Speakers
- Carlotte Katzenmoyer - City of Lancaster, PA
- Matthew J. Millea, Onondaga County
##Carlotte Katzenmoyer - City of Lancaster, PA
**Lancaster:**~60k residents, historic housing stock (median housing age of 100years), combined sewer system, surrounded by highly productive non-irrigated ag land. 55% of city is actually served by separated SW systems.
###Solutions proposed:
750 million gal polluted SW discharge. Rec'd admin order to address SW or face EPA enforcement/penalties.
- Previously $300 million Gray infra. storage system
- Proposed GI for ~$140 million
###GI Plan:
- 48% of city area is impervious (41% building, 32% parking lot, 25% roadway)
- Focus on early action and continuous improvement
- Maximize existing infra for CSO capture
- Secure funding for dmeonstration projects, lead by example
- Develop plan to scale up citywide
- Review all ordinances to incorporate GI/require for redevelopment
- Develop SW website
- Community outreach/ed
- Look ahead, dev. incentives for priv sect participtation (SW utility, for ex)
- Built out GI benefit calculator
- Impervious type, imp. area, green tech to be implemented, imp. area managed, runoff reduction, pollutant load reductions (for Chesapeake Bay TMDL)
- Goal to implement 1200 (?) acres of GI to meet goal/compliance.
###Implementation
6th ward park - Impervious surfaces for basketball court, etc.
Brandon park - ~4mil gal/year reduction in runoff volume at $0.15/gal GI cost. Compared to gray infra cost of ~$0.30/gal.
Also did some curb extension with rain gardens for infiltration. Also traffic calming.
Porous paving in parking area. Key is mix of BMPs.
City-owned parking lots - Don't own a lot of lots - retrofitted 4. $0.10/gal - $0.17/gal cost for porous paving and planted infiltration strips. Include some monitoring stations.
1.5mil gal/year at $0.14/gal for all lots.
Green roofs - 100,000sqft in city, approx 1.5sqft/person.
Green streets and alleys - LiDAR study of streets and alleys to ID prime sites. Focused on streets in very poor condition and slated for work. Developed 20-year plan to address streets of varying condition over that period. Cost was 10% add'l.
Using traffic safety and transportation funding to reduce accidents AND runoff - Removed merge lanes at dangerous intersectoin and replaced with GI. 5mph reduction in avg traffic speed & 1.7mil gal of SW reduc. Also built porous paver patio for a brewery on the corner. Brewing company agreed to assume main't of pavers and garden beds (also use beds for farming). Brewery doubled revenue during summer months.
Also did public art on location w/a giant cistern.
Created placemat for the restaurant to incorporate public ed.
Urban Tree Canopy - Using LiDAR data. 28% existing, 45% potential, 40% goal. Using ongoing traffic calming projects to incorporate new canopy.
Innovative Financing using SRF Funding (PennVEST) - Offer 90% grants (!) to property owners interested in incorporating GI into development.
Recap - about 159 projects in various stages of completion. ~45 mil gallons of SW annual capture rate upon completion. 3.54 mil in grants matched by city funds.
Incentives -
Impervious area fees: Commercial & industrial properties comprise ~75% of total impervious area.
Considered three structures: impervious area service fee, property tax, sewer charge. Settled on a tiered rate of impervious area service fee - flat for each of 4 categories.
Outreach - City SW website. Save it! Your water, your money, your city. Center of Save it! branding, logo etc, which goes on city vehicles, etc.
Lessons learned -
- Early political support is crucial
- Start public ed from the beginning - messaging needs to be tested and honed as you proceed.
- Lead by example
- Use stakeholders from all affected rate paying classes and geographical representation on GI advisory group.
- Use demonstration projects to rally neighbors around the issues and garner their support
- Figure our your funding strategies; use the GI to leverage other funding into INTEGRATED INFRASTRUCTURE
- Grants!
- Include 3 years of maint in contracts as part of rain gardens since there is a high mort. rate
- Educate the public throughout the process.
###Q&A
How can you move beyond the demonstration project stage, esp incorporating existing PW? Collaboration between departments, helps to have SW funding mechanism. Keep an eye on capital projects that are coming down the pike and try to incorporate GI at early stages (Donnelley transportation project!)
