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Runoff Rundown Archives 2000-2002
Return to current Runoff Rundown Articles
| Issue #5: January 2002 |
Here's what we have for you in this issue:
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* Staff News
* This Just In
* Project Updates
* Upcoming Workshops
* Article: Vulnerability Analysis
* Article: Channel Protection
* FYI
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STAFF NEWS:
The Center is happy to announce that former intern Stephanie Linebaugh has come on board as a full-time watershed researcher beginning in December. To fill the intern void, we've welcomed new intern Samantha Corbin to our Center family.
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THIS JUST IN:
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PROJECT UPDATES:
There's lots of good news to report! American Rivers named the Center their Watershed Group of the month (http://www.americanrivers.org), and we've just entered into an exciting new partnership with River Network
(http://www.rivernetwork.org.) In December, the City of Wilmington, NC sent us a letter letting us know that they've successfully completed a local site planning roundtable based on our process; you can read their letter here: http://www.cwp.org/wilmington.htm. We also got word that an important component of our watershed leadership campaign will be funded by EPA next year: a watershed restoration manual. Finally, we learned that our stormwater manuals for the states of New York, Georgia, Vermont and the District of Columbia are all in the process of being adopted. Many thanks to all of you who took the time to participate in our survey of small
watershed organizations. You can read the results of that survey here: http://www.cwp.org/results.PDF
Since our last newsletter, Center staff have conducted workshops in Utah, New Jersey, Wisconsin, California, Maine, and Tennessee. Most of the staff survived our annual watershed camp, a week-long watershed field assessment held this year in Yarmouth Creek (VA). We are also pleased that our Powhatan Creek Watershed Plan has been completed, and was presented to the county commissioners on December 3rd. As mentioned in our press release (http://www.cwp.org/builders_press_release_final.pdf) last month, the Builders for the Bay Agreement signing ceremony also took place on December 3.
New work for 2002 includes watershed projects in Goose Creek (VA), Big Rock Creek (TN), Weems Creek (MD), and St. Marys River (MD). We have selected three locations for our next series of watershed/site planning workshops sponsored by EPA Chesapeake Bay. The workshops will be held in the following places: Harford County, MD (on Feb 26-27, 2002); Loudoun County, VA (April 16 - 17 2002); and Adams County, PA (target date May 2002). Visit our website at http://www.cwp.org for specific date and location information as soon as it becomes available. We hope we can turn these into full-blown local site planning roundtables in 2002 under the Builders for the Bay program.
Finally, thanks to all those who have answered our Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination (IDDE) Program Surveys. We are still looking for information on more IDDE programs in the central and western US, so please
contact Jen Zielinski(jaz@cwp.org) if you are aware of a good IDDE program or would like to participate in the survey. The project task of gathering information on existing IDDE programs is one component of developing a user's guide for citizen activists and communities beginning IDDE programs under NPDES Phase II or for other reasons.
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WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Jan 7, 12, 26; Feb 23: Conewago Creek Stream Restoration Workshop Series
Gettysburg, PA
Contact Karen Cappiella at kc@cwp.org
Feb 15: ASCE Urban Watershed BMP Workshop Series
San Diego, CA
http://www.asce.org/pdf/urbanbmp.pdf
Feb 26 - 27: Train-the-Trainers Workshop
Bel Air, MD
Contact Anne Kitchell at ack@cwp.org
March (date TBA): Stormwater Management Workshop
Oakland, CA
Contact Eugene Bromley, bromley.eugene@epa.gov and Thomas
Mumley,TEM@rb2.swrcb.ca.gov
Mar 1: Training Trainers on Better Site Design Techniques
Baton Rouge, LA
Contact Lynn A. Maloney, phone: #225-389-3144
March 6: Stormwater Management Workshop
Cour d'Alene, Idaho
Contact Misha Vakoc at vakoc.misha@epamail.epa.gov or
Shireen Hale at shale@co.kootenai.id.us
April 16 - 17: Train-the-Trainers Workshop
Loudoun County, VA
Contact Linda Erbs at Lerbs@loudoun.gov
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ARTICLE: Channel Protection - An Assessment of Current and Past Stormwater
Management Criteria
A substantial body of field research exists that links urbanization to channel enlargement as a result of altered hydrology. Despite this, relatively little is fully understood about the channel enlargement process
in urban and suburban streams. In particular, scientists, engineers and regulators have wrestled for years with developing an effective and practical stormwater management criteria for channel protection.
CWP staff recently contributed an article to the November 2001 issue of the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) monthly magazine entitled Impacts. The article reviews the evolution and various approaches of providing channel protection through stormwater management criteria, including two-year peak discharge control, over-control, distributed runoff control, and one-year extended detention. The complete article can be viewed here: http://www.cwp.org/channel.pdf
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ARTICLE: Watershed Vulnerability Analysis
In 1998, the Center for Watershed Protection published the Rapid Watershed Planning Handbook which presents a rapid, eight point program for developing effective watershed plans, and details various methodologies used in
watershed planning, such as impervious cover measurement and estimation, subwatershed mapping, cost projections, and rapid monitoring techniques. Since then, the Center has worked in over a dozen small watersheds across the country to protect trout, salmon, wetlands, drinking water, habitat quality, lakes, swimming beaches, and other important water resources. The Watershed Vulnerability Analysis was created primarily as a rapid planning tool for application to larger watersheds, but also contains a refinement of
the techniques used in Rapid to delineate subwatersheds, estimate current and future impervious cover (and hence likely impacts to the subwatersheds), as well as providing guidance on factors that would alter the initial
classification or diagnosis of individual subwatersheds. Examples of application of the vulnerability analysis include instances where more than 15 or 20 subwatersheds exist in a watershed or jurisdiction and it is
necessary to group and prioritize subwatersheds for implementation and protection.
This technical release outlines the basic process for performing a rapid Watershed Vulnerability Analysis and serves as an update to the Handbook. The analysis compares subwatershed quality across the watershed and yields four primary outcomes of interest to the watershed manager:
(A) A defensible rationale for classifying subwatersheds. Typically, these classifications are used to develop specific management criteria for each subwatershed class within the framework of an overall watershed overlay district.
(B) An effective framework to organize and integrate mapping and monitoring data that are currently being collected in the subwatershed assessments to make final classifications.
(C) A rapid forecast of which specific subwatersheds are most vulnerable to future watershed growth and warrant immediate subwatershed planning efforts.
(D) A priority ranking identifying subwatersheds that merit prompt restoration actions.
