EDITORS NOTE:

This week, we’re sharing an article from the USGS on research focusing on development and stream impacts–namely the adverse effects on aquatic biota. The article has major implications for stormwater management:

More development means more impervious cover means more water impacts means less aquatic life.

Sounds reasonable. These research results have been played out time and again; they have been communicated by well-respected sources such as the Center for Watershed Protection over many years, and argued by stormwater experts such as the Center’s former director, Tom Schueler. And they send an important message.

But, we feel the need to insert an important caveat here – lest these research findings be used to condemn all development and equate any sort of higher density development as inimical to stream life. After all, don’t we continue to maintain in other contexts that the “city” is the ultimate BMP?! The message here must be understood to include an important qualification:

More development using the same conventionally flawed stormwater practices (or none at all) means more impervious cover means more water impacts means less aquatic life.

This is critical. Evaluate the details of the USGS research more closely (metropolitan areas in Boston, Raleigh, Atlanta, Birmingham, Milwaukee-Green Bay, Denver, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Salt Lake City, Portland Oregon). Because the watersheds of the streams being studied include all types of development, much of it older, and because much of this watershed development suffers from no stormwater management whatsoever (in some older cases) or, alternatively, inadequate stormwater management (i.e., simple detention),we need to be very careful about drawing conclusions. What we lack are the results from higher density development using optimal or close to optimal stormwater management systems.

Our BMP manuals make the case for substantial quality and quantity performance for many BMPs. Although few give us 100 percent performance, the argument can be made that with intensive use of both non-structural and structural BMPs, impacts to streams and aquatic life can be dramatically reduced, minimized. Particulate and solubilized nonpoint source pollutant loads can be kept to modest levels. Natural instream hydrology can be nearly mimicked. Pre-development temperature regimes can be almost maintained.

Density is not a dirty word - just the reverse. The “city” is the ultimate BMP. Load as much human-related development into the most compact form (the “city”) as is feasible – using state-of-the-art BMPs (see green infrastructure and all the rest). Retain as much undisturbed area surrounding the “city” in perpetuity. And human life and aquatic life can achieve balance. We must be very careful not to conclude that low density development with impervious cover less than 10 percent, including extremely large-lot residential subdivisions is the ultimate solution to stormwater management/watershed management problems. Such a mindset translates - net -into vastly more land disturbance and vastly more impervious cover and vastly more nonpoint source pollutant loads with vastly more stormwater flow.

For the USGS  discussion, Aquatic Life Declines at Early Stages of Urban Development, go here>>

admin From the Editors aquatic life, BMPs, environmental site design, green infrastructure, impervious cover, LID, Nonpoint source pollution, PA BMP Manual, stormwater runoff, water quality

From THE BAY JOURNAL: Challenges to stormwater rules threaten to weaken water quality

Proponents are working to show that new regulations are not as pricey as feared and can even cost less than current methods.

State efforts to reduce stormwater runoff from development sites in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania are facing an onslaught of questions and challenges that conservationists worry could weaken water quality protection in the Chesapeake region.

States are under pressure to develop robust stormwater regulations to meet federal pollution limits for rivers known as TMDLs, or Total Maximum Daily Loads. In January, the EPA announced plans to write federal stormwater regulations for the Bay watershed.

Although development of the regulations has just begun, they will eventually apply to any jurisdiction without a satisfactory stormwater program of its own.

“We’re all going toward this brave new world of low-impact development,” said Thomas Schueler of the Chesapeake Stormwater Network. “But no one truly understands the costs, and the engineering community is to differing degrees uncertain about how to proceed. It’s new stuff.”

See the full article.

Bioretention Hydrology

A recent paper on bioretention hydrologic performance from the Chesapeake Stormwater Network provides reliable data on how runoff reduction actually works within test bioretention cells. This solid paper also provides technical support for many of the Level 1 and 2 design criteria that are being proposed in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Webinar slated for April 16: Nutrient Trading in PA Positively Impacting the Chesapeake Bay

On April 16^th, 2010, the Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts (PACD), PA DEP, and  the PA Department of Agriculture are jointly hosting a webinar entitled “Nutrient Trading in PA Positively Impacting the Chesapeake Bay” focusing on nutrient credit trading in Pennsylvania.  Click here for the full news release and for more details on the webinar.  For more information, contact Brenda Shambaugh at (717) 238-7223X19 or email Brenda-Shambaugh@pacd.org.

admin Chesapeake Bay bioretention, Chesapeake Bay, environmental site design, LID, nutrient credit system, nutrient trading, stormwater legislation, stormwater runoff, TMDL

In our continuing commentary on the latest discussions coming out in the stormwater management world, we wanted to share some thoughts on another interesting article from the March/April issue of Stormwater magazine.

Street Dirt: A Better Way of Measuring BMP Effectiveness (Gary R. Minton and Roger C Sutherland)

In a world so fiscally challenged and where costly wet weather water quality sampling programs are undergoing sometimes savage reductions, authors offer some fairly radical recommendations for future stormwater programming.  Use street dirt chemistry as an indicator of BMP effectiveness, rather than the much more costly and complex wet weather sampling programs.

