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Runoff Rundown |
Welcome to the 18th issue of Runoff Rundown, the Center for Watershed Protection's quarterly electronic newsletter!
| River Network's Sixth Annual National River Rally 2005 Keystone Resort Keystone, Colorado www.keystoneresort.com May 20~24, 2005 |
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Join us for the Center’s mini-Watershed Protection Institute in Keystone, CO at River Network's 6th Annual National River Rally. We are returning this year to provide a track on watershed protection that will include nine sessions aimed at providing practical tools to evaluate and protect watersheds from the many impacts of land development. The River Rally is a unique training opportunity for river conservation organizations and community-based watershed partnerships. Click here for more information and to register: http://www.rivernetwork.org/rally/index.cfm
STAFF NEWS:
Winding up our recent office baby boom (http://www.cwp.org
/runoff_rundown_oct2004.htm#sn) are our Executive Director Hye Yeong Kwon and husband Rob Litchfield welcoming the arrival of their new daughter, Cassiopeia, on February 21, and Watershed Analyst Neely Law and husband Erik Brun being surprised by the early arrival of their baby boy, Ethan Otto, April 2nd. The office has also celebrated quite a few engagements over the last year, and is pleased to add Karen Cappiella to the list of those taking the plunge to marry her longtime boyfriend, Steve Medellin. Congrats to all!
The newest additions to the Center staff are two watershed analysts-- Jennifer Tomlinson and Julie Tasillo. Jennifer has an MS in environmental studies from Ohio University, several years of experience as an environmental educator, and has worked for organizations such as the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance and Assateague Coastal Trust. Julie has an MS in environmental science from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and has worked on projects related to wetlands, TMDLs and watershed planning. The Center will be actively recruiting a Program Manager later this spring, so if you know of talented, capable managers with technical expertise in watershed work, please pass on the word and give them this link - http://www.cwp.org/hr/pmposition1104.htm!
THIS JUST IN:
Part I of a three-part manual series on Using Trees to Protect and Restore Urban Watersheds that the Center is producing, in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service, is available now for free download! See article below for more information.
Version 2.0 of the Urban Subwatershed Restoration Series is here! In response to user feedback and new resources, the Center is pleased to release Version 2.0 of Manuals #1, #8, #10 and #11 of the USRM manual series, featuring more consistent terminology, cleaner formatting, newer sources, and updated web links. These Version 2.0 manuals can be ordered in hard or electronic copy here: http://www.cwp.org/USRM_verify.htm.
Builders for the Bay Consensus Documents for James City County and Lancaster Area have been released! November 2004 marked two major accomplishments for protecting the Chesapeake Bay-- consensus was reached on recommended model development principles for these two regions in Virginia and Pennsylvania respectively. The resulting documents can be downloaded for free from the Builders for the Bay website: http://www.buildersforthebay.net or ordered for a nominal charge from the Center by calling 410-461-8323.
If you have trouble downloading any of the manuals or other downloadable resources, see the FAQ on downloading here: http://www.cwp.org/faq_free_download.htm
PROJECT UPDATES:
The first few months of 2005 have been busy as ever for the Center, working tirelessly on numerous exciting projects:
The Center is currently engaged in a major effort to help write Minnesota’s state-wide stormwater design manual. We are working with a great Minnesota engineering firm, Emmons and Olivier Resources, and a large committee of state regulators and other stakeholders to produce a draft manual later in 2005. Minnesota presents a series of unique challenges when it comes to managing the quality of stormwater runoff. First, Minnesota is home to thousands of special waters that merit special protection, such as sensitive lakes, trout streams, wetlands and fens. The state’s cold climate and high snowfall also pose unique constraints on the design of stormwater practices. Lastly, many communities in the State are shifting away from the use of large ponds to smaller, on-site stormwater practices, such as infiltration and bioretention. We have been regularly meeting with stakeholders over the last nine months to help resolve the many thorny technical and regulatory details involved in producing a state-wide design manual. Eight issue papers have been developed to introduce new stormwater concepts to the state, such as unified sizing criteria, special receiving water performance standards, and stormwater credits. The bulk of this innovative manual will be completed later this summer, with intensive training scheduled for the fall.
