecological risks these substances may present, and ultimately whether landfilling sediments is the only safe management option.

Her findings have shown that stormwater pond sediments often are not the unpredictable cocktail of contaminants they are often assumed to be. These sediments even may lend themselves to opportunities for beneficial reuse.

By demonstrating the safety of reusing sediments under the right circumstances, Kelly-Hooper and her partners have thus far earned regulatory approvals for five sediment reuse projects in Ontario — the only known approvals of their kind in Canada and beyond.

“When I started this work, the only question people had was ‘Can we avoid hazardous waste disposal?’” Kelly-Hooper said. “There was this assumption that stormwater pond sediments contained unpredictable contaminant mixtures, but what we found was that they typically contain road salt and asphalt pavement particles with low metal concentrations.”

A Hidden Financial Crisis

As stormwater ponds became a common tactic to sequester runoff and prevent urban flooding only around the 1990s, it took several years before the effects of sediment accumulation on their function became apparent. In the early 2000s, Kelly-Hooper’s home city of Waterloo, Ontario, became one of the first municipalities in Canada to investigate sediment removal logistics for its 40+ stormwater ponds. The city contacted Kelly-Hooper, then an independent consultant, to assess the substances these sediments contained as well as estimate total disposal costs.

“Once we got the results back, we realized that Waterloo was going to have to pay [CAD] $40,000 for just one pond, but the money was not set aside for it at that time,” Kelly-Hooper said. “The city managers did the math and realized they were going to lose about $10 million for all of their ponds combined, and it caused a big, chaotic reaction. I was worried about how this loss could affect the locally funded social programs in my city.”

Those kinds of numbers for a single, mid-sized city made Kelly-Hooper wonder about the magnitude of an imminent — and underrecognized — expense for cities elsewhere as more stormwater ponds began showing signs of impairment. She described her concerns in a letter to Ontario’s Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks (MECP), who responded with a grant of $60,000 to further investigate the scope of the issue. Next, she called environmental representatives around the country, which resulted in 22 cities in five provinces providing matching funds to conduct a nationwide inquiry of sediment chemistry.

Ever since, Kelly-Hooper has been compiling a public database of contaminants discovered in stormwater pond sediments across Canada, as well as performing research to better understand the potential ecotoxicity of these contaminants. The database currently details findings from 371 sediment samples drawn from 121 urban stormwater ponds.              

Science Beneath the Surface

Particularly in the urban areas in which Kelly-Hooper typically conducts her research, roadways are a major source of the runoff that ultimately enters stormwater ponds. Her investigation illustrates that petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs) from asphalt particles are consistently the most prevalent potential contaminant entrained in urban stormwater pond sediment. Previous research had established that asphalt PHCs often contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). PAHs are a class of cancer-causing chemicals that are found in refined crude oil products such as gasoline, diesel fuel and asphalt as well as coal products such as coal tar pavement sealants. Kelly-Hooper’s work demonstrates that PAHs in stormwater pond sediments originate primarily from asphalt and coal tar sealant particles, but they are never high enough to require hazardous waste management.

In most cases, Kelly-Hooper’s research has found that PAHs account for less than 1% of the total petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations. Her sediment leachability data consistently finds non-detectable PHC and PAH concentrations, which indicates low toxicity risks for beneficial reuse in roadway environments.

Kelly-Hooper has also observed declining metal concentrations over the past 20 years. For example, while toxic metals such as cadmium used to be detectable in most samples, it is rarely detectable now. Today, only about 20% of ponds in her database exceed even the strictest regulatory limits on metal contamination, indicating gradual improvements in manufacturing processes that substitute potential contaminants with safer alternatives.

“Our stormwater ponds are really a wonderful barometer for the positive environmental changes we’ve made over past decades,” Kelly-Hooper said. “There were several common manufacturing processes, especially for brakes and rotors, that were introducing cadmium into almost every sediment sample collected 25 years ago. I started noticing over time that cadmium concentrations were decreasing, and it’s now extremely rare to find detectable cadmium in any of my sediment samples today.”

Translating Results into Regulations

Although Kelly-Hooper’s findings may indicate that most stormwater pond sediments are not hazardous as previously assumed, she acknowledges that beneficial reuse always entails some risk. However, as most of the contaminants in pond sediment originate from roadways, Kelly-Hooper’s work has demonstrated that sediments can be a valuable and sustainable soil amendment for landscaping alongside highways.

This “closed-loop” disposal scheme not only helps keep roadway contaminants out of the broader environment — it also can save cash-conscious municipalities millions in landfilling and landscaping costs.

In 2019, Kelly-Hooper worked alongside the Ontario Ministry of Transportation on a major highway reconstruction project outside Toronto. Plans called for the cleanout of a large stormwater pond, which project planners soon realized would entail approximately $3.3 million in sediment landfilling costs. After an in-depth analysis of the sediment in question, Kelly-Hooper and her team convinced environmental regulators to reuse more than 1,000 truckloads of sediment for landscaping alongside the new highway. The total cost of investigating, dredging, transporting, and applying the sediment was around $220,000, she said.

