Worms to Help with Detroit’s Remaining CSOs

Who knew? Now Detroit can handle 95% of its combined sewer overflows! Worms will help with the remaining 5%.

On June 24, 2016, The Atlantic City Lab published an article by Jessica Leigh Hester titled “Detroit Is Turning Vacant Lots Into Sponges for Stormwater.” Hester reports (excerpts):

Detroit’s aged sewer system carries both sanitary sewage and stormwater. It overflows into creeks and rivers after heavy rains.

“Over the last two decades, the city has poured $1 billion into upgrading the system; now, its six retention basins and three treatment facilities can accommodate approximately 95 percent of the untreated overflow—an improvement, but an imperfect solution. ‘How do you get to the last 5 percent of the problem?’ asks Palencia Mobley, the deputy director of Detroit Water and Sewerage. ‘Spending another $1 billion or $2 billion doesn’t make a lot of economical sense.’ To bridge the gap, the city has pivoted to focus on green infrastructure …”

Rendering, bio-retention garden, Warrendale neighborhood. (Courtesy of Joan Nassauer)

Small scale stormwater interventions may suffice in other, more crowded cities, but Detroit has plenty of room for larger projects.

“It’s a sprawling city, with vacant or buckling properties scattered across its 139 square miles. As of April 2016, 66,125 vacant parcels were held by the Detroit Land Bank Authority, which has received more than $100 million in federal funds to demolish blighted structures.”

“This spring and summer, researchers across the city are investigating the immediate and long-term ecological and sociological benefits of turning vacant land into stormwater basins topped with colorful plants.”

“Wade Rose, the vacant land restoration manager at the reforestation and farming organization the Greening of Detroit, described the process of remediating parcels that have been untended for decades. The houses that used to sit on top of them, Rose says, were demolished before the current protocols were put in place; they might have been bulldozed into the basement and sealed off.”

“The project deploys various techniques for soil remediation and water retention: a wildflower meadow; a tree stand, in which oak trees’ roots fracture compacted soils; rain gardens with deep depressions; and a treatment that deposits 100,000 worms at depths ranging from 2-6 feet, creating a network of tunnels that make space for storm water.”

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/06/detroit-vacant-lots-gardens-stormwater/488342/

Tear-up Abandoned Parking Lots

Less Costly Shortcut to Urban Stormwater Control 

Commercial property owners like to lay down as much concrete as they can, beyond what might be deemed necessary for parking and sidewalks, because in the long run it saves them the cost of labor, equipment and materials to cut grass and control weeds.  Some like asphalt even more because it’s cheaper than concrete, at least in the short run.

The drawback is that stormwater runs right off of concrete and asphalt (and roofs), straight into city sewers. In cities that have two sewer systems, one for household, commercial and industrial wastewater and a separate system for stormwater runoff, the consequences of storm runoff are less severe. It’s easier, thus less costly, to treat and moderate rainwater runoff.

Many older, larger cities like Detroit, however, have combined sewer systems where wastewater and stormwater flow together, often overwhelming wastewater treatment plants.

To meet the demands of clean water laws, some cities with combined sewers (like Chicago or Atlanta, for example) have been required to build huge tunnels to temporarily hold combined sewer discharges during and after storms, thereby preventing combined sewer overflows (CSOs) from inundating treatment plants or being released untreated into natural water bodies.

Several years ago, there were plans to build such a tunnel in Detroit, but the city’s insolvency prevented implementation. Instead, a number of smaller facilities called retention treatment basins (RTBs) were chosen to control overflows. Whether or not RTBs, some still under construction, will be sufficient to manage overflows and prevent the pollution of lakes and streams remains to be seen.

www.laurensgardenservice.com

In the meantime, various types of green infrastructure or low impact development (LID) offer some relief from the polluted runoff problem. These would include rain barrels, ground-level and roof-top rain gardens, permeable pavers, detached downspouts and bioswales. Note the success of one such LID project, a retrofit in the Towar neighborhood near East Lansing, Michigan;  http://detroitwatersewerblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/stormwater-success-story.html

But I digress. The point is that an overabundance of concrete and asphalt, mostly in underused or abandoned parking lots, contribute significantly to urban stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows.

