ASK THE EXPERTS

John W. Schombert

Executive Director, 3 Rivers Wet Weather, Inc.

As executive director of 3 Rivers Wet Weather, Inc. (3RWW), John Schombert played an instrumental role in the founding of this nonprofit organization in 1998. Prior to 3RWW, John worked for nearly three decades in the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Health Department’s water pollution, public drinking water, and waste management programs. Most recently, he served as chief of public drinking water and waste management. In October 2002, John was appointed to the Pennsylvania State Board for the Certification of Sewage Treatment Plant and Waterworks Operators, and in 2011, he was appointed to the Pennsylvania Water Resource Advisory Board. John also serves on several boards, including those of the Local Government Academy and the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association. A registered environmental health specialist and a graduate of Thiel College with a BS in physics, John is an expert on wet weather issues.

Q: Please tell us a bit about the watershed where you work (geographical location).

A: I work for a nonprofit environmental organization that was incorporated by the Allegheny Health Department in 1998 to address the region’s water quality issues impacted by wet weather overflows. 3RWW supports 83 Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, municipalities, including the City of Pittsburgh, in a 305-square-mile area serviced by the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN).

Q: How does your organization define green infrastructure?

A: In its simplest form, green infrastructure (GI) is the use of natural processes for managing stormwater. In our region, there are a number of separate GI projects that will be used as research and demonstration projects, including monitoring installations to define which GI approaches are most cost-effective and appropriate for our area and the impact on overflows and the scope of gray infrastructure. We have steep topography, low soil permeability, urban/suburban areas, high water tables, aged systems, and systems with streams connected to them. During dry weather, only about 40% of the flow treated is sewage, and about 60% is inflow and infiltration from a number of direct stream connections and groundwater. It is a challenge to define source reduction and to decide which GI approach will be most effective. We have identified seven specific best management practices (BMPs) that are readily applicable in our region.

Q: What is your organization’s experience with GI, and what reasons or decision-making processes were behind the adoption of this approach to address combined sewer overflows, whether throughout the region/area or for a specific project?

A: Our area has become very interested in GI, especially in the last few months with the release of the ALCOSAN draft wet weather plan for public comment. ALCOSAN, the regional treatment authority, is under a federal consent decree to reduce overflows from a system that is a tributary to a plant that treats 225 million gallons a day. During wet weather events, the storm and sewer flow can exceed 1 billion gallons. ALCOSAN’s draft wet weather plan addresses the capacity of the sewage treatment plant and the connected river infrastructure for this regional sewer authority. The plan is controversial because of the estimated high cost and the difficulty in coordinating the ALCOSAN plan with the 83 municipal wet weather plans, which include GI. To facilitate the integration of municipal GI into the overall regional wet weather plan, 3RWW is providing assistance to municipalities to identify opportunities to site GI for their wet weather plans. We are piloting a GI placement program to explore the opportunities in combined sewersheds. To support this effort, we developed RainWays, an online interactive tool to support GI planning and implementation. This tool identifies BMPs, costs, contributing drainage areas, and stormwater capture; it connects the site-level information to more than 400 ALCOSAN connection points. RainWays provides the aggregate impact of GI practices on each of the ALCOSAN overflows at the municipal points of connection. RainWays provides an important planning-level tool tailored to support the area’s wet weather plan.

Q: Does the adoption of a GI approach to address combined sewer overflows result in regulatory issues that differ from those associated with more conventional or traditional engineering solutions to address combined sewer overflows?

A: The challenge we are currently facing includes the ALCOSAN wet weather plan that focuses on tunnel and infrastructure expansion, which is not affordable for the region. ALCOSAN has submitted an alternate “recommended” plan that does not meet the full compliance requirements in the consent decree but is consistent with the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) affordability criteria. The affordability criteria indicate that anything higher than 2% of the median household income for wastewater services is a high burden for the community. As a potential solution, 3RWW would like to include municipal GI as part of the source control program in the regional wet weather plan. Including GI in the plan would require using a phased approach, as other regions of the United States have done to evaluate and implement only the most effective wet weather control methods. When ALCOSAN submitted its wet weather plan on January 29, 2013, they requested that regulatory agencies extend the planning period by an additional 18 months to evaluate source reduction and GI approaches.