Since we reported in January about completing a series of recommendations for the Town of Edisto Beach, SC, relating to code and ordinance revisions, aquatic buffers, stormwater hotspots, education and outreach, etc., we’ve learned that their Town Council has already reviewed the report and officially approved it. Our contact there also informed us that he has used the report to get approval for funding two further studies relating to their future management of wastewater. We love to hear about the new initiatives that arise from Center projects, so keep sending the news our way!
Thanks to a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Program, the Center is also proud to be leading an unprecedented research project team composed of City of Baltimore, Baltimore County and the University of Maryland Baltimore County to evaluate the effect of street sweeping and catch basin cleanout treatments in two highly urban Baltimore catchments. Despite the fact that street sweeping and storm drain cleanouts rank among our oldest stormwater practices, data on their performance in removing nutrients and other pollutants is extremely limited and sometimes conflicting. Sweeping and storm drain cleanouts may be of particular value in reducing pollutants from ultra-urban areas, where few other best management practices are feasible. This two-year research project involves an extensive literature review, a basin-wide survey of existing municipal programs and a series of four field experiments within paired catchments located in Watershed 263 in Baltimore, MD. Other partners on the project team include the U.S. Forest Service Northeastern Experiment Station, which is currently monitoring the paired catchments. The project will begin in the early summer, and we will update our readers on research progress in future issues of Runoff Rundown.
Stream and upland fieldwork for the Little Lick Local Watershed Plan was completed in March. Dedicated project partners from the Upper Neuse River Basin Association, the City of Durham, Durham County, and the NC Division of Water Quality braved wintry conditions to assess stream reaches, hotspots, and stormwater retrofit sites.
Community testing will begin on the Smart Watersheds benchmarking tool later this Spring. The Smart Watersheds project evaluates municipal programs on how well they implement and integrate fourteen key municipal program areas, such as Stream and Subwatershed Field Assessment, Management of Natural Area Remnants, Illicit Discharges Detection and Elimination, and Public Involvement and Neighborhood Consultation, into a coherent strategy to treat stormwater runoff and restore urban watersheds. Testing will occur in four to six communities throughout the summer, with full application and potential certification of Smart Watershed programs in two communities. The final tool, program profile sheets, and a Guidebook will be completed this winter.
Under an agreement with the Dutchess County Environmental Management Council (EMC) in New York, the Center has been conducting a review of the development codes for the Towns of Wappinger and Clinton in Dutchess County to assess the degree to which Better Site Design principles can be applied in these two townships. These towns are fairly typical of the predominantly rural (Clinton) and suburban (Wappinger) towns in the county. After the project concludes this summer, EMC will be using the results of these reviews to kick off a roundtable process to begin to change the codes and ordinances to increase environmentally friendly development in as many as thirteen individual townships in Dutchess County.
The Center continues to get numerous requests for workshops. Jennifer Zielinski, Anne Kitchell and Sally Hoyt finished a successful workshop in Clermont, Ohio on Better Site Design in March. Some other upcoming workshops include a Stormwater Workshop in New York in June and a workshop later this year in the tropics. For more information on our community watersheds program, please contact Jennifer Zielinski at 410-461-8323 or jaz@cwp.org.
The Center is currently working with the EPA Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds to better integrate wetland protection tools into the Center's local watershed protection message. This project includes: developing a series of articles on various wetland protection topics, increasing the wetland-related content on the cwp.org website, and disseminating wetland protection tools to local governments through training institutes and other avenues.
FEATURED ARTICLE:
A Week in West Virginia for the WPI!
The first-ever weeklong Watershed Protection Institute (WPI) convened last month at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife National Conservation Training Center, a beautiful facility located on the Potomac River in Shepherdstown, WV. Organized by the Center, with the River Network and the Engineering and Professional Programs at the University of Washington as partners, the WPI offered five days of intensive training with over 30 new programs focused around the protection of less developed watersheds. Highlights included the field trip covering forest and stream assessments, the Better Site Design track, Goose and Powhatan Creek case studies, and of course, the closing bonfire! The 60 participants hailed from 15 states and Canada, and over a third representing community watershed associations. We have already received encouraging feedback from participants who said that “great dedication and superb delivery of the program ...created an excellent learning environment and an enjoyable experience.” We welcome all types of feedback from Institute participants, and hope that input continues to roll in as we strive for more exciting and resourceful Institutes in the future!