In this article, we explore a radically different means to measure effect and progress: the chemistry of street dirt. If our BMPs are having an effect, it should be reflected in the chemistry of street dirt. Street dirt, rather than stormwater, becomes the integrator of community behavior. For example, if the use of pesticides is being reduced over time, it will be apparent in the chemistry of the street dirt. Collecting and evaluating street dirt has many advantages over collecting water at outfalls. It is cheaper per sampling station, and it requires a lower level of technical expertise, a simpler menu of equipment, and lesser constraints on sampling procedures and analytical holding times. There is no issue of detection limits, and it is arguably safer. The information can also be used to directly evaluate the cost and cost-effectiveness of the particular BMPs themselves, such as sump cleaning and street sweeping. Street dirt sampling can be complemented with dry and wet fall sampling as practiced by air-quality regulators. A particular BMP can be tied directly to the information that is collected.

Although authors ask more questions than get answered, the article is especially useful for all those Pennsylvania communities facing MS4 permitting requirements. Check out the complete article.

Stormwater Magazine also features some thought provoking articles that appear only on their website.  In the Web-Only Articles section, there’s an interesting piece looking at how Integrated Designs Enhance Public Landscapes.  Andrew Fox writes about enhancing public landscapes through integrating design aesthetics, resource conservation, design unification, and clarity.  The potential for social programmatic uses is considered, in addition to solving for proper system function, safety, durability and maintainability.  By integrating program uses, the resources characteristics as well as sustainability, reductions can be realized in capital expenditures, land disturbance, pollution, irrigation and surface runoff.

An interesting excerpt from the article:

Stormwater management is a primary concern within an integrated team structure. While always solving for proper system function, safety, durability, and maintainability, the primary considerations of integrated stormwater design also include aesthetics, resource conservation, design unification and clarity, and the potential for social programmatic use(s). These additional concerns broaden the reach of every integrated stormwater feature; they create opportunities to insert valuable ecological and humanistic function(s) into any project. The overall objective is to develop a complex, rich, and unified landscape that offers clients and stakeholders a range of diverse experiences exceeding those allowed through solely prescriptive and/or myopic approaches to stormwater management.

You can access the complete article here.

Take a look — and let us know what you think!

admin Stormwater BMPs BMPs, environmental site design, Nonpoint source pollution, stormwater best management practices, stormwater runoff, stormwater standards, water quality

2010 Schuylkill Watershed Congress
March 13th, 2010
Montgomery County Community College - West Campus
Pottstown, Pennsylvania

The Schuylkill Watershed Congress is an annual gathering of citizens interested in understanding, protecting and restoring local watersheds and streams. This event features a diverse program with concurrent and poster sessions covering a broad range of watershed topics.

The 2010 Keynote Presentation offers a panel discussion titled “How to Challenge a Stormwater Permit and Win: A Look at the Crum Creek Neighbors Decision. Michele Adams (Meliora Environmental Design), James A. Schmid, Ph. D. (Schmid & Company, Inc., Consulting Ecologists), and John Wilmer (Environmental Attorney), will tell the story behind the recent successful legal challenge to a stormwater permit given to a developer in an Exceptional Value designated watershed in Delaware County.

Complete details on all sessions being offered and for registration and sponsorship information can be found here

Registration forms can be downloaded here

admin Announcements BMPs, clean water, Delaware River Basin, environmental site design, flood control, Nonpoint source pollution, rainwater collection, Schuylkill River, stormwater best management practices, stormwater runoff, water quality, watershed protection, wet weather

The March/April issue of Stormwater includes Paul Crabtree’s Guest Editorial, “Principles of Smart Growth and Their Corresponding Rainwater Dos and Donts,” which is full of useful guidance that translates Smart Growth into stormwater best management practices.  Here’s a sampling of excerpts from the piece, which includes some great illustrations.

1. Create a Range of Housing Opportunities and Choices.

An integral component in any smart growth strategy is the provision of quality housing for people of all income levels. Conventional sprawl patterns consisting of large pods of single-use, large lot subdivisions and gated communities do not accomplish this goal.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do represent how stormwater best management practices (BMPs) can apply in different types of housing configurations, not just single-family
detached houses.

Don’t represent low-impact development (LID) BMPs with examples where both the  “do” and the “don’t” are sprawl.

2. Create Walkable Neighborhoods.

Walkable communities are desirable places to live, work, learn, worship, and play, and therefore a key component of smart growth. Drive-only suburbia is not walkable; one must drive to get to everything because all of the services are remote and separated, such as school complexes, shopping malls, business parks, and park complexes.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do ensure that BMPs within urban streets provide for great walkability and are complete streets that include sidewalks, street trees, narrower vehicle lanes, on-street parking, and attractive and safe frontages.

Don’t eliminate elements of a complete street in order to achieve rainwater improvements.

