Glen L. Craig, RLA

1. Green Infrastructure: Better Stormwater Solutions Source:greenworks.pc.wordpress.com Glen L. Craig, RLA

2. Facts: • In 1995 in Chicago 800 people died when temperatures reached 106° for a week straight. • 96% of scientists agree that global warming is happening. • Why is our planet getting warmer? Cars and the production of power. • Global warming is all about weather extremes. • In the U.S. moderate rains have decreased as heavy rains increase. • As carbon dioxide levels rise plants like ragweed produce double the normal amount of pollen. This amount could double again in the next few years. • Alaska has warmed 5° in the last 50 years while the average temperature increase for the world is only 1°. • As temperatures increase we will experience rising sea levels and greater storm surges. • Since 1970 the number of hurricanes has doubled. As the surface of the ocean warms hurricanes will increase in number and intensity.

3. Source: chicagoclimateaction.org

4. Source: chattanooga.gov/Final_CAP_adopted.pdf In 1969, Chattanooga's air quality was labeled the worst in the nation by the EPA. While our carbon footprint encompasses many additional elements, air quality remains a critical issue in the Chattanooga area (Chattanooga Climate Action Plan 2009). Source: chattanooga.gov/Final_CAP_adopted.pdf

5. Higher Emissions: 31 days Projected number of 100-degree days per year in Chicago Lower Emissions: 8 days Source: chicagoclimateaction.org

6. Where you live What you drink How you drive Source: telosproject.net It all matters when it comes to the environmental impact. But just how much does it matter?

7. The U.S. is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Yet the population of the U.S. only makes up 5% of the world's total population. The U.S. produces 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from cars alone. Source: jccca.org The average American's carbon footprint is 23.66 tons per person, whereas the world average is 4 tons per person. What is your carbon footprint? Find out here: www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html

8. There are many actions people have embraced to reduce their carbon footprint. Source: jimwcoleman.com Source: talkmoneycafe.com Recycle Plant a native tree Buy fuel efficient vehicles Source: ihgplc.com Flow through planter. Source: land8lounge.com Turn down the thermostat Green Infrastructure

9. A Green Infrastructure Approach: Stormwater and the Environment • Preserve: Protect and enhance natural features, such as undisturbed forests, meadows, and wetlands. • Recycle: Recycle land by directing development to already degraded land such as parking lots, vacant buildings, or abandoned malls. • Reduce: Reduce land consumption and the development footprint by using land efficiently. • Reuse: Capture and reuse stormwater by directing it back into the ground through infiltration, reusing it for other purposes such as irrigation, or allowing it to evaporate. Cost Effectiveness Sustainable StormwaterDesign Community Acceptance/ Problem Solving Water Quality Protection Source: epa.gov Treat the rain that falls as an asset and recognize the natural ecosystem that already exists.

10. The Environmental Process: How Nature Handles Stormwater Stormwater is not a mechanical system, it is an environmental process. Plants, insects, soil, and decomposition, when left undisturbed, work naturally to accept and absorb rain, incorporating it into the living ecosystem. The falling of the rain, the shining of the sun, and the blowing of the wind are the beginning of all life. Source: greenvalues.cnt.org • Nature continually restores itself wherever natural processes are given a chance to work freely. • By accepting and absorbing rainfall, the native environment maintains its equilibrium and its health.

11. Where We've Come From A hundred years ago cities were smaller and there were fewer people. The forms we gave our cities and the way we lived help keep us out of nature's way. At the time railroads and streetcars moved large numbers of people cheaply and cleaner within towns. People walked, city streets were paved with cobbles and bricks permeable to small amounts of rainfall. Minor residential streets had no curbs. Instead they were flanked with swales or ditches. Source: citytowninfo.com Source: epodunk.com Source: shorpy.com

12. Since the automobile was developed in the early years of the 20th century local and federal governments have spent millions if not billions on repaving and widening streets. The Federal Road Act created a link of state highways into national networks. In 1956 the federal government began the interstate system, adding 41,000 miles of expressways and subsidizing the widening of local roads to feed automobiles on the expressway. In the U.S. each year we are paving or repaving a half million acres of land. Source: courier-journal.com