Read the full document here: http://www.cwp.org/vulnerability.pdf
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FYI:
* "National Stormwater BMP Database Doubles" by the Urban Water Resources Research Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers This short article is on the ASCE BMP database, which has grown
significantly in the last year. http://www.cwp.org/bmp.pdf
* A QUAL2E Training Seminar is scheduled for March 19-22, 2002 in Fort Washington, PA (near Philadelphia). The seminar is being coordinated by the ASCE Central Jersey Branch Water Resources Technical Group and the Delaware River Basin Commission. Flyers for the seminar can be obtained by e-mailing jyagecic@drbc.state.nj.us and are also available from the DRBC web site at http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/.
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Welcome to the fourth edition of the Center for Watershed Protection's electronic newsletter! You are receiving this newsletter either because you are on the Center's regular mailing list or because you have asked to subscribe. If you would like to elect not to receive future newsletters, email the Center at hkh@cwp.org with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
If you have comments, suggestions or other feedback, feel free to email us at center@cwp.org.
Here's what we have for you in this issue:
* Staff News
* This Just In!
* Project Updates
* Workshop Schedule
* Article: Smart Site Practices
* Article: Eight Lessons Learned From Four Local Roundtable Projects
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The Center is has made quite a few staffing changes in the last few months. Sadly, after almost six years' tenure with the Center, Rich Claytor has moved with his family to Sandwich, Massachusetts. Taking over as Principal Engineer is Dan O'Leary, who we welcomed on board in July. This summer the Center also welcomed our first Financial Officer, Angie Temple, and our new intern, Stephanie Linebaugh.
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There's lots of news to report, as Center staff have had a very productive summer. Starting with real world impact: the Mayor and council of Rockville, MD have adopted our watershed restoration plan for Watts Branch, which will result in dozens of stream restoration and stormwater retrofit projects over the next few years. Thanks to our new Board Member Bill Matuszeski, the Center is currently working with the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and local homebuilder organizations on a new initiative, Builders for the Bay. Through grants from the Chesapeake Bay Trust and the Chesapeake Bay Program, we're also pleased to announce that our Local Site Planning Roundtable projects in the Central Rappahannock, Virginia and Cecil County, Maryland are completed (see article below, or click here for the full press release on the Cecil County project). We were also able to reach consensus at the National Redevelopment Roundtable, and have almost completed a guidebook outlining the resulting smart site principles designed to encourage more environmentally-friendly redevelopment and infill projects (see article below). We've finished a draft of the final Watershed Plan for Powhatan Creek, Virginia, which is considered to be one of the best watershed plans the Center has ever done.Other projects that we've recently wrapped up include an important method for conducting a watershed vulnerability analysis and our first complete watershed protection ordinance.
Work continues on our Croton watershed permit, which may well become one of the most unique applications of the NPDES stormwater permit in the country, because we are tailoring the permit to protect an unfiltered water supply.
We are in the process of a major upgrade of our SMRC website at www.stormwatercenter.net that will include a wealth of information on stormwater maintenance, as well as half a dozen new slideshows. Research is finishing up on the impact of construction sites on the aquatic community of streams, and we've submitted final drafts of stormwater manuals for the states of New York, Georgia, and Vermont. We were pleased to learn that the Santa Clara Valley, CA region adopted our environmental indicators for stormwater, and after a million dollar monitoring program, confirmed many of our original findings and are applying them to their programs (more information on the Santa Clara Environmental Indicators Demonstration Project is available on the Santa Clara Valley website at http://www.scvurppp.org.) Staff have conducted workshops in Louisville, KY; Asheville, NC; Northfield, MA; Salt Lake City, UT and have about 30 trips scheduled for this fall. And yes, we are sending the last printed edition of Techniques to press, which focuses on watershed management for lakes and reservoirs.
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ARTICLE: Introducing the Consensus Agreement for Smart Sites
In September 2000, the Center convened its first National Redevelopment and Infill Roundtable. This yearlong process resulted in 11 Smart Site Practices that can be utilized to reduce the impact of redevelopment and infill sites by mitigating stormwater runoff and encouraging the restoration and preservation of natural areas. The basic premise behind the Smart Site Practices is that redevelopment and infill sites can provide renewed opportunities to mitigate stormwater runoff and reduce environmental impacts. The challenge is to provide incentives for developers while getting local governments to encourage the application of such practices.
The result of this challenge is the momentous Smart Sites Consensus Agreement. The Agreement represents the first step of a continued effort to provide practical techniques and tools that can be easily applied by local governments and developers to encourage the use of more environmentally friendly practices on redevelopment and infill sites. Check the Center website (www.cwp.org) in the next few months for progress on the project, including a document on the research behind the practices and a new environmental rating system based on the practices. For more information on this project, contact Hye Yeong Kwon at hyk@cwp.org.
A free copy of the full Smart Site Practices Consensus document in .pdf format can be found here at www.cwp.org/smartsites.pdf.
===================================ARTICLE: Eight Lessons Learned from the Local Site Planning Roundtable Process
Since the pivotal Better Site Design Handbook was released, the Center has been busy implementing local site planning roundtables in various jurisdictions, including Frederick County, Maryland; Darby Creek, Ohio; Central Rappahannock, Virginia; and Cecil County, Maryland. The local site planning roundtable process is best explained as a three-step process to encourage local communities to change existing codes and ordinances to allow better site design to happen. The steps include: 1) assessing current codes and ordinances utilizing our Codes & Ordinances worksheet 2) convening a local roundtable process to investigate opportunities for change, and 3) drafting a consensus document that pinpoints areas that are recommended for change. So what have we learned after over 30 meetings, four local consensus agreements, over three years with local developers, planners, transportation officials, farmers, conservationists, public works officials, and plan reviewers?
The following is a list of the eight lessons learned from the local site planning roundtable process. A lot of the lessons are just simple common sense, but we had to relearn a lot of what we know about refining our negotiation skills and defining what consensus is all about. It also helped us reaffirm the old adage that real work for change begins at the local level.
Click here to read the rest of this article at www.cwp.org/lessons.htm
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Welcome to the third edition of the Center for Watershed Protection's electronic newsletter! You are receiving this newsletter either because you are on the Center's regular mailing list or because you have asked to subscribe. If you would like to elect not to receive future newsletters, email the Center at hkh@cwp.org with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
Here's what we have for you in this issue:
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STAFF NEWS:
The Center is actively recruiting a stormwater practice leader and a watershed practice leader. Position descriptions can be found on our web site at www.cwp.org. Interested individuals should email their resumes in Word or WordPerfect format to the Center at trs@cwp.org.