In metropolitan areas like Detroit, where populations have declined, sprawling parking lots at commercial, industrial, municipal, sports venue and similar sites could be reduced in size, sometimes drastically.

Consider the acres of unused pavement at abandoned sites like Northland Mall or the Pontiac Silverdome. Funds to remove hard surfaces would be available if we got our priorities straight.

Simply returning such areas or large parts thereof to their natural surface, augmented with vegetation of some kind, would be a lot cheaper than installing more concrete and steel RTBs or sophisticated green infrastructure improvements farther downstream.

Satellite view of Northland Mall’s empty parking lots:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4509185,-83.2060912,1375m/data=!3m1!1e3

Water Efficiency in Detroit

Wouldn’t it be beneficial for everyone if the Great Lakes Water Authority could pull the City of Detroit into water efficiency, as that term is used to describe policies being implemented in other cities, Atlanta for example?

Think of “water efficiency” as meaning best water practices or cost effective water or affordable water.

The problem is that Detroit, GLWA’s largest wholesale customer, may be adamant not to be influenced in any respect whatsoever by an Authority dominated by its (Detroit’s) suburban neighbors. (Could it be a matter of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?)

Unfortunately, GLWA doesn’t appear to have the power to compel such a positive outcome as water efficiency in its wholesale customers. (As concerns efficiency, note also that GLWA inherited five operating potable water treatment plants, while it’s been known for years that the system could get by nicely with four.)

Atlanta, on the other hand, has taken significant steps toward water efficiency. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy reports:

Atlanta

Water Efficiency

The Office of Water Efficiency makes Water Saver Kits available to its water customers. Each kit contains a showerhead, faucet aerator, and toilet-leak-detection tablets. The city also offers rebates for high-efficiency toilets for residential and multifamily units. The City of Atlanta has also adopted a goal of achieving a 20% reduction in per capita citywide water consumption by 2020.

Energy Efficiency and Self-Generation

Under the Power to Change initiative, all city facilities, including the Department of Watershed Management facilities are striving to meet a 20% energy reduction by 2020. The RM Clayton wastewater treatment facility’s combined heat and power system converts waste biogas into energy which is used on-site.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure

Atlanta’s Green Infrastructure Ordinance promotes green infrastructure and runoff reduction practices and complies with the metropolitan north Georgia water planning district’s model Post-Development Stormwater Management Ordinance. The city also has an ordinance to allow and regulate rainwater harvesting to control stormwater runoffs.

Since 2009, the City of Atlanta has required the installation of water sub-meters for new and some existing multifamily and mixed-use, multi-tenant buildings.

Last Updated: December 2014 - See more at: http://database.aceee.org/city/water-services#sthash.JLZmuHxv.dpuf

Now compare ACEEE’s assessment of Detroit:

Detroit

Water Efficiency

There are currently no water efficiency goals, policies, or programs in place for the City of Detroit.

Energy Efficiency and Self-Generation

There is not currently any programs in place for energy efficiency in water operations. Detroit’s wastewater treatment plants do not have methane self-generation capacity, but the facility’s solar panels have a generating capacity of 20 kW and produce an estimated 21,500 kWh per year.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure

In 2013, the City of Detroit updated their Stormwater Management Program Plan to reduce and control wet weather discharges from its combined sewer system. This includes guidelines for educational outreach, new construction, redevelopment, and municipal operations. There are no programs, funding, or incentive structures in place to further encourage green infrastructure stormwater management in Detroit.

Last Updated: December 2014 - See more at: http://database.aceee.org/city/water-services#sthash.JLZmuHxv.dpuf

This is a challenge only Detroit’s mayor and city council can address. If they fail to meet the challenge, the whole region will pay (as usual).

                        
                                        *****  jl  *****

Profitable Green Canopy and Stormwater

Let’s expand our green canopy in the upper regions of the Clinton, Rouge and Huron watersheds. Trees generate oxygen, capture carbon and absorb water. Tree roots also guide excess surface water down into the ground.

New York City, Philadelphia and Los Angeles already have plans to plant one million trees in 10 years, mostly with tax dollars, volunteers and philanthropy. What I have in mind for southeast Michigan is a different  model.