Q: Can you identify a few key challenges that you have encountered in implementing GI?

A: We need to overcome the urban myth that stormwater cannot be infiltrated in our region. In our experience, the GI sites can use engineered soils, underdrains, and/or overflows in the GI design to properly manage peak flows in the region. Existing land use and stormwater codes and ordinances in our 83 municipalities can be a barrier to GI. 3RWW and the University of Pittsburgh Environmental Law Clinic worked to identify existing obstacles and potential solutions in our land use and stormwater codes and ordinances. These findings were published in early 2013.

Q: Beyond the goal of using GI to address pollutant loadings in receiving waters, in your experience, what other community/social or economic benefits resulted from using GI?

A: We do not have enough experience with GI here to measure any social or community benefits yet. However, as demonstrated in other case studies, GI has the ability to attract the public to the process, including the triple-bottom-line (economic, environmental, and social) benefits.

Q: What programs or assistance are available to advance the use of GI, and what criteria are used to determine what type of solution is most appropriate?

A: There are several national and local GI models available that we use in addition to our own GI modeling tools to plan and implement GI. However, GI design and source reduction will be modeled using the Allegheny County “typical year rainfall” data (statistically similar to 2003 rainfall) to accurately design for GI performance. We focused on three watersheds in the community to characterize stormwater runoff with the Storm Water Management Model, then used USEPA’s SUSTAIN model to identify site areas, and finally used our tool, RainWays, to plan specific site-level GI options. The three watersheds were selected based on their unique circumstances and challenges as multimunicipal and mixed combined/sanitary connections to the ALCOSAN system. Evaluating the GI options for these watersheds will provide important planning information for ALCOSAN and serve as a model for other watersheds.

Q: Which assistance needs are being met and which are not? Is the information getting to the practitioners?

A: 3RWW worked over the last 15 years with stakeholders representing our 83 municipalities. We used a consensus-based process to facilitate the development of the municipal wet weather plans. Our work focuses on the critical multimunicipal combined sewersheds where GI can be most effective. Public engagement is important to success.

Q: Can you share a “success story”? If so, who was involved (e.g., organizations, volunteers, or researchers)?

A: We expect to hear success stories as GI practices are implemented on a broader scale. However, I would like to share a success story that took place before the development of our GI program. About six years ago, 3RWW partnered with the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association on public engagement and education for a large urban stream habitat restoration project. This effort resulted in more than 1,000 rain barrel installations and a business plan for StormWorks, an initiative that supports commercial and residential education and GI implementation. While it’s difficult to quantify the actual flow reduction with only 1,000 rain barrels, we do know, based on pre- and post-project surveys, that the rain barrel program significantly increased the residents’ level of awareness and individual responsibility in protecting the watershed.

Q: Based on your experience with GI, what research or other work (e.g., coordination or programs) is still needed for its effective watershed management application?

A: We need incentives to implement the GI measures that we know work well in our region, such as green roofs, to make them initially cost-effective. We also need to measure the direct GI benefits for stormwater management. To do this, we need localized monitoring that includes performance measures at the site level to make GI management decisions.

We also need a change in governance to be sustainable. Currently, the ownership of the more than 4,000 miles of sewer collection system is distributed among 83 municipal entities. 3RWW is working with the region’s leaders to change public policy for regional management of stormwater and sewer infrastructure. These regional changes are needed to integrate GI approaches into the management options for pollution reduction.

Suggested Resources

3 Rivers Wet Weather http://www.3riverswetweather.org/

RainWays http://www.3riverswetweather.org/green-infrastructure

USEPA’s SUSTAIN Model http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/wq/models/sustain/