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THIS JUST IN:
- Now all of our publications can be ordered right online through our secure shopping site!
- It's finally here! The Practice of Watershed Protection, a comprehensive collection of more than 800 pages of the best feature articles and technical notes from all past issues of Techniques, is now back from the printer's and is available in hardcover for $80.
- Urban Stream Restoration Practices: An Initial Assessment, which assesses 26 different urban stream restoration practices around the Mid-Atlantic and Mid-west, is now available for $20.
- The Watershed Treatment Model documents the Watershed Treatment Model (WTM), a simple spreadsheet that tracks pollutant sources and the effectiveness of various watershed treatment options in urban and urbanizing watersheds. The WTM tracks a full range of treatment options, and can be used to develop TMDLs for nutrients or sediment; direct bacteria detective work in urbanized watersheds; determine the effectiveness of watershed education programs; and target the future program in a Phase II community. The WTM includes the spreadsheet model on CD-ROM and is available for $20.
- The Do-It-Yourself Local Site Planning Roundtable Kit contains all the information and materials you need to get a local better site planning roundtable started in your community, including two ready-to-show slideshow presentations on CD-ROM, materials and instructions to guide workshop participants through a site planning exercise, documentation of the benefits of better site design, and electronic copies of all of the agendas, invitation letters, and other correspondence you=ll need to get the roundtable process started. The kit is available now for $60.
- Watch for the fourth CD-ROM in our popular slideshow series, Approaches to Stormwater Treatment, to be available in late spring. The CD features three presentations - Review of Stormwater Treatment Practices, The Sizing of Stormwater Treatment Practices, and Choosing the Right Stormwater Treatment Practice - that users can use as-is or as a source of graphics and data to cut-and-paste into their own presentations.
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PROJECT UPDATES
The Stormwater Manager=s Resource Center (SMRC) website has been up and running since January 1 at www.stormwatercenter.net. Containing more than 2,000 pages of technical information designed to help communities comply with EPA Phase II NPDES regulations, the site features model ordinances, a manual builder, information on monitoring and assessment, eleven complete slideshows, a library of more than 600 references, and 150 fully downloadable articles from the long-awaited Practice of Watershed Protection.
Deb Caraco has completed the long-awaited Watershed Treatment Model (see "This Just In"), and Jen Zielinski has finished a stormwater guidebook for the highly urban District of Columbia. We're also pleased to announce that our Local Site Planning Roundtable project in the Central Rappahannock is almost completed, and we were able to obtain full consensus on model land development principles for three Central Virginia communities (Fredericksburg, Spotslyvannia, and Stafford County). Watch for the consensus document from that project to be posted on our website in .PDF format soon. In addition, we've just begun another local site planning roundtable in Cecil County, Maryland, and we expect it to go well. Response to the the first draft of the New York stormwater manual has been favorable, although we expect it will take another six months to work out all of the details and complete the project. Work on the National Redevelopment Roundtable project is progressing as well, with the second roundtable meeting taking place in Washington DC last month.Staff will be traveling to Hickory, NC, Nashville, TN,Kansas City, Springfield, MO, Bellevue, WA, Biloxi, MI, Albany, NY, Louisville, KY and Lansing, MI in the next few months. We have now closed our workshop schedule for 2001.WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
North American Lake Management Society (NALMS) 14th Annual National Conference |
Congress Plaza Hotel, Chicago, IL |
April 17 - 20, 2001 |
The Center's Deb Caraco will be speaking at the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS) 14th Annual National Conference, with a focus on Enhancing the States' Lake Management Programs and Integrating Nonpoint Source Watershed Management with Lake Management and Protection. Deb's presentation is entitled "Nonpoint Source Controls and Lake Management in Urban Watersheds" and will take place on April 17, the first day of the conference.For more information or to register, visit the website at www.nalms.org/symposia/chicago/ |
Stormwater Management: Design and Practice |
Mt Pleasant, MIHoliday Inn |
April 25, 2001 |
As part of the 2001 Michigan Spring Seminar Series, Rich Claytor from the Center for Watershed Protection will present a number of modules from the urban hydrology series, including site design, stormwater filtering systems, aquatic buffer systems, stormwater retrofitting techniques and urban watershed protection. Registration for the seminar is $30. For more information or to register, contact Lyn Kirschner of the Conservation technology Information Center (CTIC) at kirschner@ctic.purdue.edu, or call CTIC at 765-494-9555. |
The Maryland Stormwater Management Manual |
Carroll Community CollegeWashington Road Campus |
May 4 - 6 |
This course will offer the first comprehensive instruction on the new techniques and approaches contained with the manual. The MD Dept of the Environment has prepared the manual to provide guidance and regulations to local government, planners, and engineers. A thorough knowledge of the manual is a necessity for anyone working on water resources issues. The cost of the course is $595; seniors pay $320. For more information or to register, contact Carroll Community College at 1601 Washington Road, Westminster, MD 21157, phone 410-386-8100. |
Stormwater Planning and Design to Protect Urban Watersheds |
University of Louisville, KY |
May 8 - 9, 2001 |
City managers, watershed organizations, developers, planners, engineers, and other key stakeholders are invited to this two-day workshop on better stormwater design to protect water resources. This is a practical, hands-on workshop focusing on various stormwater management tools designed to help communities comply with NPDES Phase II regulations. Registration for the workshop is $40. For more information or to register, contact Russell Barnett, (502)852-1851, email r.barnett@louisville.edu. |
Stormwater Management Alternatives: A workshop for NEMOs Municipal Initiative Partners: Derby, Greenwich, Old Saybrook, Salem, & Woodstock |
The University of Connecticut's Middlesex County Extension CenterHaddam, CT |
May 15, 2001 |
The Center for Watershed Protection and The NEMO Project have partnered to create an educational support system for local officials that provides land use planning and site design options. Consequently, to better serve other CT municipalities, this workshop is also targeted at the NEMO Advisory Committee and selected stormwater professionals. Topics include a review of stormwater treatment practices, and stormwater treatment techniques for both redevelopment projects and new developments. Registration for the workshop is by invitation only and is $15. For more information, contact: The University of Connecticut, c/o Laurie Giannotti, NEMO CT Coordinator, 1066 Saybrook Road, PO Box 70, Haddam CT 06438-0070 Phone: (860) 345-4511 Fax:(860) 345-3357 Email: lgiannot@canr.uconn.edu |
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ARTICLE: The Relationship Between Land Use and Impervious Cover in the Chesapeake Bay
An understanding of impervious cover is essential for watershed managers. First, impervious cover is an important indicator of watershed health, and a knowledge of current or future impervious cover in a subwatershed can be used to predict stream quality, and to manage future land use to protect stream quality (CWP, 1998). Second, impervious cover is a critically important variable in most hydrologic and water quality models used to analyze urban watersheds, regardless of whether they are simple or complex. Land use/impervious cover relationships are helpful to the watershed manager because they allow managers to use land use data alone to estimate current impervious cover, predict future impervious cover, predict stream quality, and reduce the cumulative effects of development on stream quality by managing land use.