13. City development was refitted to accommodate the car. Zoning codes imposed exclusive reliance on cars for daily transportation by segregating every detailed category of land use from every other and requiring homogenous, low-density residential developments across large areas. Paved streets became 50% wider. The new highways opened up lands previously remote and left natural to new commercial developments, and large residential neighborhoods in urban sprawl. Businesses relocated near suburban highway exits. Large parking lots became essential adjuncts to stores and offices that had once fronted on city sidewalks. Downtown commercial districts lost their vitality as bulldozers leveled suburban hills and plains for shopping centers, industrial parks, and housing developments. Source: fortworthrealeastateonline.com

14. Hydrology of Contemporary Development The newly developed properties with impervious pavements and large roof expanses generated rapid runoff. The new curbs and piped storm sewers accelerated it. Source: denverinfill.com Source: canyon-news.com Source: Arnold & Gibbons 1996

15. Effects of Impervious Cover: • Prevents the natural absorbing and storing capacity of the land. • Seals over the soils, depriving them of water and air. • Destroys native plant communities either by removal or depriving them of soil moisture. • Deprives ground water reservoirs of replenishment. • Flushes turbid water into local streams, wetlands, and lakes, depriving them of their sustenance. • Creates flooding downstream, causes erosion and extinction of the natural habitat by deflecting and concentrating water across surfaces, into pipes, and discharging downstream. • Causes decline in public water supply and increases in cost to clean for drinking. Source: greenvalues.cnt.org Turbid water in stormwater channel. Source: baddevelopers.green.net.au

16. Diminishing Water Quality As rain falls on cities, buildings and paved surfaces it washes off bacteria, oils, litter, sediments, fertilizers, and foreign materials. 70% of the water pollution in the U.S. comes from stormwater runoff, called “non point source” pollution. These materials are washed into our lakes and streams, eroding soils as they go and causing the excess sediment to tear apart stream channels, cause turbidity in the water, inhibiting plant growth, and reducing species diversity. Source: mississippi-river.com

17. Organic Compounds: Nature vs. City In nature, organic compounds come from bio-degradation of naturally occurring organic matter. Source: wunderground.com In cities, excess organic compounds come from petroleum products. Excessive organic decomposition deoxygenates water causing a weakening biotic community. Source: megi.bz

18. Nutrients: Nature vs. City • In nature nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus come from organic detritus of riparian vegetation and support the stream ecosystem. • In cities, excess nutrients come from landscape fertilizers, septic tanks, sewer leaks, overflows, and leachates and debris from dumpsters. • These excess nutrients create low diversity and are commonly dominated by only a few species. Algae grow and deprive the water of oxygen, creating a non-inhabitable ecosystem. Source: soer.justice.tas.gov.au Source: moyolaangling.com Source:utilityweek.co.uk

19. Source: www.flickr.com/photos/mnsteen/56714392/ Source: go2intl.com Significant overall reduction of stream and aquatic health, measured by criteria such as pollutant loads, habitat quality, and abundance of aquatic species and diversity, begins at 10% impervious coverage (Arnold & Gibbons 1996). Source: panoramio.com Source: frenkelers.com With impervious coverage of 30% impacts become severe and degradation is almost unavoidable.

20. Today's urban streams are the most degraded in the country (Mikalsen 1989). With high levels of bacteria, high concentrations of solids and nutrients, high turbidity, and concentrations of metal and organic compounds, fish populations are low, diversity of species are affected, and these numbers continue to decline as the impervious area in the drainage area increases. Source: cec3cap.com/ccpics/ Runoff is only one symptom of urban sprawl. Today's cities and suburbs suffer from traffic congestion, high energy consumption, air pollution, and daily dependance on the automobile. On a whole, automobiles are the greatest source of pollutants in urban areas, after soil and stream erosion. In streets, driveways, and parking lots vehicles drop hydrocarbons contained in oil, metals produced from wearing of brake pads, and tires. Auto exhaust emissions pollute the air and with precipitation, end up in the runoff.

21. Where do we go from here? We are obligated to restore the Earth's mechanism for self-maintaining balance. Runoff must be moderated, treated, filtered, and returned to its restorative path in the soil. Is this possible? I think so! Restoring environmental balance need not digress into heavily designed mechanical plumbing or huge public works projects. These systems cost billions of dollars, and for many years have not produced the kinds of results we see in implementing green infrastructure. We are in this position today because of these failed systems.