Overlooked by many green infrastructure advocates is that some trees have commercial value other than lumber.  We could increase the canopy and simultaneously create or expand commercial fruit orchards, Christmas tree farms, sugar maple groves, nut tree groves and ornamental tree nurseries, in addition to native woodland stands.

Chestnuts are grown as a cash crop in west Michigan.  Why not here in southeast Michigan?  In California, the meatier English walnut variety is grafted to native walnut rootstock.  Why not here?   

Growing trees for profit requires lots of water, a resource California and other southwestern states are running out of.  Michigan has a water advantage, and we should make the most of it.

If 120 communities in the Great Lakes Water Authority system each committed to planting 1,000 trees per year, we’d have a million more trees - and a magnificent canopy -  in less than 10 years. And if done as I suggest, the project would eventually pay for itself twice, first in stormwater control savings and second in cash crops.

Milwaukee Tackles Stormwater

I’ve written on this blog before, “The lesson over and over again is that big, downstream, end-of-the-pipe processes and facilities by themselves aren’t the solution to combined storm and wastewater overflows in large metropolitan areas.”

Susan Nusser reported in Urban Milwaukee on May 28, 2015 that the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) is implementing watershed based management and triple bottom line accounting.

“Watershed-based management shifts the management of water resources from a gray infrastructure model: channeling water quickly and efficiently to a central location, treating it, and returning it to its source, to a green infrastructure model in which water is managed where it  lands.”

(Bear in mind that in Detroit, combined storm and wastewater surging through an inadequate gray infrastructure during major storms usually overwhelms the system, resulting in raw sewage or partially treated sewage being dumped into the region’s rivers and from there into Lake Erie.)

“...[A] new watershed permit enabled [upstream communities] to share costs on larger projects that would benefit the watershed, which means individual municipalities now get credit for work even though it’s not wholly within their political boundaries.”

MMSD’s decision years ago to practice triple bottom line accounting made collaboration on the new permit easier.  The new accounting system takes into account social, environmental and financial costs.

“Far better than building more expensive and high-maintenance tunnels and pipes was an approach allowing the water to be absorbed where it landed, and partnering with other entities and pooling resources for solutions.”

Nevertheless, “...MMSD’s goals far exceed those [Milwaukee] is on track to achieve. Currently the city is only capturing about 14 million gallons of storm water…”  The city’s goal is to increase green infrastructure by 10 percent annually.

Nusser quotes Milwaukee Commissioner of Public Works Ghassan Korban, “That’s how you start...You raise the bar. You set high expectations and you get everybody to collaborate and try to achieve the goal.”

State Revolving Fund; Septic Systems; Lapeer Chooses GLWA

Clean Water Revolving Fund:

Michigan's Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund, better known as the State Revolving Fund (SRF), is a low-interest loan (2.5% for fiscal year 2015) financing program that assists qualified local municipalities with the construction of needed water pollution control facilities.

Michigan enacted 1988 PA 317, The Clean Water Assistance Act, to establish the SRF which is now codified as Part 53, 1994 PA 451, of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act. It is anticipated that both carry-over and new funding will be made available to subsidize Green Projects in fiscal year 2016. If you have projects with components that address green infrastructure, water or energy efficiency improvements, or other environmentally innovative activities, project plans will need to be submitted by July 1, 2015.

Please refer to the Green Project Reserve Guidance below for further information. If you are interested in applying for an SRF loan, a final project plan must be submitted or postmarked on or before July 1 to be considered for funding in the next fiscal year. As of October 1, 2014, the SRF program has provided low interest loans for 523 projects, totaling $4.2 billion…

https://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3307_3515_4143---,00.html

Webinar on septic systems announced:

MSU Extension is hosting a live webinar, "Septic Systems: Insight Into Your Onsite System" on Monday, April 20 from 1:30-3:30 pm. This program will cover what a septic system is, how it works, best management practices to protect the system and human health, how to identify trouble in the system and steps to take if a problem occurs.

The live webinar will include presentations by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and  Macomb County Health Department Sanitarian Supervisor with 29 years of septic and well experience.  The presentations will be followed by a live question and answer session via the chat box.