Lack of Standardized Impervious Cover/Land Use Coefficients
Despite its importance, watershed managers have had to rely on imprecise and uncertain estimates of the relationships between urban land uses and impervious cover. A review of seven studies of the impervious cover/land use relationship shows that there are several problems with the current collection of impervious cover/land use data:
- There is a wide range of impervious cover values for a given land use among different sources
- There is a wide range of methods used to derive the coefficients
- There are differences in the types of regions/developments in which the studies were conducted
The significant variability among different sources of values for a given land use can limit applicability and cause confusion as to which numbers to use when estimating impervious cover.
Chesapeake Bay Impervious Cover Study
To fill this gap, the Center analyzed 210 polygons of homogeneous land use from the GIS systems of four Chesapeake Bay communities. The study was designed to obtain more precise estimates of the mean impervious cover associated with 12 common urban land use categories. The four communities sampled as part of this study were Baltimore County (MD), Howard County (MD), James City County (VA), and Lancaster County (PA). The development patterns in these counties tend to be suburban in nature, and most of the polygons sampled had been constructed since 1970. Consequently, the impervious cover estimates reported here primarily apply to recent suburban development, and may not be transferable to either highly urban areas or developments that predate World War II. Lastly, large freeways and limited access arterials were not included in the sample polygons; therefore, their contribution to impervious cover was calculated separately.
Given the above limitations, the impervious cover estimates within each land use category exhibited relatively little variation, as indicated by the small standard errors associated with the group means (see data below). Overall, it appears that the impervious cover/land use relationships can be generalized beyond the individual counties in which they were derived, and are transferable to other Chesapeake Bay communities with similar development patterns.
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Land Use Category Mean Impervious Cover Car Habitat*
(SE=Standard Error)
* percent of total impervious surface allocated to streets, driveways and parking lots
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Because the individual components of impervious cover were directly measured in this study, it was possible to determine what percentage of the urban landscape was devoted to building footprints (i.e., people habitat), as compared to streets, driveways and parking lots (i.e., car habitat). Car habitat exceeded the building footprint in every land use category, ranging from 55% to 75% of the total impervious surface area for a site. This finding suggests that better site design techniques that reduce the amount of car habitat have the most potential to reduce the mean impervious cover associated with that land use category.
Future Research Needs
While this project achieved its primary objectives, further impervious cover research would be helpful for both planners and engineers. Four key issues merit further investigation. First, does the age of development influence the basic land use/impervious cover relationship (e.g., pre World War II, vs. 1960s vs. 1990s)? Second, how much would the impervious cover estimates be reduced in a community if it employed better site design techniques, such as open space or cluster residential subdivisions. Too few of these kinds of developments were available within our study design to address this important management question. Third, it may be necessary to assign some impervious value to certain pervious areas such as lawns, turf, and unpaved roads, driveways and parking lots to truly account for all imperviousness within a land use category. Lastly, there is some difficulty in distinguishing between paved and unpaved areas using digital orthophotos, so this would require greater ground truthing as the capability of some GIS data are limited to this point. Watch for more on this topic in Techniques 12, due in late summer. Impervious Cover and Land Use in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed is available from the Center for $20 at www.cwp.org.
References
Cappiella, K., and K. Brown. 2000. Impervious Cover and Land Use in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Draft Final Report. Center for Watershed Protection.
Center for Watershed Protection (CWP). 1998. Rapid Watershed Planning Handbook B A Comprehensive Guide for Managing Urban Watersheds. Ellicott City, MD
Prisloe, M., Giannotti, L., and W. Sleavin. 2000. Determining Impervious Surfaces for Watershed Modeling Applications. Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO). Haddam, CT.
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ARTICLE: What Are Smart Watershed Programs?
Editor's Note: The Smart Watersheds effort is a work-in-progress, and we encourage your review and comment on this draft. Feel free to email your comments to trs@cwp.org.
Redevelopment and infill are often encouraged from a watershed management standpoint, since development that occurs within a previously developed watershed is more desirable than when it occurs in a lightly developed one. Redevelopment tends to concentrate density and impervious cover in existing watersheds, thereby reducing sprawl pressures from encroaching on more distant and lightly developed watersheds. Yet, while redevelopment and infill are desirable on a regional basis, they can contribute to already serious water quality problems in highly urban watersheds.
Consequently, municipalities must engage in urban watershed restoration measures in areas where redevelopment and infill are actively promoted under smart growth. This public sector responsibility is termed Asmart watersheds@ and includes specific program elements that promote effective local watershed restoration. The implementation of smart watersheds programs ensure that any localized degradation caused by individual redevelopment and infill projects are more than compensated by improvements at the watershed scale.
The smart watershed program establishes 16 minimum recommended elements for municipal watershed restoration efforts. They apply to subwatersheds that exceed 25% impervious cover, and whose receiving waters are highly degraded. The exact nature of the recommended program effort depends on two factors: the amount of past watershed development (as measured by subwatershed impervious cover), and the size and regulatory status of the municipality (as indicated by its NPDES stormwater permit status).
Why Are Smart Watersheds Programs Needed?
Highly urban watersheds are strongly influenced by human activity. For example, impervious cover dominates the hydrology of the watershed, and most, if not, all of the watershed surface has been graded or altered by past development activity. These paved or compacted surfaces generate large increases in polluted stormwater runoff, which greatly alters the original stream network. Consequently, a high proportion of the stream network has been piped, channelized, or are highly incised or eroded. The high population found in urban watersheds generates a large volume of sewage, as well as an extensive and sometimes leaky network of sewers that it convey it away. Water quality, habitat and biological diversity within these highly modified streams are typically rated as poor. Natural areas are rare and fragmented, and are stressed by adjacent development.
Most highly urban watersheds were largely developed before stormwater management and other environmental requirements were adopted. Indeed, many older municipalities have never adopted basic environmental criteria for new development that are now quite common in suburban communities. This is due, in part, to the extreme difficulty and cost in applying stormwater and other development criteria to small redevelopment and infill sites.
