Saving our

watersheds by

greening our cities

January 12, 2011

Bill Stack

Center for Watershed

Protection

Citizen

Stewardship

35%

Redevelopment

15%

Stormwater

Retrofitting

50%

3-Way Partnership

Stream Restoration, Urban Best Management

Practices, Community Greening, In-line Debris

Collection, Infrastructure Cleaning and Inspection,

Development Greening

The Green RenaissanceIt’s what the public wants

Cost of the Program: $32 Million Per Year

Benefits:

Harder to implement without CSOs

River Valley Watersheds

Vacant Lands = SWM opportunities

How do we develop a

watershed

restoration plan with

active community

leadership for an

area of enclosed

streams where the

environmental quality

and social fabric of

the watershed are

both impaired?

Watershed Community Collaboration

Restoration

projects should

be selected

with an

understanding

of their

interactions and

how they will

perform in

synergy to

impact the

watershed.

Neighborhood Assessment

• Neighborhood Source Assessment (NSA)

• Hotspot Site Investigation (HSI)

• Pervious Area Assessment (PAA)

• Streets and Storm Drains (SSD)Two levels of BMP screening needed

Project Selection

• The presence of trees,

utilities (i.e., gas, electric,

water, sanitary sewer,

etc.), very compacted

urban soils, and a general

lack of space ruled out a

lot of projects and BMP

types…

– Only 35 sites were

investigated in detail

– The list of potential BMP

types was trimmed down to

about 5

Don’t forget public out-reach at program and project scales

Paired watershed

monitoring design

Monitoring, Evaluation and Research

Methods

Compare Median Concentration Storm Samples

Lead, Total

2018

46

44

16

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Hamilton

Storm EMC

Radecke

Storm EMC

Lanvale St.

Storm Comp

Baltimore St.

Storm Comp

National

Storm EMC

Lead

, T

ota

l (u

g/L

)

Medians Current Lab Reporting Limit

Pollution Hotspot

Monitoring Stations

Ultra Urban Watershed

School Greening: before and after

Design and Construction• Construction

Note prefab tree planter boxes

B-1 Plaza Bioretention

Post- Construction

Pre-Construction

During

Construction

B-15: Tree Box Inlet with

Curb Extension and

BioretentionPost- Construction

Pre-Construction

During

Construction

C-13: Filterra Unit

Post- Construction

Pre-Construction

During

Construction

I-1: Impervious Cover

Removal

Post- Construction

Pre-Construction

During

Construction

(Tried deep soil tilling)

Figure 9: Sidewalk enhancements on Collington between Lombard and Baltimore

Streets

Figure 10: Bump out at Collington and Lombard Street

Power of the people

www.awsps.org

Member Benefits

Two issues of the Watershed Science Bulletin

Substantial webcast discounts

50% discounts on publications

Subscription to our quarterly e-newsletter, Runoff Rundown