Much of Kelly-Hooper’s research has aimed to determine not only whether land-applied sediments are safe, but also whether they are productive. For example, in one experiment, her team grew small trees side-by-side in two types of sandy soil: one without any additives, and the other topped with 10 cm (4 in.) of dewatered stormwater pond sediments. After a year, trees growing in the amended soils reached about 0.3 m (1 ft.) taller than those planted in unamended soils, and also maintained more vibrant colors.

The new Ontario Regulation (O.Reg.) 406/09 Excess Soil management legislation is the first of its kind in Canada. The regulation includes rules for sampling and evaluating stormwater management pond sediment beneficial reuse versus disposal options. Kelly-Hooper estimates that about a third of the samples in her sediment chemistry database would qualify for beneficial reuse as “Excess Soil” due to PHC exceedances from asphalt sources. However, she has been able to obtain risk-based beneficial reuse approvals under the O.Reg. 208/19 Sewage Works Consolidated Linear Infrastructure Environmental Compliance Approvals (ECA) process. Each approval relied on PHC forensics and ecotoxicity weight-of-evidence to demonstrate that the asphalt contaminated sediment posed low groundwater leachability and bioavailability risks – in other words, the ability of plant roots, earthworms, and other soil-dwellers to consume or absorb these asphalt PHCs.

Still, these approvals represent a major milestone for sediment reuse, Kelly-Hooper said. Continued support for reuse possibilities from the Ontario MECP will enable more demonstration projects, which she is hopeful will open the door for additional regulatory flexibility in the future. “We’ve got some really great collaborative ideas,” she said. “I’m continuing to work with the MECP on developing new protocols and new ways of looking at stormwater pond sediment reuse.”

Navigating the Road to Reuse

To stormwater pond owners in Ontario and beyond interested in pursuing sediment reuse opportunities, Kelly-Hooper recommends approaching the process with realistic expectations. She stresses that the inherent characteristics of stormwater ponds make it unlikely that sediments will ever be considered “clean fill” — a term describing soil amendments acceptable for unregulated use based on their safety.

“You’re likely going to need an environmental compliance approval (ECA) for any offsite sediment reuse application,” Kelly-Hooper said. “To get those approvals, the first thing you’ll need is somebody qualified to perform sediment chemistry evaluations. Essential expertise includes the ability to determine if PHC concentrations originate from inert asphalt rather than highly toxic sources such as gasoline, diesel and other liquid PHC products.”

She challenges reuse-minded stormwater professionals conducting sediment evaluations to consider possibilities beyond the sediment-disposal status quo. While existing regulations in many regions restrict reuse in cases involving PHCs, for example, Kelly-Hooper’s research underscores that identifying the source and provenance of these contaminants is essential to these evaluations.
Regulators might assume, for instance, that an exceedance of PAH and/or PHC standards could indicate contamination by diesel or oil spills, when it likely results instead from asphalt with far lower toxicity risks. The right data and the right communication strategy — such as focusing on the economic and environmental advantages of reusing sediment in highway landscaping compared to trucking it to landfills — can convince regulators that additional options exist beyond landfilling.

“The absolute key to this is that you cannot get these regulatory approvals without showing that even though you may exceed a limit for PAHs or PHCs, there can still be safe beneficial reuse options,” she said.

In October 2022, Kelly-Hooper joined global professional services firm GHD (Waterloo, Ontario) as its Canadian Sediments Lead. While she is still working to advance local reuse regulations in her new role, she is also developing innovative ways to extend the reach of her research around the world. For the last few decades, she has had to investigate the makeup of each sediment sample manually, entailing significant time and cost. An effort currently underway by GHD Digital will create a tool to automate that analysis process, enabling professionals around the world to replicate her methodology. Although her role may be changing, however, Kelly-Hooper has no intention of slowing down the scientific investigation that has defined her career.

“I can’t help but to continue with my research,” she said. “The solutions we are currently designing can inform and help build action plans anywhere in the world.”

Top image courtesy of Pushok/Pixabay  

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Stormwater Pond Sediments: The Next Frontier for Beneficial Reuse? appeared first on Stormwater Report.

The city’s approach prescribes a range of investments in the coming years that focus on both infrastructure and information. These steps are detailed in an action plan released by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP) in September 2022.

In January 2023, the city announced major expansions to two stormwater initiatives intended to enhance resilience in all five boroughs: the Cloudburst Program and the FloodNet system.

• The Cloudburst Program, developed in partnership with the City of Copenhagen, Denmark, constructs neighborhood-scale clusters of green and gray infrastructure that cooperate to convey runoff to strategic points during major storms. The program will receive an additional USD $400 million to support projects in four new neighborhoods.
• FloodNet, a system of real-time flood-monitoring sensors already active in all five New York City boroughs, will receive an additional USD $7.2 million that will enable the network to multiply its current number of sensors by a factor of 15.