To join this FREE webinar, you must pre-register at http://events.anr.msu.edu/septicinsight/ . You will receive a confirmation email upon registration and log in instruction at least 48 hours prior to the webinar.

Deadline to register is Friday, April 17, 2015.

https://www.oakgov.com/msu/Pages/classes_activities/natural_resources_classes.aspx

http://web2.msue.msu.edu/events/admin/eventdata/septicinsight/Septic_Webinar_Flyer_4.20.2015_FINAL%5b1%5d.pdf

Lapeer favors GLWA:  

According to the Lapeer County Press, Lapeer City Council voted earlier this week to negotiate a long term water deal with the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), instead of the new Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA), whose pipeline from Lake Huron to Genesee County is being installed presently.  GLWA is the successor of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), which lost a number of its northern wholesale customers over the past two years in anticipation of KWA.

GLWA, Don't Ignore Subsewersheds

There’s an opportunity now with the creation of the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) to re-examine how ratepayer money is spent region-wide.

A good example would be efforts to reduce combined (storm and wastewater) sewer overflows in the River Rouge watershed.

In the past, Detroit water authorities concentrated efforts to reduce such overflows by building retention/treatment basins.  They have been augmenting the basins with green infrastructure, so far mostly by planting a few trees or disconnecting a few downspouts, in lower Rouge areas not far from the mouth of the river.

But the problem also occurs much farther upstream in subsewersheds.  Think of the big, interceptor sewers leading to the Detroit wastewater treatment plant as artificial rivers.  The many, smaller municipal sewer systems that feed the interceptors are like the creeks and ditches that feed natural rivers.

Reducing runoff into streams and sewers during heavy rains should begin far out in the Rouge watershed in places like Rochester Hills, West Bloomfield and Southfield.

River Rouge Watershed

Planting shrubs and trees, creating water gardens and swales, installing cisterns, paving with water-permeable materials, disconnecting downspouts from drains and impeding construction site and agricultural soil erosion throughout the watershed will pay dividends downstream at retention basins, pumping stations and wastewater treatment plants, as well as in natural water bodies.  Lower costs in the system translate into lower sewer bills for everybody.

This would be a good time for a vigorous collaboration between the new Great Lakes Water Authority and the State of Michigan to expand watershed-wide stormwater controls like those described above.

Cost/Benefit Analysis of CSO Control Utilizing Green Infrastructure

The overflow of sewers that transport both stormwater and human waste is the bane of municipalities throughout the United States and elsewhere in the world. Traditional methods (so-called grey infrastructure) of controlling combined sewer overflows, such as huge containment tunnels, are extremely expensive.  

In recent years, municipalities, state agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been studying and implementing green infrastructure (GI), sometimes referred to as low impact development (LID), as an alternative means of controlling sewer overflows.

An August 2013 study by EPA identifies instances of economic benefit derived from such alternative means, as well as methods of evaluating those benefits.

http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/green/upload/lid-gi-programs_report_8-6-13_combined.pdf

“The case studies were selected to represent a variety of analysis methods in different geographic areas of the United States, for different types of municipal programs. The case studies highlight locations where LID/GI applications, in combination with grey infrastructure, were found to be economically beneficial...”

“...Those entities that have begun to analyze their green infrastructure programs and practices
in order to ascertain the cost effectiveness of green infrastructure in comparison to 
grey infrastructure or hybrid systems have used different types of economic analyses, depending upon their objectives, resources, or other considerations.”

For example, the Philadelphia Water Department refers to its study “...as ‘triple-bottom-line’ (TBL) analysis, a term that has become recognized in municipal asset management to emphasize the financial-social-environmental aspects of a complete benefit-cost analysis, rather than only the financial.”

This is a long, comprehensive document.  With the appendix, it runs well over one hundred pages. Nevertheless, political leaders in southeast Michigan and appointees to the new Great Lakes Water Authority would be well advised to study it closely.

Stormwater: Planning to Fix the Present Crisis Twenty Years from Now

At the behest of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) in its administration of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, the semi-autonomous Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), the City itself, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) and numerous other so-called partners created a huge, bureaucratic, long-range planning and research apparatus as an appendage to DWSD for the management of stormwater, utilizing green infrastructure.