Permeable pavement and lifespan - about every 5 years the city replaces one of their street sweepers. Most recently, replaced with vacuum sweeper that can maintain porous pavers. Also has attachments that can help clean out other GI projects - water quality inlets, etc.
##Matthew J. Millea, County Executive, Onondaga County
Matthew manages the county's "Save the Rain" effort focused on Onondaga lake.
No one had an iPhone seven years ago...we didn't even know we needed one... Similar with GI and especially GI for regulatory compliance
County stats: Syracuse, Onondaga lake (used to be one of the most polluted lakes in the US), 8 CSO sewersheds...
County Exec Joanie Mahoney ran on platform of GI instead of gray for addressing SW issues. Exec leadership/sponsorship...
###Gray
Community has a lot of experience with large and expensive treatment plants from the cleanup of the lake process. $173 million investment in POTW for amonia and P removal.
~$150million in ongoing/pending gray investments. Interceptors, conveyance systems, 70in diameter pipeline requiring dynamite in residential syracuse, CSO storage facility (~$25 mil, used to meet court-ordered compliance), sewershed subsurface storage,
###Green
To work in sustainability is to work in complexity
Nancy Stone from NRDC gave Joanie a book - from roofs to rivers.
GI Plan: 2008-2009. Driven by 2009 amendment to County's court order to allow GI for compliance. Resulting plan released in 2010.
Based on detailed SWMM model. (subcatchment, soil standards, impervious surfaces).
"I wouldn't recommend delaying getting GI in the ground while you build out a detailed model. They can work side-by-side."
Resulted in CSOshed priority map.
###Implementation
- Focused on publicly-owned infrastructure in one priority area to capture 10mil gallons annually. Judge was favorable to approach. Also allows for ground-truthing model estimates (Syracuse students).
- Public facing - pro hockey rink uses captured rain water for ice.
- Bioswales in civic center parking lot (leveraged popular project to beautify this particular lot).
- Convention center lot - porous perimeter rather than centered bioswales. Included LED lights and elec car charging stations.
- "Embrace the change order." Many of these small projects come with more risk and pivot frequently. This is difficult for more traditional firms.
- Traffic calming, curb bump-outs as opportunity for adding vegetation, swales, GI.
- Green streets: implemented on a downtown syracuse block right next to city hall. "Showcase green street." Bump-outs, permeable pavers, green roofs, additional tree pits. Estimated 90% SW capture for design storm on this demo green street.
2011 "Project 50" - meet court-ordered objectives by 2018 by completing 50 GI projects in 2011. In 2012, got almost 60 add'l done.
"Signature Projects" in 2011 - treatment wetland and restoration project. Flow direct CSO outfall through a 3-cell constructed wetland. Tricky because outfall from wetlands is regulated as a point-source emission. Need to argue benefits to regulators.
Public-private partnerships:
Rain barrels: ramping up participation to engage residential sector. No tremendous SW benefit, but gets public involved.
Green parks - green basketball courts very popular, zoos as public ed opps,
Road recon. - City of Syracuse road reconstruction. County partnered to add GI w/funding support.
###The Connective Corridor
Connecting Syracuse university to the rest of the community using green/complete streets. Stopped in-progress bid to redesign and incorporate GI, bike lanes, etc. Bike lane itself could not be porous because it was funded by fed hwy grants that require pavement with green paint.
###Q&A
How did ROW transfers b/w City/County work? Who takes care of maintenance? Every year, county goes to city council with a list of targeted projects. Also requires negotiation with city engineer and city DPW before contracts can be let. Maint is an "ongoing issue." Currently, maint is on the county since they initiated - trying to incorporate into contracts, but currently paying. Over time, will transfer maint back to city, aimed at minimizing burden.
lessons learned for contractors new to GI? In pre-construction meetings, city engineer or city staff should go through all fine points in technical contract. Not compacting soils, etc. Inspection is really important! Contractors will get better over time and as they learn. Communicate lessons learned.
Slides and transcript will be online w/in a week or 2.
http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/greeninfrastructure/gi_support.cfm