Cooperation on ‘Cloudburst’ Control

Roughly 60% of New York City is served by combined sewer systems that convey both wastewater and stormwater, according to NYC DEP estimates. Particularly in densely urbanized, inner-city neighborhoods served by combined sewer systems, heavy storms frequently overwhelm the collection systems that are already overburdened by a high concentration of residents, causing chronic flash flooding.

In Copenhagen, stormwater professionals often refer to the short, intense surges of rainfall that most commonly cause flash flooding and combined sewer overflows (CSOs) as cloudbursts. During the last few decades, Copenhagen has demonstrated success in using ambitious, extensive, and unconventional infrastructure designs to control cloudbursts. The city’s approach not only includes traditional elements like rain gardens and bioretention cells, but also subsurface pipe systems, restored urban wetlands, and even entire streets rebuilt with slopes and curves meant to convey runoff to specific points. These green and gray features work in tandem to relieve burdens on combined sewer systems on the neighborhood scale, while also providing new, attractive community amenities.

Seeking to learn from Copenhagen’s experience, NYC DEP formed a partnership with Copenhagen-based engineering firm Ramboll in 2016 to identify opportunities for similar projects in New York City. The partnership published a study about their findings in 2017, identifying a site in Queens’ South Jamaica neighborhood as the best candidate for a pilot project.

After a lengthy design process, construction on the site will begin this year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced in September 2022. The initiative, which marks the official commencement of New York City’s Cloudburst Program, will invest up to USD $5 million in South Jamaica to channel stormwater from around the neighborhood toward two open, grassy areas, which will themselves receive new vegetation and subsurface features to increase their temporary storage capacity. Plans also call for the reconstruction of an existing basketball court at a lower, sunken elevation, which will provide additional detention capacity during cloudbursts. In all, NYC DEP expects the new features to increase local stormwater management capacity by approximately 1.1 million L (300,000 gal) — designed to eliminate flooding from today’s definition of a 100-year storm.

Under the Cloudburst Program, the design process is already underway for similar renovations targeting the St. Albans neighborhood in Queens as well as Manhattan’s East Harlem neighborhood. The newly allocated USD $400 million in municipal and federal funds, which Adams announced in January 2023, will enable the city to initiate the design process for four additional neighborhoods: Corona Park (Queens), Kissena Park (Queens), Parkchester (Bronx), and East New York (Brooklyn). NYC DEP expects construction in these neighborhoods to begin in 2025. More than two dozen additional neighborhoods are under consideration by NYC DEP for future projects, Adams described.

“This $400 million investment in stormwater management projects cement New York City’s status as a national and global leader in green infrastructure and shows our commitment to protecting New Yorkers from disastrous floods,” Adams said in a January release.

Casting a Wider FloodNet

In addition to socioeconomic and environmental justice concerns, a key factor in Cloudburst’s site-selection process is flooding data.

How often and how severely a neighborhood has historically experienced flooding, the location and frequency of existing flooding, and how those trends are poised to shift as climate change intensifies are all factors. To better provide this data, the City University of New York (CUNY), New York University (NYU), Brooklyn College, and the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay partnered with various municipal agencies to introduce the FloodNet system in 2020.

FloodNet partners install water-level sensors in strategic locations throughout the city. Each sensor is about 3 m (10 ft) from the ground and feeds real-time information on the timing and severity of flood events to a publicly accessible dashboard. The dashboard provides users remote access to minute-by-minute updates on floodwater depths as they change. The sensors also can discern whether the flood results from CSOs and overburdened storm drains or coastal storm surges, as well as how developing floods compare to historical events.

Users can explore, for example, the details of how Hurricane Ida caused record-breaking flooding in Brooklyn in September 2021, or how a new-moon tide compounded the effects of a winter storm in December 2022 to cause substantial coastal flooding in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens.

Currently, FloodNet consists of 31 sensors. That number is already rising thanks to USD $7.2 million in new municipal funding announced in January. This funding will increase the number of monitored locations to 500 during the next 5 years. Network expansion already is underway, with the first new sensors installed in Staten Island scheduled to come online shortly.

“The city’s increased investment in FloodNet sensors will create an even more expansive, hyperlocal monitoring network that can alert New Yorkers in real time to dangerous flooding caused by intense rainfall,” New York City Chief Climate Officer and DEP Commissioner Rohit T. Aggarwala said in January. “This life-saving, innovative technology will help us better understand and prepare for future storms, plan and build more resilient communities, and design and implement infrastructure that will more effectively manage extreme weather.”

Top image courtesy of Alanna21/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post New York City Earmarks $400 Million For Flood Infrastructure, Information appeared first on Stormwater Report.

In humans, evolution is a process that occurs gradually over millions of years. For plants, the process is much faster. Just a few decades can provide ample time for plants to develop and proliferate new traits within a single species.

In the wetlands lining Chesapeake Bay, researchers have discovered major changes in the below-ground behavior of the common grass known as chairmaker’s bulrush. The change — shallower root systems — has evolved over less than a century. Researchers contend that this trend could have serious implications for the ability of wetlands in the Chesapeake Bay to keep pace with projected sea-level rise.

