Oakland County, Michigan RainSmart Rebates Program

2024-03-18T14:04:42-04:00March 18th, 2024|

  RainSmart Rebates is a two-year residential pilot program for homeowners in the George W. Kuhn Drainage District in Oakland County, Michigan. The District serves all or some of the following communities illustrated in Figure 1: Berkley, Beverly Hills, Birmingham, Clawson, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Huntington Woods, Madison Heights, Oak Park, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Royal Oak Township, Southfield, and Troy. The program offers homeowners in these communities up to $2,000 for implementing sustainable stormwater practices like rain gardens, tree planting, and rain barrels. The current available funding is being allocated throughout 2024 and 2025 on a first-come, first-served basis until [...]

Providing Stormwater Leadership in the Delaware River Watershed

2024-01-29T09:45:37-05:00January 29th, 2024|

  The Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) recently wrapped up a seven-year stretch as a Technical Field Liaison for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)’s Delaware River Restoration Fund.  The Fund was launched in late 2013 with major funding from the William Penn Foundation to help community-based nonprofits to clean up and restore polluted waters and improve habitat for target species across the four-state Delaware River basin.  As one of several Technical Field Liaisons, CWP assisted potential grantees in developing proposals that align with funder priorities; assisted NFWF with proposal review; worked with grantees to ensure successful completion of [...]

PCB Source Assessment for Baltimore County

2023-11-29T10:51:07-05:00November 28th, 2023|

  Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a class of human-made compounds widely used from 1929 through 1979 in manufacturing and industrial applications because of their exceptional fire-retardant and insulating properties. Rising concerns about the toxicity, human health effects, and persistent nature of PCBs in the environment led to a federal ban on the sale and production of PCBs in 1979. Even though PCBs have not been manufactured for many years, their unregulated, historic uses have led to “legacy” PCB contamination. In Baltimore County, Maryland, PCB total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) have been established by the state for four waterbodies; however, few [...]

Building Capacity for Low Impact Development in Washington, DC

2023-11-28T13:00:55-05:00September 26th, 2023|

  Stormwater runoff is problematic throughout the District of Columbia. Since most land within the District has already been developed, improvements to stormwater management rely, for the most part, on voluntary installation of “low impact development” or LID practices as retrofits. These practices aim to retain runoff and reduce the amount of pollution entering District waterways. In 2018, CWP received a grant from the District of Columbia Department of Energy and Environment to build capacity among the city’s nonprofit business districts for the installation and maitnenanceof  LID projects.  These entities provide education and outreach to businesses and residents in their [...]

Targeting Outfall Screening Based on Pollution Risk in Baltimore County

2023-07-21T12:35:59-04:00July 19th, 2023|

  CWP, through an on-call engineering agreement for watershed planning services, assisted the Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability with developing an outfall screening plan for the County’s more than 12,000 stormwater outfalls. Baltimore County’s stormwater permit requires that the County develop a plan to prioritize outfall field screening efforts in areas with the greatest potential for illicit discharges—defined as discharges that are not composed entirely of stormwater—which are prohibited by the County’s regulations. CWP conducted a series of geospatial analyses that began with an Outfall Inventory to ensure the data associated with stormwater outfalls in the County’s [...]

2023 National Watershed & Stormwater Conference Highlights

2023-07-21T13:17:03-04:00May 31st, 2023|

  The CWP 2023 National Watershed & Stormwater Conference, Value of Water – Stormwater Harvesting & Reuse, Nutrient Trading and Funding, was held April 24-27, 2023, at the Westin in the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego, CA. This annual conference provides a forum for sharing fresh ideas on watershed and stormwater management principles and practices. For four days, over 200 watershed professionals from federal, state, and local government agencies, consulting firms, universities, and non-profits from across the nation (and some international) gathered for technical presentations, case studies, panel discussions, and workshops. And as always, with CWP events, the conference was [...]

Green Infrastructure Assessments for Coastal Resilience

2023-05-24T10:35:14-04:00May 23rd, 2023|

  The  Southeast Michigan Council of Governments  (SEMCOG) and  Center for Watershed Protection  (CWP) were awarded a Michigan Coastal Management Grant to assess locations to build coastal resilience in Southeast Michigan. Through this grant, the project team coordinated with communities to identify high-priority, publicly-owned properties and assess feasibility for green infrastructure. Southeast Michigan has an extensive coast, spanning 400 miles of Great Lakes shoreline from Lake Huron to Lake Erie connected by the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. It is shared by four coastal counties (St Clair, Macomb, Wayne, and Monroe) and 37 coastal communities. [...]

Five Reasons to Join Us in San Diego

2023-03-24T12:39:55-04:00March 24th, 2023|

  San Diego is a major city in Southern California and is one of America’s most popular tourist destinations. San Diego is famous for beautiful beaches, great weather, tasty brewery scene, and countless outdoor activities. If you’ve been to one of our events before you know that you are in for a unique and gratifying experience. I admit, I’m biased, since I also help to plan and coordinate our National Watershed and Stormwater Conference but that’s why I want to share my top five reasons to join us in America’s ‘Finest City’ for one of the best conferences in this [...]

Tracking Progress on the Conowingo Watershed Implementation Plan

2023-03-03T10:56:05-05:00March 3rd, 2023|

The Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) recently released a progress report on the Conowingo Watershed Implementation Plan (CWIP) 2022-2023 Milestones.  The CWIP is a collaboration of three states: Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York.  Progress highlights include developing an implementation framework and strengthening partnerships with outreach to targeted watershed groups.  Maryland committed $25 Million for CWIP implementation through a Pay-for-Success program that will be administered by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.  Pennsylvania allocated funding for the Clean Water Procurement program through PENNVEST and New York provided implementation funding to the Upper Susquehanna Coalition. The CWIP outlines a comprehensive and cost-effective approach [...]

New Simple Tool Helps Chesapeake Bay Communities Calculate Benefits of Stormwater and Greening Projects

2022-12-22T16:24:03-05:00December 22nd, 2022|

The Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) is pleased to announce the release of a new, simple tool to help communities in the Chesapeake Bay more easily and consistently estimate the water quality benefits of proposed stormwater retrofit and greening projects.  The Green Stormwater Infrastructure siMple Pollutant Load reduction Estimator (Green SIMPLE) tool was specifically developed for use by organizations conducting planning and implementation of stormwater retrofits and community greening projects in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, with a specific focus on lower-capacity entities such as neighborhood associations, non-profits, and small local governments. The Green SIMPLE tool is an easy-to-use spreadsheet that [...]

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