Most surface waters in highly urban watersheds do not meet current water quality standards, and municipalities must now respond to an expanding series of state and federal regulations, mandates, and strategies designed to improve urban water quality. These include TMDLs, NPDES stormwater permits, CSO control policies, brown fields, SSO programs, among others. In addition, the recent decade has seen strong growth in watershed organizations that demand improvement in the quality of their urban watersheds. Thus, the focus of watershed managers shifts from protection to restoration, with the goal of obtaining gradual and incremental improvement in stream conditions.
Municipalities are faced with a tough choice. If they adopt stringent development criteria, the added costs can become a powerful barrier to redevelopment. If, on the other hand, they relax or waive environmental criteria, they contribute to the further degradation of the watershed. The smart watershed program is based on the premise that this is a false choice. Quite simply, the best and most economical opportunity to restore the quality of highly urban watersheds is found at the watershed scale as opposed to the small and highly constrained sites where redevelopment and infill occur. Consequently, it is important to define measurable benchmarks for what a municipal watershed restoration program should be.
In setting benchmarks, we recognize that there are important differences between urban watersheds that must be considered in program development. Two factors are particularly important. They are the intensity of development (as measured by the percentage of impervious cover in the watershed), and the size and regulatory status of the municipality (we have used EPA NPDES stormwater permit designation criteria as a surrogate. To this end, we will set different benchmarks for smart watershed programs based on these two factors in the final document.
What Are the Benefits of Smart Watersheds for a Municipality?
Municipalities stand to gain several tangible benefits when they commit to smart watershed programs, as it:
- Links smart growth to urban watershed restoration.
- Creates a unified framework to integrate many different programs, regulatory mandates and permit requirements that now confront municipalities.
- Provides a legitimate basis to grant flexibility and incentives for individual redevelopment and infill sites, in the form of relaxed or waived stormwater regulations and other site criteria.
- Municipalities that meet benchmarks for smart watersheds could be granted flexibility in meeting EPA regulatory requirements (such as TMDLs or wet weather water quality standards), or be eligible for expanded infrastructure grants.
- Maintains or enhances water quality conditions within the municipality.
ELEMENTS OF A SMART WATERSHED PROGRAM
Smart watersheds refers to 16 public sector programs that treat stormwater runoff, restore urban stream corridors and reduce pollution discharges in highly urban watersheds. The best means to integrate these programs is the small watershed plan, which analyzes the unique characteristics of each subwatershed, evaluates its restoration potential, and ranks and selects priority restoration practices for long term implementation. More details are provided below on each program element
Program 1. Active Small Watershed Restoration Planning and Implementation
A smart watershed program engages in small watershed restoration efforts to ensure that any localized degradation caused by individual redevelopment and infill projects are more than compensated by improvements in overall watershed health. Specifically, a smart watershed program seeks to implement restoration projects over a watershed area that exceeds the total watershed area affected by infill and redevelopment projects.
Program 2. Subwatershed Mapping and Analysis
The foundation of watershed restoration is a detailed knowledge of urban drainage and the built environment in small watersheds that range in size from one to five square miles in area. These Asubwatersheds@ are the primary management unit for watershed restoration within a municipality.
A smart watershed program will delineate and map all subwatersheds within the municipality on a GIS system. The GIS system will include accurate and current data layers on impervious cover, sewer and storm drain infrastructure, the drainage network, stormwater outfalls, stormwater hotspots and industrial stormwater NPDES sites, open space, natural area remnants and others important features. A smart watershed program commits to regularly maintain the GIS system, and make it accessible to residents and watershed groups.
Program 3. Inventory and Management of Natural Area Remnants
The natural areas that remain in urban watersheds can have significant value for watershed functions, habitat and green space. At the same time, these natural areas are often fragmented, and are stressed or altered by stormwater, poor soils, invasive plant species, and current and past disturbance.
A smart watershed program carefully inventories the remaining natural areas in a subwatershed, and evaluates how remnant areas are being impacted by adjacent and upstream development. The program has an ongoing commitment to actively manage and restore priority remnant areas.
Program 4. Watershed Monitoring and Reporting
Monitoring is an important element of a smart watershed program, and several permit programs require regular monitoring to characterize stormwater pollution or screen storm outfalls, and to report spills and untreated wastewater discharges.
A smart watershed program takes a comprehensive approach to monitoring to support the implementation of subwatershed restoration plans, by selecting key watershed indicators, sampling to prioritize water quality problems in subwatersheds and conducting basic detective work to isolate pollution source areas. In addition, a smart watershed program provides timely reporting of spills, untreated wastewater discharges and monitoring data to the public. Lastly, a smart watershed program promptly notifies the public in the event that it is unsafe to swim, contact water or consume fish in local waters.
Program 5. Inventory of Watershed Retrofit Opportunities
Watershed retrofits are applied in older urban watersheds to treat and manage stormwater runoff from areas that were developed prior to any stormwater management requirements. Ponds, wetlands and bioretention are re-engineered back into the urban landscape to help remove pollutants and protect stream channels, and are often located on public lands. The ability to retrofit a subwatershed, however, depends on many different site-specific factors, and not all subwatersheds can be fully treated. The process to determine whether stormwater retrofits will be effective in treating a subwatershed is typically done in three stages.
In the first stage, municipalities conduct a retrofit inventory within a subwatershed. A retrofit inventory is a process to locate potential retrofit sites, evaluate their feasibility, select priority projects for conceptual design and consult with adjacent residents. The second stage involves retrofit analysis to determine if enough subwatershed area can be effectively treated by retrofits to actually achieve pollutant removal or stream habitat goals. If this is the case, the last stage is retrofit implementation, in which a municipality constructs and maintains a series of retrofit projects in a subwatershed. Typically, it can take from three to ten years to proceed through al three stages in a individual subwatershed.
A smart watershed program progressively evaluates the potential for retrofit opportunities within all of its subwatersheds. The program often sets a numerical target to guide implementation over many years e.g., it commits to following the three stages of retrofitting in ten percent of its total watershed area within a five-year period.
Program 6. Rapid Assessment of Stream Corridors
Rapid assessment of stream corridors is a pre-requisite for successful watershed restoration. A rapid stream assessment provides managers with valuable information on both current problems and potential restoration opportunities within the urban drainage system. Current problems that are identified in the field assessment include: poor habitat conditions, fish barriers, streambank stabilization, poor riparian cover, stormwater outfalls with dry weather flow and exposed and/or leaking sewers. The field assessment extends over the entire open drainage network within a subwatershed, generally up to the point of an individual pipe outfall. The assessment can yield an impressive array of potential stream restoration projects, including in-stream habitat restoration, fish barrier removal, riparian reforestation, bank stabilization, green way design, stream daylighting, and sewer rehabilitation, among others.