22. Chattanooga's sewer system encompasses approximately 1,200 miles of sewer lines, 7 large custom-built pumping stations, 7 custom-build storm stations, 53 underground, wetwell mounted, submersible pumping stations, approximately 130 residential/grinder stations, 7 combined sewer overflows (CSO) facilities and one (1) major regional wastewater treatment plant, Moccasin Bend (chattanooga.gov). A CSO is a system that combines rainwater runoff, domestic sewage, and industrial waste in the same pipe, transporting it to a sewage treatment plant. During periods of intense rainfall events, these systems exceed their capacity and discharge directly into our streams and rivers. These discharges contain raw human sewage, industrial waste, toxic materials, and debris. They are a major concern for 772 cities in the U.S. serving 40 million Americans combined (EPA 2010).

23. On January 26, 2010, more than 130 million gallons of untreated waste were dumped into the Tennessee River due to a power outage, just downstream from Ross's Landing. Source: telosproject.net

24. In September 2009 the City of Chattanooga reports on its websitehttp://www.chattanooga.gov/Public_Works/70_WasteResources.htmthat over 85 million gallons of sanitary sewer overflow landed in streams, rivers, or on land due to heavy rainfall. Source: cwffc.org Source:water.ky.gov

26. Chattanooga Wastewater Division stated that in 2008 Moccasin Bend officials logged 107 raw sewage overflows. The City has spent $105 million since 1989 on collection improvements. 73% of these funds came from collected stormwater fees. The City plans to spend $125 million on future improvements over the next five years. The EPA and the Department of Justice are looking at Chattanooga and its violation of state regulations. Two years ago the DOJ announced a settlement for the city of Nashville for its violations expected to cost $300-400 million. Source: 3dky.com Chattanooga cannot afford this path. Green infrastructure makes good economic and environmental sense.

27. Solutions Rain Garden Rain Garden • Recharges groundwater • Fewer pipes • Protects community from flooding and drainage overflow • Provides valuable wildlife habitat • Costs less to maintain and install than traditional forms of stormwater controls • Filter contaminants Source:carolstream.org Trees • Reduce heating and cooling costs by 10-50% • Reduce air pollution • Appreciate in value over time, requiring less maintenance as they age compared to sewers and built infrastructure. Source: cityofsandpoint.com

28. Solutions Green Roofs • Absorb runoff between 15-90% depending on rain intensity and soil depth. • Reduces pollutants through filtration • Thermal insulation can reduce building energy costs. Structures are cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Source: cfpub.epa.gov Bioswales • Reduce peak flow of stormwater • Removal of sediments and pollutants • Runoff infiltration recharges aquifers • Lower capital cost over traditional infrastructure

29. Solutions Porous Pavements • Reduce impervious area • Recharge groundwater • Improve water quality • Reduce or eliminate need for retention basin Source: greenlineblog.com Native Landscaping • Attracts variety of fauna and bio-diversity • Requires little to no fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides • Reduced water requirements • Reduced maintenance cost Source: thegardeningjournal.com

30. Green infrastructure not only costs less to install and maintain, it provides other benefits such as increased retention, open space, jobs, better air and water quality, healthier environments, and biodiversity. Green Value Calculator: www.greenvalues.cnt.org

31. The City of Philadelphia is rejecting infrastructure of tunnels and sewage treatment plants estimated to cost over $16 billion for a more green approach to stormwater control. The City plans to spend $1.6 billion and will create an oasis of rain gardens, green roofs, thousands of additional trees, and porous pavement, among other ambitious ideas to be carried out over a twenty year period. The new infrastructure will stall, if not absorb, the flow of billions of gallons of rainwater that often overwhelm the existing system. The Philadelphia Water Department says this will improve the economy by creating jobs, increasing property values, improve air quality, reduce energy use, and reduce deaths due to heat stroke. Source: northeastern.edu

32. We can reduce our dependence on automobiles through mass transit, alternative energy vehicles, compact land use, infill and brownfield developments. A system of greenbelts with sidewalks and bike trails from our neighborhoods to our workplaces and parks can create a safer, healthier way to commute to work and play. The creative use of these landscaped greenspaces can be used to mitigate stormwater, infiltrate our soils, replenish our aquifers, and create spaces that are aesthetically pleasing. This will create jobs, increase property values, enhance our environment, and educate people on the ecology of these developments and the importance of preserving and protecting our environment. Source: planetizen.com Source: nola.com Stewards of the world...not consumers but givers.

