Watershedbased Stormwater Management

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Watershed-based Stormwater Management

• Alice Jones
• Assistant Professor of Planning
• Eastern Kentucky University
• alice.jones_at_eku.edu 859/622-1424

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Watershed-based Stormwater Managemen

• Traditional approach
• concerned with moving water away from human
  activities quickly and effectively
• Separates management across water users
• Watershed or comprehensive approach
• concerned with maintaining quality waterways
• Recognizes multiple water users and potential
  conflicts

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The Three Cs

• Comprehensive
• considers all water and land uses throughout
  watershed
• Cumulative
• recognizes that water land uses in one area can
  affect other users
• Cooperative
• requires communication collaboration between
• political units
• local, state federal agencies

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Managing Water Quality

• Point Sources
• Sewage pipes, industrial waste, illegal dumps
• Nonpoint Sources (about 2/3 states water
  pollution)
• Stormwater runoff
• Garden and ag chemicals, animal wastes, oils and
  salts from pavement, sediment from bare ground
  (development, mining, plowing, logging, etc.)

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Stormwater Quality Concerns

• Nutrient Chemical Pollutants
• sources
• paved areas (oils, road salts)
• fertilizers and herbicides from farms and
  suburban lawns
• ag, industrial household cleaners other
  chemicals
• Sediment Pollutants
• sources
• bare farm fields
• construction sites
• streambank erosion

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Stormwater Quantity Concerns

• Too Little
• Adequate flow for downstream users
• Municipal, agricultural users
• Stable aquatic life
• Too Much
• Potential flooding Erosion
• Property damage, hydrologic changes, ecological
  changes

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Effects of Urbanization on Stormwater Flow

• Suburban growth increases impervious surface
• higher storm peaks
• flashier storm profiles

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Cumulative Downstream Impacts

• Downstream impacts are exponential
• Land use decisions in upstream location alters
  land use downstream
• Can create conflicts between communities

Time 1
Time 2
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Land Use Stormwater Management

• Management Objectives
• reduce total runoff
• slow down runoff
• filter or settle out pollutants
• Management Techniques
• single-site and large-scale approaches
• temporary and long-term retention and detention
• naturalistic and engineered features

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Addressing Stormwater Problems

• Detention/Retention Systems
• Shaving and Pushing the Peak of the Storm
  Surge
• Detention holds water temporarily
• Retention holds water more permanently
• Infiltration Systems
• Slow runoff
• Help water filter into ground
• Trap sediments
• filter pollutants
• Stabilize slopes

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Questions of Regional Cooperation

• Who should design, build, inspect, and maintain
  necessary structural improvements?
• How are improvements to be funded?
• Who establishes management priorities
• Who decides how success should be evaluated?

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Voluntary Stormwater Management Approaches

• Examples
• land banking or land trusts
• voluntary Best Management Practices (BMPs)
• Advantages
• little political controversy
• Disadvantages
• not comprehensive--piecemeal efforts may not
  have desired results
• no landowner incentive to comply
• available program funds not reliable

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Public-Oriented Options

• examples
• land use regulations
• large-scale retention, detention structures
• growth management controls
• advantages
• variety and flexibility
• compliance is enforceable
• effect is regional
• disadvantages
• requires political units agencies to cooperate
• private land use restrictions politically
  contentious

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Areas for Cooperation in Watershed Management

• Regular Communications about Land Use plans and
  decisions
• Joint Efforts to Build and Maintain Large-Scale
  BMPs where needed
• Cooperative water quality monitoring and other
  watershed studies

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Consistent Regulations

• required sediment control during construction
• developer responsibility for healthy vegetation
• construction restrictions in stream buffer
  corridors
• performance criteria (e.g., no net runoff gain)
• plan review fee for maintenance and inspection
  fund
• Helps avoid weakest link developer- county
  problems

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Watershed Management Potential

• Guide Development to
• Preserve quality of stream habitat
• Protect rural character of region
• Build and maintain strong, diverse, and healthy
  communities
• Take Active Steps to
• Protect against flood damage
• Reduce stream bank erosion
• Avoid stream sediment pollution during
  construction
• Preserve agricultural land

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Costs of Management Failure

• Direct Costs
• property lost to erosion and flooding
• property owner repairs for water-related damage
• increased county municipal drainage
  construction and maintenance
• Indirect Costs
• loss of plant and animal species
• lost recreational aesthetic amenities
• reduced regional quality of life

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Kentucky Watershed Management Framework

• Purposes
• Protect water quality
• Maintain economic growth
• Save taxpayer money
• Encourage local action
• Draft Plan
• http//www.uky.edu/WaterResources/Watershed/
• Select Kentucky River Basin Management Plan