“Now that we’ve shown that evolutionary change can be fast enough and large enough to affect ecosystem resilience, we hope other researchers will consider this component of biological response to global environmental change,” said Jason McLachlan, University of Notre Dame Biologist and study co-author, in a release.

An Exercise in ‘Resurrection Ecology’

Coastal vegetation interacts with sea-level rise in two main ways: carbon sequestration and soil-surface accretion. Through photosynthesis, plants help to mitigate the effects of climate change by transferring carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into soil, inhibiting the greenhouse effect, and discouraging sea-level rise. On a more localized level, deeper root systems promote the gradual upward movement of the soil surface — a process called accretion — which helps coastal ecosystems keep up with rising waterlines.

Chairmaker’s bulrush is one of the most abundant plant species in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, and through carbon sequestration and soil-surface accretion, it plays a crucial role in the resilience of coastal wetlands. The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland, maintains preserved core-sediment samples that contain dormant chairmaker’s bulrush seeds from as early as 1931.

By planting these “resurrected” seeds alongside modern specimens, researchers were able to directly compare physiological differences between generations. Additionally, carrying out computer simulations enabled the team to project generational differences in long-term effects on carbon sequestration and soil-surface accretion rates in local marshes. The researchers, representing the University of Notre Dame, University of Tennessee (Knoxville), and University of Florida (Gainesville), published findings from their experiments in the February 2023 issue of the journal Science.

This type of study — known as resurrection ecology — is a time-tested approach to help assess long-term genealogical changes in plants and animals. What makes this study different, describes Megan Vahsen, lead study author and Notre Dame doctoral student, is that it focused specifically on underground characteristics.

“For reasons of inconvenience, science has often ignored what happens below ground,” Vahsen said in a release. “But we have learned so much in this study; there are so many secrets happening below ground.”

Seeking Answers Underground

From aboveground, modern bulrush specimens did not display substantial differences from their resurrected ancestors, according to the study. But underground, bulrush root systems steadily shrunk, with the bulk of their biomass on a clear trend upward toward the marsh surface over the decades. This trend remained stable in bulrush specimens gathered from different parts of the Chesapeake Bay shoreline.

“We think this surprising reduction in below-ground growth might be a response to increased pollution in Chesapeake Bay,” McLachlan said. “Decades of pollution have resulted in higher levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the waters, and since these are plant nutrients, evolution might now favor plants that ‘invest’ less in expensive roots.”

Computational marsh models showed that these smaller root systems entailed significant weaknesses in accumulating carbon in soils and supporting soil-surface accretion. Compared to plants from the previous century, modern bulrushes sequestered atmospheric carbon an average of 18% slower. Likewise, soil-surface accretion rates in marshes featuring modern bulrushes were an average of 8% lower than those in marshes containing the same concentration of ancestral specimens.

Assuming this evolutionary shrinkage continues, by 2100, Chesapeake Bay marshes dominated by chairmaker’s bulrush could rise by about 5 cm (2 in.) less than static projections based on the size of today’s average bulrush root system, the researchers write. Simulations based on sea-level rise scenarios of varying intensity also showed that changes in carbon capture due to shrinking root systems could account for an average of 4 cm (1.5 in.) of local sea-level rise by 2100. 

Importantly, the researchers caution that their results explore the long-term changes of only species in one location. As many types of vegetation work in concert to affect an ecosystem’s climate change resilience, study authors call for a more holistic approach to research into the relationship between plants and sea-level rise adaptation.

“Evolutionary change over almost a century played a destabilizing role for coastal ecosystems,” McLachlan said. “Other species in other ecosystems might have responded differently to human environmental impact, perhaps providing more resilience to ecosystems, or perhaps having no impact at all.”

Read the full study, “Rapid Plant Trait Evolution Can Alter Coastal Wetland Resilience to Sea Level Rise,” in the journal Science.

Top image courtesy of James DeMers/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Fast-Evolving Plants Undermine Flood Resilience in Chesapeake Bay appeared first on Stormwater Report.

As part of the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act signed into law on Dec. 29, 2022, legislators provided $10.1 billion in funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — nearly $600 million more than they received for the previous fiscal year. Much of that additional funding will enable EPA to carry out new programs authorized in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Among these provisions, the IIJA tasks EPA with designating between three and five Centers of Excellence for Stormwater Infrastructure Technologies (CESITs). While the latest round of appropriations did not fund every stormwater program authorized in the IIJA, the new influx will enable EPA to begin the process of identifying CESIT candidates.

The Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Virginia), in cooperation with the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance (NMSA; Alexandria, Virginia), had frequently called for the establishment of centers of excellence for stormwater in its annual Stormwater Policy Recommendations to Congress document. 

“On behalf of WEF and NMSA, we thank Congress for creating and funding the new CESIT program,” said Walt Marlowe, WEF Executive Director. “We will now work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and stakeholders to ensure that the CESITs and other federal stormwater resources help communities address their stormwater management needs.”