33. Where paving is necessary, rainwater can be brought back into contact with the underlying soil with the use of permeable paving materials. Where impermeable surface remains, conveying their runoff in vegetated swales and basins brings the water back into contact with the soil. Native vegetation will absorb and filter pollutants from the runoff.

34. To be effective, the green infrastructure solutions need not be designed for huge volumes of water. Most of our rain falls in small and frequent storms. Big storms are destructive when they occur but are usually months if not years between occurrences, and they contribute little to the day to day environmental process. Treatment and infiltration of only small runoff amounts, when repeated for every small storm and the first flush of every large storm, restores most of a watershed's groundwater, base flow, and water quality (Ferguson 1998).

35. The Experience People derive particular satisfaction from places with natural characteristics. Natural stormwater management approach. Source: princetonhydro.com People seek natural spaces when they are harried or under pressure, and in their everyday lives at home (Kaplan 1982). Natural stormwater management pond. Source: orland-park.il.us

36. A survey of residents along a Michigan creek serving as a county “drain” found that although the creek's natural environment was distinctively unspectacular it was appreciated for its “thereness” in the residential context (Kaplan 1982). They expressed concern for their “nature amenity” and its future. It was near their homes, maintained, and was seen as an asset to the community even for those that did not live along its banks. Neighborhood stormwater forebay in Minneapolis. Source: flickr.com/photos/7998285@N08/497014216/ Neighborhood stormwater creek in Delaware. Source: www2.nccde.org/specialservices/Stormwater

37. In direct contrast drainage infrastructure that is only seen as a technical appendage to a community lacked maintenance, was often in disrepair, and quite often was seen as irrelevant, or even hazardous to residents. The residents had no motivation to learn about them, maintain them, or in some cases many residents didn't even know they existed. In the Atlanta area a survey of residents living near fifteen small dry retention basins did not know they existed. Those who were aware of the basins reported them as problems of silt and trash accumulations. Concern for children's safety was also expressed. Stormdrain outlet in residential dry retention basin. Source: www.tleng.net/Dentention_Pond.html Bridge over stormwater drain. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Telopea_park_bridge_across_stormwater_drain.JPG

38. In order for green infrastructure to be a success, appreciated, and maintained by people, it has to be interpreted as a natural place, or a created place with architectural detail, properly used and viable landscape plantings, orderly, neat and clean, and a safe place for human interaction with the natural environment. If not the facilities become a nuisance, dumping place, trash collectors, neglected, and unsafe. Stormwater treatment wetlands detention. Source: www.golder.com Urban stormwater treatment marsh in Fremont, CA. Source: www.bluegreenbldg.org

39. Where urban runoff occurs and disturbance takes place, mitigation and restoration are necessary. In the midst of a city, restoration of ecological processes depends on human protection and management. One quantifiable measure of human response to stormwater ponds and created wetlands is property values. In areas where stormwater ponds and wetlands have been integrated into neighborhoods, property values have increased. Stormwater management pond. Source: activerain.com In Alexandria, Virginia, condominiums that fronted a stormwater lake sold at $7,500 premium over non-lakefront condos. In Wichita, Kansas, lots lining wetlands that had been adapted for stormwater treatment sold for 50% more than comparable lots with no water view. Similarly, in Atlanta residents surveyed believed that stormwater lakes raised the value of their homes, and was a positive factor in purchasing their home. Even people not living along the lakes felt like the lakes impacted them and their land value positively.

40. Knowledgeable designs of urban developments and infrastructure solves the problem of runoff at the source—in the land uses where people live, and where the pollutants are first generated. The solution is embedded in the soil, vegetation, transportation, land use, and human way of life. Source: minnesota.publicradio.org Source:elkhartriveralliance.org Source: mtwashingtonvalley.org

41. Human Safety Concerns Informal surveys have shown that where people get hurt around traditional drainage facilities, more than half of the places have been characterized by concentrated quantities of fast-moving water, particularly by constriction of flow at the mouths of culverts. flickr.com/photos/horsepunchkid/2651617130/ Drain pipe where two men drowned trying to rescue a boy who had been swept in. Source: www.chicagobreakingnews.com A Chattanooga man died in September 2009, by being swept into a flooded culvert. There have been incidences of children slipping on the steep side-slopes to drainage areas and then drowning in the vortex or being trapped in the enclosures. Characteristically, the detention ponds have steep, slippery sides of clay or wet grass, deep water, and nothing to hold onto. If you were going to build a trap for people to fall into and drown, that is the way you would design it.