FEATURED ARTICLE:
Using Trees to Protect and Restore Urban Watersheds
The Center, in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service, is producing a three-part manual series on using trees to protect and restore urban watersheds. This series is the result of extensive research compiled over the past year and two design workshops held in early 2004 that focused on using trees for stormwater treatment and planting trees in the urban landscape. More than forty local, regional and national experts, including foresters, stormwater engineers, landscape architects, arborists, urban soil scientists, watershed planners and representatives from parks, transportation and utility companies, attended these workshops. Part 1 of the Urban Watershed Forestry has been completed and is available for free download from the Center website. Click here for the full article and to download Part 1 of the Manual: http://www.cwp.org/forestry/index.htm.
UPCOMING INSTITUTES:
May 20-24 : River Rally 2005
http://www.rivernetwork.org/rally/index.cfm
Keystone, CO
November: Stormwater Management Institute
TBD in Virginia
Spring, 2006: Watershed Protection Institute
TBD in Midwest
Stay informed of the latest Institutes in the Coming Soon! section at the bottom of the Center’s front page:http://www.cwp.org
RESOURCE: Clean Water Partners: Enganging Students in Seeking a Secure Water Future, January 2005. A New Mexico high school curriculum guide that provides students with information on water laws, policies, watershed stakeholders, and water action plans. Intended for use by teachers of government studies, social sciences, history and and natural sciences. For more information, contact Richard Schrader at River Source, (505) 992-0726.
CONFERENCE: 3rd International Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities Conference, Awards and Trade Show, May 5-6, 2005, Washington
D.C. Convention Center. Organized by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities http://www.greenroofs.org/washington
CONFERENCE: World Water and Environmental Resources Congress 2005: Impacts of Global Climate Change, May 15-19, 2005, Anchorage, AK. This conference is organized by the Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) annual conference, a specialty organization within the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
http://www.asce.org/conferences/ewri05/index.cfm
CONFERENCE: 16th Annual Nonpoint Source Pollution Conference, May 24-26, 2005, Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, NH. Organized by the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC). http://www.neiwpcc.org/npsannualmeeting.htm
CONFERENCE: 26th Annual International Wetlands Meeting --Coastal Plain Wetlands: Ecological, Landscape, and Regulatory Transformations, June 5-10, 2005, Charleston Area Convention Center, Charleston, SC. Organized by the South Atlantic Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS). http://www.sws.org/charleston2005/index.htm
CONFERENCE: Watershed 2005: Managing Watersheds for Human and Natural Impacts: Engineering, Ecological, and Economic Challenges, July 19-22, 2005, Williamsburg, Virginia. This conference is also organized by EWRI. http://www.asce.org/conferences/watershedmanagement2005/index.cfm
CONFERENCE: Second Maryland Streams Symposium, August 10-13 2005, Carroll Community College, Westminster, Maryland. Organized by Maryland Department of Natural Resources. http://www.dnr.state.md.us/streams/mbss/symposium.html
CONFERENCE: 13th National Nonpoint Source Monitoring Workshop--Programs: Enhancing States' NPS Management Programs through Lessons Learned from NPS Monitoring Projects, September 19-22, 2005, Raleigh, NC. Organized by the North Carolina State University Water Quality Group. http://www.ncsu.edu/waterquality/nmp_conf/
CONFERENCE: Call for Papers (Abstract deadline May 30th) -- Stormwater Management Implementation: Are We Getting It Right? 2005 Pennsylvania Stormwater Management Symposium, October 12-13 2005, Villanova University Organized by Villanova Urban Stormwater Partnership http://www3.villanova.edu/VUSP/2005_PA_SWM/Call_for_Papers.htm
CONFERENCE: Call for Papers (Abstract deadline May 31st) -- 8th Annual Wetlands and Watersheds Workshop: Aquatic Systems and Water Quality, October 25-28, 2005, Holiday Inn on the Boardwalk, Atlantic City, NJ. Contact: Ralph Spagnolo at (215) 814-2718, spagnolo.ralph@epa.gov
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