Excellence in Infrastructure Innovation

The $3 million allocation to the CESIT initiative, although short of the $5 million provisioned in the IIJA for the 2023 fiscal year, will support a forthcoming EPA grant program focused on identifying universities and nonprofit organizations to serve as CESITs.

According to IIJA language, successful CESIT applicants will “have demonstrated excellence in researching and developing new and emerging stormwater technologies.” For nonprofit organizations, water management must be a core focus of their stated missions. The measure also directs EPA to select CESITs that represent a range of different geographical regions and contexts.

Once selected, CESITs will work alongside each other as well as with governments, utilities, and other universities and nonprofit groups to coordinate specific types of research into stormwater infrastructure. These include, for example, new ways to prevent combined sewer overflows (CSOs), improvement of runoff water quality, identifying alternative approaches to funding and financing, and highlighting opportunities to align stormwater management priorities with those of other environmental, social, or economic programs.

A key CESIT function will be to analyze, assess, and benchmark the efficacy of new types of stormwater infrastructure against other alternatives. Findings from these ongoing inquiries will be publicly available online in a platform to be cooperatively developed and managed by the CESITs. Additionally, they will make recommendations to the federal government about future investments in the U.S. stormwater sector and provide technical assistance on optimizing stormwater infrastructure to governments and utilities who request it, IIJA language stipulates.

“The stormwater sector is extremely data-poor, especially regarding the performance of new and emerging technologies,” said Seth Brown, Executive Director of the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance. “These centers have the potential to bridge the gap between research and application in our sector through support of technology-focused initiatives.”

Winners and Losers in FY2023

In addition to funding the CESIT program, the appropriations package for fiscal year 2023 also provides financial support for various other stormwater efforts authorized in the IIJA. Several IIJA programs, however, did not receive appropriations for the coming year.

EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program, which provides long-term, low-cost loans to help subsidize regional water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure projects, received $68 million in appropriations. This amount significantly exceeds the $50 million in annual funding allocated to the program through the IIJA.

EPA’s new Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Reuse Municipal Grants program, although earmarked by the IIJA for $280 million in appropriations for 2023, will receive $50 million in startup funding. The new program will award grants to infrastructure projects targeting CSOs as well as runoff capture and use.

Other IIJA-backed stormwater programs did not receive funding for fiscal year 2023, such as:

• a new competitive grant program that would support water, wastewater, and stormwater reuse projects, approved in the IIJA to receive $25 million per year;
• a resilience and sustainability-focused grant program, also stipulated in the IIJA to receive $25 million per year, which is no longer applicable to stormwater projects; and
• a $10 million-per-year grant program to support municipal stormwater infrastructure planning and implementation, which went unfunded.

WEF and NMSA will continue to advocate for these and other programs that aim to advance the U.S. stormwater sector in hopes that they will receive funding during the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process. To participate, register to attend the 2023 National Water Policy Fly-In, which will take place April 25-26 in Washington, D.C. During this annual event, co-hosted by WEF, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (Washington, D.C.), the WateReuse Association (Alexandria, Virginia), and the Water Research Foundation (Alexandria, Virginia), water professionals meet with legislative staff to discuss water-sector policy priorities.

Top image courtesy of Francine Sreca/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Appropriations Set Stage for Stormwater Centers of Excellence appeared first on Stormwater Report.

The reports, announced in November during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 27^th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, respond to a call from President Biden earlier this year to identify opportunities to expand the use of nature-based solutions across the federal government and beyond. They include the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, which presents a five-point plan to better facilitate the use of nature-based solutions via federal spending protocols, as well as the Nature-Based Solutions Resource Guide, which provides examples of ways federal agencies have used nature-based solutions to achieve various goals. Both reports were authored by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, in collaboration with federal agencies.

“There is often an assumption that tackling the climate crisis requires only technological solutions or that ‘innovation’ means ‘technology,’” authors of the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap write. “This report presents compelling evidence that nature-based solutions are innovative, and that they are highly complementary to necessary technological solutions. Nature-based solutions and technology can be powerful allies. Indeed, the climate crisis demands that we deploy all available, proven, science- and evidence-based solutions.”

Roadmap Toward Resilience

According to the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, researchers estimate that properly designed and maintained nature-based solutions have the potential to provide more than one-third of the climate change mitigation needed to stabilize warming in the U.S. to below 2° C (3.6° F) by 2100 and would do so at a lower cost than conventional approaches. Unlocking the full potential of nature-based solutions, according to the report, will require a combination of policy, funding, and research, as well as growing the nature-based workforce and highlighting successful demonstration projects.

Despite their varied functions and focuses, authors broadly advise federal agencies to update internal policies as well as external guidance to create additional flexibility for nature-based solutions. This is particularly important in the case of permitting processes, agency review methods, and project cost-share requirements, all of which may exclude nature-based solutions as acceptable options to achieve a specified goal. The White House Office of Management and Budget, for example, is currently reviewing its guidance on benefit-cost analyses to help federal agencies more accurately quantify the value of nature-based solutions in regulatory decisions, the guide describes.