A smart watershed program conducts a rapid assessment of its stream corridors on a subwatershed basis, with the goal of completely assessing all stream and channel miles within a three year period. In addition, a smart watershed program uses the assessment data to correct existing problems and construct stream restoration projects, in accordance with goals and resources for the subwatershed plan.
Program 7. Watershed Education
Watershed education is an important restoration tool for highly urban watersheds since it increases public awareness and can gradually change important resident behaviors that produce or reduce stormwater pollution. Recent experience has shown that carefully targeted, professional media campaigns can be very effective in changing watershed behaviors.
Smart watershed programs craft and implement effective watershed education programs. They focus on key pollutants or behaviors, carefully target their audiences, and choose a mix of media to spread their message. Smart watershed programs also survey their residents to understand their attitudes, and to measure the impact of their campaigns.
Program 8. Pollution Prevention for Hotspot Businesses
A hotspot is defined as an urban land use or activity that generates higher concentrations of hydrocarbons, trace metals or toxicants than are typically found in stormwater runoff. Examples include auto recyclers, fueling stations, fleet storage areas, outdoor loading facilities, vehicle service and maintenance areas, and vehicle and equipment washing/stream cleaning facilities.
Smart watershed programs target the major hotspot businesses within their watershed for intensive and continuous training on how they can prevent pollutants from being exposed to rainwater or runoff. Smart watershed programs provide clear and compelling material on simple pollution prevention techniques, and recognize participating businesses that participate in these programs. In addition, municipalities demonstrate pollution prevention techniques on hotspot areas they own or control, and provide continuous coordination with those industrial facilities that are required to have a NPDES stormwater discharge permit and pollution prevention plan.
Program 9. Watershed and Community Forestry
Numerous studies have documented that urban trees provide many economic and environmental benefits for the urban ecosystem. Some of these include cooling, rainfall interception, stormwater treatment, air quality improvement, and aesthetics. Most municipalities have some type of urban forestry program that deals with street trees, urban landscaping and community tree planting, but few have a strong watershed emphasis.
Smart watersheds programs directly link their urban forestry program to watershed restoration, with the goal of increasing healthy tree cover in every subwatershed. Smart watershed programs exploit every opportunity to create urban forests in public right of ways, vacant lands, parks, neighborhoods, schools and riparian areas. In addition, smart watersheds programs update their landscaping and tree planting criteria to promote native species and stormwater retention. Lastly, smart watershed programs recognize the threat of invasive and exotic plant species to urban forests, and educate the public on how they can help manage this threat.
Program 10. Public Involvement and Neighborhood Consultation
Watershed awareness is the keystone of an effective smart watersheds program, as it builds support and understanding for each of the other 15 elements. In addition, public involvement is one of the minimum measures in local NPDES stormwater permits.
A smart watershed program provides meaningful opportunities for public involvement and participation in each stage of subwatershed planning, and ensures that neighborhoods are fully consulted about adjacent restoration projects. Smart watershed programs also support and partner with local watershed organizations that are the best grass roots link to the community.
Program 11. Elimination of Untreated Wastewater Discharges
The sewer network in many older watersheds can be a major source of untreated human wastes, through combined sewer overflows, sanitary sewer overflows, and illicit or illegal discharges into the storm drain systems and waste dumping.
A smart watershed program commits to an ongoing program to detect and eliminate any discharges of untreated wastewater into the watershed. The specific measures of compliance are indicated below.
If CSOs (combined sewer overflows) are present, the municipality (or utility) demonstrates that it is in compliance with the nine minimum controls, as outlined in EPA=s 1994 CSO policy.
For SSOs, (sanitary sewer overflows) demonstrate that the municipality (or utility) has conducted EPAs 2000 Aself audit@ for sanitary sewer overflows, and that it addresses 20% of its priority problem SSOs each year. In addition, the municipality maintains accurate records of SSO events, and strives for a 24 hour response to citizen SSO complaints.
For illicit or illegal discharges, complete screening surveys on all major outfalls over a five year period, and perform more detailed detection and correction work on 20% of all problem discharges each year. Make accurate records about these discharges available to the public.
Program 12. Provide Operation Training for Municipal and Utility Employees on Urban Source Control
The daily actions of public employees and municipal contractors can exert a strong influence on the quality of stormwater runoff in any watershed. Many municipal sites are considered stormwater hotspots, which require pollution prevention. In addition, they are also the front-line for public outreach and education.
A smart watershed program commits to integrating pollution prevention in its daily operations, through continuous training of its employees and contractors in the following areas:
- street sweeping
- fleet operations
- leaf and yard waste collection
- park and golf course management
- trash removal/recycling
- snow removal and disposal
- facility maintenance
- catch basin cleaning
- sewer maintenance
- water conservation
- dumping/littering enforcement
- road salt
A smart watershed program designs a pollution prevention strategy for each of the operational areas described above, and designates a lead local agency to implement the operational training.
Program 13. Land Reclamation on Municipal Lands and Parks
Municipalities often own or manage as much as ten percent of all subwatershed area in parks, open lands, golf courses, schools and tax delinquent parcels. Some of these lands are prime candidates for land reclamation, whereby soil amendments are added to improve the quality of soil and increase its capacity to infiltrate rainfall, and create better conditions for healthy plant growth.
While urban land reclamation is relatively new, smart watershed programs actively promote its use on appropriate public lands as a cost-effective way to recycle composted or mulched yard debris that they routinely collect. For example, a municipality commits to divert 10% of its annual yard waste stream for land reclamation on public lands
Program 14. Demonstrate Smart Site Practice on Municipal Development Projects
Municipalities and their contractors are often a major developer of urban watersheds through construction of public parking lots, roads, schools, offices, libraries, and public spaces.
A smart watershed program leads by example by implementing smart site practices on its own construction projects. By experimenting with innovative technology and design, municipalities can help demonstrate and gain wider acceptance of smart site practices. For example, a municipality might incorporate smart site practices on two capital projects each year, and undertake a monitoring program to quantify those benefits.
Program 15. Direct Assistance in Personal Stewardship
A municipality is often the most direct conduit to make it easier for individual residents to practice better watershed stewardship on their own patch of ground.