DWSD is a hopelessly dysfunctional public utility incapable of performing duties as basic as compiling and publishing an annual audit.

The organizers set the bloated apparatus on an interminable journey, a mission impossible, gathering data (some of which is already going stale) and planning to restrain future sewer overflows in the region.

Green infrastructure includes:

• tree planting
• roof-top plantings
• swales and rain gardens
• porous pavement
• downspout disconnection from sewers
• the DWSD plans include demolishing a paltry few abandoned homes and replanting the vacant lots (even though the City itself presently claims to be demolishing 200 vacant buildings per week, independent of DWSD plans).

The goals set were remarkably low.  For example, one project “... depicts opportunities for underground storage and infiltration with an annual runoff reduction of approximately 5.4 million gallons at an estimated cost of $2.7 million.” (p.8)

http://www.dwsd.org/downloads_n/about_dwsd/npdes/dwsd_green_infrastructure_progress_report_2013-08-01.pdf   

“...[A]n approximation of the runoff benefits for the tree planting, twenty- five (25) demolitions, ten (10) vacant property treatments and one hundred sixty-five (165) residential lot downspout disconnections is 78,600 gallons. The cumulative runoff reduction estimate for the green infrastructure program to-date is 454,400 gallons.”  (p.10)

Bear in mind that annual polluted overflows can run in the billions of gallons.

The planning apparatchiks conceive of green infrastructure as “... typically designed to manage smaller rain events up to the 2-year; 24-hour event.” (p.10) They calculate that, through the end of their third fiscal year (2013), they have spent $2,518,325 to divert 454,400 gallons or (they say) $6 per gallon. (Table 1, p.10)

To sum it up, DWSD’s green infrastructure activities to date and as planned for the future strike me as (1) redundant of the City of Detroit’s similar, larger, but separate activities; (2) so puny as to be meaningless; and (3) way too expensive in proportion to the benefit.  Well conceived, long-range planning is good, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of present, urgent needs.

MDEQ and DWSD’s successor, the Great Lakes Water Authority, would be wise to re-examine the present green infrastructure project with a view of implementing now inexpensive green solutions on a massive, industrial-like scale.

A good way to begin might be to hydroseed vacant spaces or plant hundreds of thousands of seedlings instead of a few thousand saplings per year (at nearly $200 apiece), one here, one there, as they do at present.

Making a Joke of Green Infrastructure

A grandfather, wishing to teach his grandchildren how some governments work, began, “Once upon a time, the mayor of a once grand city decided that planting lots of trees throughout the city would improve the environment in several ways.”

The grandfather went on, “When the mayor was driving to work one morning, he noticed a city worker digging a row of holes down the side of the road.  But as soon as the holes were dug, another worker came over and filled them up again. The mayor stopped to investigate.  When he asked what was going on, a workman responded, ‘We’re usually a three man crew, but the one who plants the trees didn't show up this morning.’ ”

Seriously, we in southeastern Michigan need to establish a new benchmark for planting trees. Consider New York City.  In November 2013, the mayor planted the 800,000th tree in a project called MillionTreesNYC “ … which began in 2007 with the goal of reaching one million trees planted by 2017. The initiative is now expected to reach one million trees by 2015, two years ahead of schedule.”

Over the last several years, Detroit, through its water and sewer department (DWSD), a regional planning agency (SEMCOG) and a contractor, has tried to plant about 4,000 trees per year, purportedly to help offset combined sewer overflows (CSOs) that run in the billions of gallons, polluting the Detroit River and Lake Erie.

Anybody want to guess how many gallons 4,000 trees absorb in a year?  (Hint: It’s not in the billions of gallons.)  

Granted, Detroit will never be able to match New York City in tree planting, but c’mon, is 4,000 per year the best we can do?

Let’s hope our new regional water authority (GLWA) and state officials have something better in mind.