42. Source: openspacesolutions.com Source: duckslanding.ca Source:asla.org To make a pond safe, take each of those designed-in hazards and do the opposite. A basin should be open, visible, and accessible, so that people can appreciate any hazard, conduct themselves carefully, monitor others, and, when necessary, provide rescue efforts quickly. Mark the approaches to water with changes in ground cover. Make side slopes gentle and edges shallow. Make the ground surface rough, using pavements or ground covers. Break up water with islands and boulders. Put solid objects for holding onto in the flood area.

43. Chattanooga Ordinance No. 12294: To revise the water quality fee (formerly known as storm water user's fee) The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation regulates the City's operation of its storm water system. Chattanooga is required to obtain an NPDES Phase I permit for this system and will be required to implement programs to improve the quality of storm water. It is the intent of the City of Chattanooga that the costs of the operation, maintenance, and improvements of the storm water system be borne by the users of the system in relation to their individual contributions of water quality to the system. The water quality fee should be fair, equitable, revenue sufficient, and reflect the relative contribution of surface water runoff from a property. The extent of surface water runoff from a particular lot or parcel is largely a function of its impervious area. The water quality fee is defined as a fee assessed to users and contributors of flow to the City's storm water collection, impounding and transportation system.

44. Rate Structure: 1. A water quality fee shall be assessed to the owner of each and every lot and parcel of land within the corporate City limits which directly or indirectly uses the storm water system of the City and that contains impervious area. 2. For any such property, lot, parcel of land, building or premises such fee shall be based upon the size of impervious area situated thereon. 3. All properties having impervious area within the City of Chattanooga will be assigned an Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU). An ERU is a value, equal to 3,200 square feet of measured impervious area and is equal to the average amount of impervious area of residential properties within the City of Chattanooga. 4. All residential properties will be assigned one (1) ERU. 5. Non-residential properties will be assigned an ERU multiple based upon the properties' individually measured impervious area (in square feet) divided by 3,200 square feet (1 ERU). The annual water quality fee shall be $115.20 per ERU.

45. Adjustments to the Water Quality Fee: Increase adjustments (debit) can be made to non-residential service charges by property owners adding additional impervious area such as rooftops, parking lots, driveways, and walkways. Decrease adjustments (credit) can be made to non-residential service charges by property owners performing activities that reduce the impact of storm water runoff to the water quality system. 1. Permanent Basins Credit: The water quality fee shall be reduced up to 10% for the proper maintenance of storm water facilities that retain and control the quantity of storm water runoff. An additional 20% credit is available for permanent basins exceeding minimum design standards for water quantity control. 2. Water Quality Devices Credit: a. Floatable Skimmers: The water quality fee shall be reduced by up to 10% for the proper maintenance of floatable skimmers that are used to retain oil and floatable materials from entering the City storm water system. b. Proprietary Devices: The water quality fee shall be reduced up to 10% for the proper maintenance of water quality proprietary devices. An additional 20% credit is available for the installation of proprietary devices exceeding minimum standards for water quality control. 3. Low Impact Developments (LIDs) or Open Space Developments Credits: The water quality fee shall be reduced up to 50% for the installation and proper maintenance of green storm water control structures such as green roofs, bio-retention areas (rain gardens), bio-swales, filter strips, wetlands, porous pavement, level spreader, conservation easement, and proper steep slope management of other proven LIDs. 4. LEED Certified Developments Credit: The water quality fee shall be reduced up to 50% for developments earning at least 5 credits from the Sustainable Sites category. 5. Education Credits: The water quality fee shall be reduced up to 25% for public and private schools (K through 12) for the purpose of providing water quality and watershed management education programs to students. 6. Vegetation/Trees: ??? These reductions shall be cumulative; however, the total reduction in the water quality fee shall not exceed 50%.