By extending eligibility for nature-based solutions into new and existing grant and incentive programs, report authors describe that federal agencies can enable states, municipalities, and nonprofit groups to view nature-based solutions as a more desirable option. Some federal agencies are also pioneering public innovation challenges as well as innovative financing models to spur adoption of nature-based solutions within the private sector, authors write.

Many agencies maintain large amounts of federally owned land, which creates an opportunity to demonstrate the possibilities of what nature-based solutions can achieve for other landowners. According to the roadmap, construction standards for federal facilities should specifically require the use of nature-based solutions wherever possible. Agencies should also lead efforts to perform research on best practices for measuring and verifying the long-term performance of nature-based solutions on federal property in order to build private-sector confidence that these projects are effective. The U.S. Department of Defense, which owns approximately 11 million ha (27 million ac) of land, is currently developing policies to prioritize nature-based solutions on U.S. military installations as well as implement long-term performance monitoring strategies, for example.

Read the full, 44-page Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap for more details on the U.S. federal government’s strategy.

Demonstrating Natural Potential

The Nature-Based Solutions Resource Guide contains several examples of how federal projects have mobilized nature to improve stormwater management and discourage flooding. In addition to profiles of 30 government-led, nature-based solutions by various offices and agencies, the guide also compiles more than 175 links to resources, tools, guidance, and technical assistance from federal sources on ways to make the most of natural landscapes and green infrastructure.

In New Orleans, for example, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided a grant that funded the construction of an innovative “stormwater park” in a neighborhood located entirely below sea level. Known as the Mirabeau Water Garden, the park features expansive bioretention measures that capture, measure, and store stormwater while also addressing chronic land subsidence issues. The project, estimated to reduce damages from a 10-year storm event by as much as 40%, reduces flood damages by a value equal to at least twice the amount of capital invested by FEMA while also improving the quality of life of neighborhood residents, according to the guide.

For a decade, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has managed a unique innovation challenge targeting college students. The annual Campus RainWorks Challenge tasks teams of students to design green infrastructure interventions that aim to solve stormwater management challenges on their specific college campuses in the form of either small-scale demonstration projects or far-reaching master plans. According to the guide, more than 800 teams originating from more than 270 U.S. colleges and universities have taken on the Campus RainWorks Challenge to date, resulting in a growing collection of nature-based stormwater projects while providing valuable real-world experience to the burgeoning green infrastructure workforce.

Get more examples of federal efforts to champion nature-based solutions in the 43-page Nature-Based Solutions Resource Guide.             

Top image courtesy of U.S. National Archives

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post White House Releases Plan to Scale Up Nature-Based Solutions Nationwide appeared first on Stormwater Report.

This month, Google unveiled FloodHub, a publicly accessible portal that enables users to detect riverine flooding up to a week in advance at parcel-scale resolution, showing precisely where rivers likely will overflow as well as how much flooding locals can expect. The technical work underpinning FloodHub has been underway since 2018, the company writes, beginning with coverage of India and Bangladesh and gradually scaling up to more countries. Today, FloodHub offers ongoing forecasts in 20 countries across Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America, with a goal to extend coverage worldwide, writes Yossi Matias, head of Google’s Crisis Response team.

“This expansion in geographic coverage is possible thanks to our recent breakthroughs in AI-based flood forecasting models,” Matias describes. “We’re committed to expanding to more countries.”

Forecasting With FloodHub

When Google formed partnerships with the Indian Central Water Commission and Bangladesh Water Development Board in 2018, the company sought to demonstrate that a machine-learning program trained on local river gauges could provide proactive and actionable flooding information to those living along the region’s major rivers. The product of this early work was a smartphone-based notification system that would give advance warning to any device with either Google Search or Google Maps installed if the program expected flooding based on shifting water levels and historical patterns.

In 2021, according to Matias, this notification system delivered 115 million flood alert notifications to 23 million people in India and Bangladesh. It also informed on-the-ground outreach efforts by community groups to those living in the region without Google-accessible devices.

However, the program’s reliance on river gauges not only limited the range of rivers on which it could be applied, but also provided only a maximum of 2-3 days of advance notice to locals. In recent years, Google describes, machine learning has become sophisticated enough to make functional, parcel-scale predictions incorporating weather forecasts in addition to river-gauge readings. In an August study about the new machine-learning approach at the foundation of FloodHub, Google researchers describe how incorporating weather forecasts from such sources as the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) can yield accurate flood predictions up to a week in advance of a river overflow event as well as more reliably assess threats for river basins without expansive gauge networks.

With FloodHub, Google’s notification system has evolved into a visual and interactive format, appearing as an overlay of data gleaned from its machine-learning program on top of its popular Google Earth interface. At a glance, users can identify regions where flooding is likely according to a color-coded system of severity. They can then zoom in for more details on specific areas at risk and the likely timing of the event.

