Stormwater a Central Theme at Combined Land, Water & Communities / Confluence 2009 Conference
At last week’s 3-day combined Working Together to Protect our Land, Water & Communities (Pennsylvania Land Trust Association) and Confluence 2009 (Chesapeake Bay Foundation) Conference in State College, stormwater was a central theme.
Thursday featured Michele Adams, PE (of Meliora Design and one of the authors of PADEP’s recent Stormwater BMP Manual) and Steve Benz, PE (Sasaki Associates in Boston) advocating the use of Bob Pitt’s (University of Alabama) Small Storm Hydrology, a stormwater calculation methodology that “fits” Low Impact Development technologies and its overall objectives. Small Storm Hydrology targets runoff volumes and runoff water quality and argues against the conventional focus on large design storms. Session participants got to re-design commercial and residential case studies and apply the LID principles presented in the morning discussion. Understanding Pitt’s methodology is important if LID is to be applied broadly across Pennsylvania municipalities (as indicated in the BMP Manual). Moving from the USDA-NRCS Soil Cover Complex Method with its known Curve Number inaccuracies and bias toward large storm events is inevitable as LID gains prominence. Stay tuned as methodological challenges integrating volume control with peak rate control emerge - every bit as critical.
On Friday, Working Together/Confluence offered a “Municipal Protection of Land and Water Resources” all-day workshop that included CBF’s Harry Campbell, PE and Brandywine Conservancy’s Wes Horner. Wes reviewed technical elements of a stormwater program, arguing for emphasis on preventive non-structural BMP’s as well as the full array of mitigative structural BMP’s (consistent with the PADEP BMP Manual). Harry discussed the importance of integrating all of these stormwater (Low Impact Development) elements into the municipal subdivision/land development ordinance (SLDO) - including far more than just the traditional stormwater section to include everything from street widths and paving standards to curbing to landscaping and a myriad of other SLDO elements. Harry, subbing for Tom Schueler, also discussed the essential components of PADEP’s existing MS4 program, reviewing approaches to the required 6 minimum control measures. All conference presentations, materials, handouts are being posted on the conference website, ConservationTools.org.
Saturday sessions included Stormwater I and Stormwater II, as well as GreenTreks’ Barry Lewis (Web Resources for Conservation: StormwaterPA and ConservationTools.org). Like many of his other talks around the state, Barry described the intent and current and future content of StormwaterPA and encouraged participants to utilize the tools offered on the website and participate in its ongoing development. Stormwater I recapped the essential components of Low Impact Development and discussed ways of selecting the right BMP at the right site for the right development type. Stormwater II focused on 2 case studies: holistic stormwater/wastewater/water supply at Penn State Main Campus and in the Harrisburg area.
Throughout all of these discussions, it is clear that stormwater and its successful management embodies that critical area where land and water conservation come together.
News Update…
Pennsylvania, Bay States Set New Milestones for Accelerated Cleanup of Chesapeake Bay. See full DEP update here.
The Temple-Villanova Sustainable Stormwater Initiative (T-VSSI) continues to update its Regional BMP Database, which is a great resource for finding model stormwater best management practices (BMPs) that have been implemented in Southeastern Pennsylvania. The database contains project descriptions, costs, photos, plant lists and planting diagrams, design drawings and other information. Check out the BMP Database here.
Another resource worth looking into is Chester County’s BMP Tour Book. Seeing is believing. This kind of a tour of successfully executed BMP’s in your area can be very useful in educating stakeholders - builders and developers, consulting engineers, local boards and officials. Just make sure the BMP’s are “successfully executed.”