Alliance for the Great Lakes, CSOs and Green Infrastructure

The Alliance for the Great Lakes has been monitoring the effectiveness of wastewater treatment in southeast Michigan for a number of years.  It published a report last year describing efforts by regulators to reduce pollution in the Detroit River and Lake Erie.  Following are some excerpts from the report.  http://greatlakes.org/DetroitCSOs

“The Detroit sewage plant releases billions of gallons of combined untreated sewage and runoff into the Great Lakes each year during periods of heavy rain.”

“In 2009 the Detroit plant reported such overflows sent 32 billion gallons of combined untreated and partially treated sewage with storm runoff into the Detroit and Rouge Rivers and beyond to the Great Lakes -- making the plant Michigan’s largest source of combined sewer overflows [CSOs].”

“Due to its poor financial condition, in 2009 Detroit halted work on a large storage tunnel intended to address these overflows.”

[A renewed National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit issued to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required a less expensive means of attempting to control CSOs.  The plan now being implemented will increase the number of retention/treatment basins in DWSD’s system.]

“In 2011, Michigan [DEQ] modified the plant's discharge permit to include green infrastructure provisions to reduce overflows and a revised plan for construction.”

[Green infrastructure as presently construed is expected to reduce CSOs by 10 to 15%.]

“Unfortunately, the final permit issued by Michigan failed to include specific milestones or a timetable for completion of the green infrastructure program…”

“In March 2013, Michigan regulators re-issued the discharge permit with several updates to protect local rivers and Lake Erie from untreated sewage overflows. Now that the permit is final, the Alliance will monitor DWSD’s progress in improving its operations, and participate in community efforts to control phosphorus discharges and develop a ‘green infrastructure’ plan to reduce stormwater entering the combined sewer system.”

[I don’t know how much confidence the Alliance has in retention/treatment basins to control CSOs, but I’m thinking that a lot more emphasis should be put on developing green infrastructure.  For example, let’s stop fiddling around with tree planting at the rate of 3000 or 4000 per year on the “neighborhood beautification” model and start planting on an industrial scale, say 100,000 each year, as they do in Philadelphia and New York.  Maybe John Hantz can help with that.]


 

DWSD and Polluted Storm Runoff

Using Green Infrastructure to Reduce Combined Sewer Overflow

One of the principal functions of the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) under its NPDES permit is to control combined sewer overflow (CSO) following rainstorms.

Combined sewers carry both human waste and storm runoff.  Heavy rains cause flow in these sewers to overwhelm wastewater treatment plants.  The polluted effluent then contaminates lakes and streams, threatening public health and damaging the environment.

In some large metropolitan areas, huge underground reservoirs or tunnels have been built to hold polluted storm runoff until the treatment plant catches up.

Several years ago, such a reservoir was contemplated for Detroit, but the city couldn’t afford it.  The plan was scaled back, but not enough to be within the city’s ability to pay for it.

State regulators worked with local officials to develop plans for a number of smaller, surface containment facilities.  They would hold the initial, more contaminated runoff (so-called “first flush”) until the treatment plant could provide both stages of treatment, disinfection and solids (sludge) removal.

Under this last plan, the remaining storm surge (after the first flush) would be disinfected and released to public waters without removing most of the solids.  Nutrients in the solids generate algae growth which in turn depletes oxygen downstream.

In addition, the plan to control overflow called for the application of enhanced natural processes to absorb or at least slow down storm runoff.  These processes are commonly known as “green infrastructure.”

State officials included short, vague references to green infrastructure in DWSD’s proposed NPDES permit renewal.  Green infrastructure was intended to reduce CSO by 10 to 15 percent.  (In my opinion, green infrastructure has the potential for much greater CSO reduction than that.)

The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) was enlisted to assist in fleshing out more precise detail concerning green infrastructure.  The effort got off to a slow start, but environmental organizations, notably the Sierra Club, helped to keep the project on track.

Today, as the result of city-wide publicity and neighborhood organizing, some of this green methodology is being implemented.  Trees are being planted, downspouts disconnected from sewers and rain gardens established in backyards and on roofs.  Soon, we can expect to see roadside swales created and pervious concrete used for roads and parking lots.  

Some suburban communities have been reluctant to adopt measures like these, but public interest in clean waterways and stable water services rates will drive improved storm runoff control.