A smart watershed program offers a range of direct services to help watershed residents do the right thing, and continuously strives to make every resident aware of these services, and offer them in the most accessible, convenient and easy manner possible. Some common services include:
Program 16. Financing for Watershed Restoration
Implementation of smart watershed programs requires a significant local, state and federal infusion of money to improve the "green infrastructure" to maintain and enhance high urban watersheds.
Smart watershed programs utilize a diverse blend of resources to finance watershed restoration, including capital budgets, stormwater utilities, fee-in-lieu for redevelopment projects, and state and federal grants and loans, to ensure they have the staff and resources to meet the other 15 smart watershed programs. Lastly, smart watershed programs link subsidies and incentives that promote smart growth through the use of "smart site practices" for individual redevelopment projects.
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Welcome to the second edition of Runoff Rundown, the Center for Watershed Protection’s electronic newsletter!
You are receiving this newsletter either because you are on the Center’s regular mailing list or because you have asked to subscribe. Unfortunately, a database error has erased any mailing list updates entered since the last edition; if you are receiving this mailing in error and have already asked to be removed from our list, please do so again. If you would like to elect not to receive future newsletters, email the Center with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
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Here’s what we have for you in this issue:
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We're pleased to announce that Ann Kitchell will be coming on board as a watershed planner on November 15. The search is still underway for a full or part-time intern. Contact Jennifer Zielinski at jaz@cwp.org for more information or to apply.
The Center is also pleased to announce that we have two new members on our Board of Directors: Glenn Page, the Director of Conservation at the National Aquarium; and Elizabeth Hickey, from the Environmental Finance Center.
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All publications are listed on the Publications page of our website at www.cwp.org.
The Center is pleased to announce our brand-new partnership with the Non-Point Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO), intended to further the protection of the environment by blending technical expertise with sophisticated educational strategies, particularly geared towards local governments making critical land use decisions.
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The Center was just awarded the Maryland Chapter American Planning Association (APA) 2000 Professional Achievement Award in the Zoning category. The award was given in recognition of the Center’s work with the Frederick County Site Planning Roundtable project, which convened a diverse group of community and civic leaders in Frederick County who ironed out development code changes designed to manage some of the impacts of growth, minimize the amount of asphalt covering the land, and protect the area’s water resources. The Frederick Country Roundtable project was completed in February of 2000.
Work is almost complete on the Stormwater Manager's Resource Center website, to be housed at www.stormwatercenter.net. The dynamic new site will include user-friendly features such as a searchable stormwater library, 10 browsable slide shows, a manual builder, an ordinance selector, more than 50 different fact sheets on virtually every topic necessary for a community to implement Phase 1 or 2 stormwater requirements, and fully downloadable articles from The Practice of Watershed Protection. Supported by a grant from the EPA Office of Wastewater Management. Watch for the site to be up and running in winter of 2001.
A common theme runs through TMDLs, NPDES stormwater permits, smart growth and watershed restoration: how can we ensure that redevelopment projects do not degrade the quality of highly urban watersheds (which already are impaired, degraded and often listed)? On September 7, 2000, the Center convened a National Redevelopment Roundtable of experts to begin the consensus process for agreement on model redevelopment principles, with the goal of developing an environmental scorecard for good practice at redevelopment sites and identifying minimum elements for municipal watershed restoration programs. The first phase of the Roundtable is expected to be complete by 6/01; funding to complete the project is being solicited now. This project is being supported by an OWOW grant and EPA CBP grant.
On the local level, the Center is working on local site planning roundtables in five counties in Maryland and Virginia designed to help communities reform their local subdivision codes to promote better site design at the local level. The Center has also hosted three "train the trainer" workshops designed to equip local watershed groups with the skills necessary to conduct site planning roundtables in their own community. We have also prepared a kit called the "Do It Yourself Better Site Design Kit: Everything You Need to Know About Changing Your Development Rules" that organizations can use to make better site design happen in their community. The Kits include a notebook, two CD slide presentations, templates for creating roundtable agendas and correspondence, books, and other materials (sorry, no decoder rings). Supported by multiple grants from EPA Bay Program.
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Stormwater in the Urban Environment
December 6, 2000
Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
Laurel, MD
The Chesapeake Bay Program Land, Growth and Stewardship Subcommittee, the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee, the MD Chapter of the APA and the MD Department of Planning are hosting this workshop on managing stormwater in urban environments. The focus of the workshop is on redevelopment requirements in Maryland's new stormwater management regulations and the use of techniques to meet these requirements. As part of this workshop, Rich Claytor of the Center for Watershed Protection will provide an overview of enhanced site design practices that promote higher water quality and integrate into Maryland's new environmentally sensitive approach to managing stormwater runoff.
Registration for this workshop is free. For more information or to register, call Barbara Wise at the Maryland Department of Planning at 410-767-4562.
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ARTICLE: National Pollutant Performance Database for STPs: 2nd Edition
(attached in .pdf format. If you don't already have it, click here to download a free copy of the Acrobat reader.)
ARTICLE: Urban Stream Restoration Practices: An Initial Assessment
The Center recently completed a study assessing urban stream restoration practices. The study examined 24 different types of stream restoration practices and included over 450 individual practice installations. The practice types were broadly classified into four practice groups, based on their intended restoration objective: bank protection, grade control, flow deflection/concentration and bank stabilization. Each practice was evaluated in the field according to four simple visual criteria: structural integrity, function, habitat enhancement, and vegetative stability.
Our assessment of urban stream restoration practices found that most practices, when sized, located, and installed correctly, worked reasonably well and are appropriate for use in urban streams. Of the 24 practices evaluated, only two (rock weirs and log drop structures) appeared to have questionable value in urban stream restoration.
Overall, nearly 90% of the individual stream restoration practices assessed remained intact after an average of four years. This result suggests that most stream restoration practices have the potential for longevity. Yet, 20 to 30% experienced some degree of unintended scouring or sediment deposition. This may indicate that a greater percentage of practices may be subject to failure in the near future. While the vast majority of practices remained intact, only 78% fully achieved the practice objective. The greatest deficiency identified was the ability of the practices to enhance habitat. Less than 60% of the practices fully achieved even limited objectives for habitat enhancement.
The basic design of most individual practices did not appear to cause practice failure. Rather, practice failure was caused by inappropriate channel conditions for the practice, poor practice installation, and/or the improper overall project design. Most importantly, this study found that the key factors for practice success were a thorough understanding of stream processes and an accurate assessment of current and future stream channel conditions.