Data-Driven Stormwater Control

Other recent work by Google in the field of stormwater management has applied machine learning to disaster response after hurricanes as well as green infrastructure implementation.

In 2020, Google partnered with the United Nations World Food Program to introduce a new way to assess damages and prioritize relief efforts after a hurricane by using machine learning to quickly interpret satellite imagery. Particularly when hurricanes cause damages over a large area, disaster response professionals often undertake a manual process to pore through thousands of satellite images to assess the areas hit hardest, a process that typically takes days to complete. Google’s system, by contrast, analyzes satellite images to detect the boundaries of each specific property within a damaged area and compare the post-hurricane state of each parcel against the most recent pre-hurricane image available. It then applies an algorithm to determine which areas require the most urgent assistance, accelerating response times. As reported by Wired, the program was recently deployed in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian, where it helped aid groups coordinate relief payments.

While launching FloodHub, Google also announced plans to improve on its existing Tree Canopy Insights app. The app, based on the Google Earth engine, provides a neighborhood-by-neighborhood overlook of tree canopy coverage in 14 U.S. cities, offering this information alongside local climatic and socioeconomic data. By providing an accessible connection between canopy coverage and such factors as surface temperatures, population density, and median household income, the app aims to help urban planners pinpoint areas where planting new trees can make the most significant differences in residents’ quality of life, Matias describes. By the end of 2022, Google intends to expand the app’s coverage to “hundreds of cities,” the company announced in November.

Top image courtesy of PIRO/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post <strong>Google Takes on Flooding With Satellites, Machine Learning</strong> appeared first on Stormwater Report.

Also known as the MS4 Awards, the program was developed in 2015 by WEF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to celebrate regulated Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4) who go above and beyond the requirements of their permits to protect human health and the environment. Nominees are either Phase I or Phase II MS4 permittees, who undergo a rigorous review by a committee of stormwater management experts that ultimately selects three MS4 Award winners from each phase: an Overall winner, a Program Management winner, and an Innovation winner. In addition to these six winners, other applicants receive a rank of either Gold, Silver, or Bronze in both Program Management and Innovation, intended to benchmark their operations against other stormwater organizations of similar size.      

Anne Arundel County – Phase I Overall and Innovation Winner

This year, the Anne Arundel County (Maryland) Bureau of Watershed Protection & Restoration (BWPR) not only achieved the best Overall score among Phase I MS4 permittees, but also placed highest in the Innovation category. BWPR’s accomplishment marks their second-consecutive year as Phase I Overall winners as well as their first Phase I Innovation win.

The judging panel acknowledged BWPR’s sound management of its large service area, encompassing 13 watersheds surrounding the Annapolis metro area. Operating a stormwater utility that charges user fees in addition to receiving funding from local property taxes, in the last decade, BWPR has directed more than $250 million for new water quality restoration projects within its service area as well as $40 million to repair, maintain, or replace existing stormwater infrastructure.

The bureau has also demonstrated its ability to mobilize volunteers, such as via its Anne Arundel County Watershed Stewards Academy program, which has equipped more than 180,000 residents with green infrastructure skills and resulted in more than 3,500 new, volunteer-built green infrastructure projects.

Since 2021, BWPR has introduced two new, web-based tools intended to make it easier for residents and local nonprofit groups to earn grants from the county to build or maintain stormwater projects. The bureau first introduced the BMP Credit Calculator, which enables applicants to quickly determine the amount of impervious service restoration or pollutant reduction credits for which their proposed projects will be eligible. Earlier this year, BWPR followed up with the Restoration Estimator Tool, targeting larger projects by nonprofit groups. The tool enables users to conceptualize the interplay of multiple pieces of proposed stormwater infrastructure across a large area, outputting information not only on grant eligibility, but on private landowners who would be affected by the proposal. This allows nonprofit groups to quickly incorporate the cost-effectiveness of landowner outreach into their proposals, facilitating the planning process.

Colorado Springs Stormwater Enterprise – Phase I Program Management Winner

In the Phase I Program Management category, judges recognized the City of Colorado Springs Stormwater Enterprise (CSSE) as this year’s winner.

Like many other MS4 communities, CSSE receives funding from a monthly stormwater management fee collected from all developed parcels within its 80-ha (200-ac) service area. However, whereas many parcel fees scale in relation to the amount of impervious area on each property, CSSE simplifies its rate structure by charging a flat $7.50 for all residential units and $43 per non-residential acre. This straightforward approach allows CSSE’s small team of three full-time employees to collect and allocate approximately $24 million each year for stormwater projects.

Approximately $12-14 million of that income each year, according to CSSE’s nomination materials, goes toward roughly 70 new capital projects that may include green and gray infrastructure, emergency repairs, and wetland restoration efforts. The remainder supports a comprehensive suite of programs focused on tracking and eliminating illicit discharges, performing public outreach about the importance of stormwater management and watershed stewardship, inspecting existing stormwater infrastructure, and reviewing designs for new projects, in addition to other activities.