3. Encourage Community and Stakeholder Collaboration.

Growth can create great places to live, work, and play-if it responds to a community’s own sense of how and where it wants to grow. Developers and their specialist consultants deciding beforehand what a project will consist of and entering into adversarial “negotiations” during a public entitlement process can be very inefficient and counterproductive.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do educate the community on rainwater issues and get their feedback on potential solutions. Encourage engineering professionals to work as part of a holistic team to help change the mindset and rules of municipalities, developers, and the professions as a whole.

Don’t write regulations and programs without public engagement, and without looking outside the silo of your own profession for holistic solutions.

4.  Foster Distinctive, Attractive Communities with a Strong Sense of Place.

Smart growth encourages communities to craft a vision and set standards for development and construction which respond to community values of architectural beauty and distinctiveness, as well as expanded choices in housing and transportation. Conventional land use codes and engineering standards often encourage or mandate sprawl patterns that lack distinctive character.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do: Professional consultants and builders need to design aesthetically to create facilities that people will enjoy and care for. An important part of this effort is designing and building attractive rainwater treatment facilities that fit the context of the site within the community or watershed. For example, see http://www.lightimprint.org/.

Don’t design and build BMPs for technical performance only, without responding to community values of beauty and distinctiveness.

5. Make Development Decisions Predictable, Fair, and Cost Effective.

For a community to be successful in implementing smart growth, it must be embraced by the private sector. Development regulations and processes that are onerous, confusing, expensive, and adversarial will be despised by the public.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do make BMPs and regulations clear, simple, and economical, and encourage intrinsic green tools such as source control and natural drainage solutions.

Don’t issue ambiguous regulations that ignore economic factors, such as enforcing gold-plated devices or high tech as the only compliance alternatives.

6. Mix Land Uses.

Smart growth supports the integration of mixed land uses into communities as a critical component of achieving better places to live. Multiuse facilities that are still separated pods-such as a power center that is adjacent to an apartment complex, which is adjacent to a business park, which is near a hospital campus, all of which have huge parking lots-do not achieve the integration of mixed uses that can reduce vehicle miles traveled.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do encourage compact mixed uses that can reduce parking spaces through shared-parking scenarios and reduced driving, not drive-only sprawl.

Don’t display as exemplars BMPs located in separated-pod, single-use developments that result in drive-only access and create wide streets, large expanses of parking lots, and sprawling one-story building programs.

7. Preserve Open Space, Farmland, Natural Beauty, and Critical Environmental Areas.

Open space preservation supports smart growth goals by bolstering local economies, preserving critical environmental areas, improving our communities quality of life, and guiding new growth into existing communities. Avoid the tendency to spread out to develop cheaper agricultural or natural lands, which is only possible because the automobile allows lack of discipline in urban planning.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do encourage the improvement of existing sites by incentivizing infill and redevelopment. Significant watershed gains can be made by retrofitting existing areas and avoiding the development of greenfields.

Don’t make the rainwater regulations for retrofitting of infill and redevelopment sites the same as for greenfield sites.

8. Provide a Variety of Transportation Choices.

Providing people with more choices in housing, shopping, communities, and transportation is a key aim of smart growth. Planning and building communities with the assumption that in America everyone owns and drives a car is harmful to the environment and ignores the large number of non-drivers such as the young and elderly.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do integrate rainwater solutions into all types of streets and highways and recognize the multimodal needs for varying thoroughfare types.

Don’t design green streets without integrating the rainwater needs with the needs of transportation, pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicles. An example would be a bioswale on a street with wide paving and no sidewalks.

9. Strengthen and Direct Development Toward Existing Communities.

Smart growth directs development toward existing communities already served by infrastructure, seeking to utilize the resources that existing neighborhoods offer and to conserve open space and irreplaceable natural resources on the urban fringe. Overextending infrastructure into the hinterlands is an often misguided effort to encourage the real estate growth machine.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do study the regional watershed and locate ways to fix problems within the existing community. Encourage regulations that are scaled toward the neighborhood and community and that address BMPs based on the site’s contextual basis along the rural-to-urban transect. See http://www.transect.org/.

Don’t create regulations or programs that make it easier to comply in new developments than in existing communities. Don’t write or adopt land use codes or stormwater regulations that are one-size-fits-all-ignoring the context of the development site. Main Street blocks need to be treated differently than detached single-family blocks.

10. Take Advantage of Compact Building Design.

Smart growth provides a means for communities to incorporate more compact building design as an alternative to conventional, land-consumptive development. Regulations that severely limit density, building heights, floor-area ratios, or mixed-use buildings should be considered potentially harmful to the environment.

Rainwater Dos and Don’ts:

Do consider “density as a BMP” on the basis of impacts on a per capita basis rather than a per-acre basis only.

Don’t portray the effects of percent impervious area without also addressing the per capita impacts and acknowledging that there is a basic sustainable human footprint that needs to be accounted for.

Conclusion

Make your rainwater regulations and practices smarter, and avoid unintended negative consequences, by expanding your expertise through learning and applying the Ten Principles of Smart Growth.

The full text of the article can be found here.

admin Low Impact Development BMPs, environmental site design, green infrastructure, smart growth, stormwater best management practices, stormwater runoff, wet weather