The majority of practice failures were observed at projects that attempted to create new channel plan form geometry. The creation of an entirely new channel plan form is a difficult task in an non-urbanized watershed and even more difficult in an altered/urbanized watershed where uncontrolled stormwater runoff and a history of watershed disturbance have greatly altered stream channel processes. Most of these projects attempted to create a natural (e.g., pre-disturbance) type channel morphology in an unnatural, disturbed watershed. While natural channel restoration has been successful in many rural and agricultural watersheds, this design approach needs to be further evaluated in urbanized watersheds.
In some older urbanized watersheds, where stream channels have adjusted to altered urban hydrology, many restoration projects utilized the existing channel geometry and the restoration practices had a higher rate of success. These types of watersheds may currently be the best candidates for urban stream restoration.
More research is needed in the relationships between channel geometry and flow regime for urban streams. This research should look at how the altered flow regime, sediment transport, and landscape processes in an urban watershed affect channel geometry, and how this information can be incorporated into stream restoration project planning. Along with this, further evaluation of urban stream restoration practices is necessary before the question of long term effectiveness can truly be answered. Repeating this study in 3 to 5 years on the same set of restoration practices would go a long way in answering this question. Finally, the true measure of success in stream restoration is how the aquatic community responds. A detailed study of aquatic community response to stream restoration is necessary to truly evaluate the success of urban stream restoration projects.
The full report, Urban Stream Restoration Practices: An Initial Assessment, is available from the Center for $20. Please access our publications page for ordering information.
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Welcome to the Runoff Rundown, the Center for Watershed Protection’s first electronic newsletter! As issues of Techniques are only published a few times a year at best, we think that an electronic newsletter will be a great way to keep you abreast of current Center projects, notify you of upcoming workshops and events, and share new research developments.
You are receiving this newsletter either because you are on the Center’s regular mailing list or because you have asked to subscribe. If you would like to elect not to receive future newsletters, email the Center with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
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Here’s what we have for you in this issue:
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Tom Schueler is now off on his summer sabbatical, touring the country and working on the "Why Watersheds?" project. We are happy to announce that Karen Cappiella (watershed technician) and Paul Sturm (water quality specialist) have joined the Center and are already hard at work. We are also pleased that our long-term intern extrordinaire, Rebecca Winer, has just joined the Center as a watershed planner. You can check out their flattering pictures on the popular staff page of our website at www.cwp.org. The Center has also hired two full-time interns: Laura Thomson and Alexander Yeboah.
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Also available in the fall is the Practice of Watershed Protection, a comprehensive collection of more than 800 pages of the best feature articles and technical notes from all past issues of Techniques, bound and indexed for easy reference.
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The Center is currently immersed in three major projects: the development of a comprehensive stormwater managers resource center web site intended to provide communities (particularly Phase II) with a suite of technical tools and techniques for stormwater management; the National Redevelopment Roundtable project, which seeks to convene a group of stakeholders from national organizations to develop a set of model development principles guiding infill and redevelopment practices; and the development of a stormwater manual for the states of New York and Vermont.
In addition, the Center finished facilitating a successful local better site planning roundtable in Frederick County, Maryland in February that represented the first time the National Site Planning Roundtable model was adapted for use at the local level. As a result of the project, Frederick County has hired consultants to incorporate the Roundtable's recommendations (available on our website at www.cwp.org) into their codes and ordinances. This model is also being applied in Central Rappahannock, Virginia in a tri-jurisdictional roundtable, and another is set for kick-off later in the summer in Cecil County, Maryland. Over the past few months, staff have traveled to make presentations in Chicago, Annapolis, Harvard, Alabama, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tilghman Island, Kansas City and Nebraska.
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Making Better Site Design Happen in Your Community
July 18, 2000
Wildwood Conference Center, Harrisburg, PA
This one-day training workshop is for planners, government officials, watershed managers, community activists and other professionals who want to implement better site design, begin a local roundtable, or train others to implement better site design. This comprehensive session details all of the information, strategies and resources necessary to start making better, more environmentally-friendly site design happen at the local level.
Cost of the course is $99 and includes breakfast, lunch, and all course materials. To register or for more information, contact the Center.
Working on Alternatives to Stormwater Control Through Watershed Management and Better Site Design
October 4 - 5, 2000
Fawcett Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
This two-day workshop will highlight concepts that form the framework of policy recommendations. The first day of the workshop will focus on the cumulative effect that development and impervious cover have within a watershed, emphasizing benefits of regional cooperation and multi-jurisdictional collaboration. The second day will address specific design elements that are more environmentally friendly as well as aesthetically pleasing and economically viable. Each day will include hands-on activities that will allow participants to apply these concepts in real-world situations.
Cost of the course is $50 for one day and $85 for both days if you register before September 29; after September 29 the cost is $65 for one day and $100 for both days. Fees include breakfast, lunch, and handouts. To register or for more information, visit the Ohio State University website at www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ohionemo/conference or call 614-292-6538.
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ARTICLE: Rapid Watershed Planning Being Tested in the Watts Branch Watershed
The Center is currently partnering with the City of Rockville, Maryland to develop a watershed plan that implements elements of rapid watershed planning. The Center published the Rapid Watershed Planning Handbook in 1998 (CWP, 1998) and put forth the concept of a subwatershed classification system and management model based on the level of current and future impervious cover. The premise is that the degree to which subwatershed health can be assessed and ultimately managed is a direct function of its impervious cover.
In the first phase of the project, the Center completed watershed assessments consisting of a stream channel geomorphic investigation to define stream channel characteristics; a rapid stream assessment to quantify areas of accelerated channel erosion and areas for potential stream rehabilitation, in-stream habitat and riparian buffer condition; and a stormwater retrofit inventory to identify candidate sites for providing stormwater treatment and control for the so-called “channel forming” storms. Watts Branch was the subject of a detailed investigation by the renowned geomorphologist, Luna Leopold, from the 1950s through the early 1970s. As part of the geomorphic investigation, the Center looked at the channel cross-sectional area today as compared with the cross-sectional area from Leopold's era. The findings of this investigation suggest that the stream channels of Watts Branch are about twice as large as they were in the 1950s. Perhaps more importantly, the channels are expected to continue to enlarge for several more decades and may reach cross-sectional areas four times their original area. The management implications of these findings suggest that stormwater control for the “channel forming” storms is critical to help arrest the accelerated erosion, and that stream rehabilitation techniques need to account for future enlargement and lateral adjustment.
While the watershed plan proposes to construct several structural management measures, there will still be large developed areas with little or no management. This is not uncommon for watersheds in the “non-supporting” category where retrofit opportunities are limited due to lack of open space, current land uses, utility and other infrastructure conflicts, or resident objections.