Recently, CSSE introduced an online portal that streamlines the document review, approval, and permitting process for new infrastructure proposals, as well as successfully updated city codes to require green infrastructure in new developments.

City of Frisco Stormwater Division – Phase II Overall Winner

Proper stormwater management is particularly important for the City of Frisco (Texas) Stormwater Division, the agency responsible for protecting the surface water that serves as the primary source of drinking water for approximately 5.5 million people in the greater Dallas area. Frisco’s Stormwater Division won this year’s Phase II Overall MS4 Award.

The judging panel lauded Frisco’s proactive approach to protecting the surface water within its service area, beginning in 2006 when Frisco’s population was about 90,000. Despite relatively little development activity at that time, the City of Frisco Stormwater Division implemented an ordinance mandating the use of green infrastructure to treat runoff from all new and redeveloped parking areas. Today, following an unprecedented population boom, Frisco’s population is approximately 216,000. According to nomination materials, roughly 59% of parking areas within the city were built since the 2006 ordinance, all of which prominently feature green infrastructure. The city strengthened its green infrastructure requirements in 2019, requiring developers to treat 100% of runoff generated on new or redeveloped parking areas.

The City of Frisco Stormwater Division also recently installed a first-of-its-kind structure — developed in-house — that targets floating debris in local waterways. After conceptualizing several solutions to remove floating waste, the division found that most conventional designs would raise the city’s vulnerability to flooding during heavy storms. City engineers constructed a new device, known as a “swinging trash rack,” that attaches to an existing concrete apron above a local river. It features several debris nets equipped to collect trash and other debris. When the river’s waterline rises above a certain point, however, the structure opens like a gate to keep the river from overflowing. Since its installation in November 2020, Frisco’s swinging trash rack has collected and removed approximately 3.3 tons of debris, according to nomination materials.

St. Louis MS4 Co-Permittee Group – Phase II Program Management Winner

With approximately 1.3 million people living in its 1,360-km² (525-mi²) service area, the St. Louis MS4 Co-Permittee Group received this year’s Phase II MS4 Award for Program Management due in part to its extensive and innovative outreach activities. The St. Louis MS4 Co-Permittee Group is a special-purpose agency under the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSLSD), which operates both a wastewater and stormwater utility serving the city.

Because the MSLSD service area is so expansive, nomination materials describe the agency’s decentralized approach to watershed management, focused on mobilizing residents to play a role in protecting local surface water and incentivizing landowners to construct and maintain small-scale stormwater projects.

MSLSD collaborates with a range of unconventional partners to further its decentralized strategy. These include, for example, partnerships focused on conservation and anti-littering outreach with the St. Louis Aquarium and St. Louis University, as well as a grant program to provide financial assistance for parcel-scale green infrastructure projects introduced alongside Missouri Botanical Gardens.

Much of MSLSD’s day-to-day work focuses on inspecting stormwater infrastructure built on private lands in addition to maintaining its roughly 15,500 km (9,600 mi) of collection systems, nearly 300 pumping stations, and seven full-scale water resource recovery facilities. In 2021, the agency completed more than 1,600 inspections on private property and surveyed approximately 450 km (280 mi) of streams in its service area to identify illicit discharges, stream erosion, debris buildup, and flooding vulnerabilities.

City of Richmond Stormwater Utility – Phase II Innovation Winner

Since 2013, the City of Richmond, Virginia, has operated a stormwater utility as part of a multi-pronged approach to fulfill the city’s obligations under EPA’s Chesapeake Bay TMDL. The utility, which won this year’s Phase II MS4 Award for Innovation, was quick to form bonds across the municipal government as well as local nonprofits and universities. It played an instrumental role in convening Richmond’s RVAH2O stakeholder group in 2014, which focuses on developing innovative strategies to protect local surface water and reduce flooding.

Today, Richmond’s Stormwater Utility personally oversees more than 30 capital improvement projects throughout its service area with a total value of over $65 million, according to nomination materials, in addition to taking steps to facilitate the construction of decentralized stormwater projects by both public and private property owners.

One example is the utility’s Greening Richmond Public Libraries initiative, introduced in 2015, which involves partnering with local nonprofit groups to install expansive green infrastructure measures across the city’s nine public libraries. After successful implementations at one library, the initiative gradually spread to three other libraries, with plans to continue the initiative citywide. The campaign also includes free rain-barrel workshops at all nine libraries.

The utility also recently introduced a green infrastructure “ranking tool,” enabling property owners in Richmond to identify the most cost-effective green infrastructure interventions for a specific area of focus based on broader goals such as water quality, social equity, and flood prevention. The new tool is part of a broader Green Infrastructure Master Plan developed by the utility alongside the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (Washington, D.C.) in 2019.

Visit the WEF website for a full list of 2022 Gold, Silver, and Bronze MS4 Awardees.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post 2022 WEF MS4 Awards Granted to Thirteen Exemplary Stormwater Organizations appeared first on Stormwater Report.