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EPA, Water Representatives Enter Pact On 'Green Infrastructure' to Limit Overflows
An agreement reached April 19 among the Environmental Protection Agency and state, environmental, and wastewater utility groups formalizes the use of grassy swales, rain barrels, and small, urban wetlands to capture polluted stormwater runoff from paved roads and buildings and minimize the threat of sewer overflows.
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson signed the national "statement of intent" in Pittsburgh with representatives from the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Agencies (ASIWPCA), Low Impact Development, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA).
The agreement's purpose is to formalize the use of "green infrastructure" approaches, where stormwater is captured using grassy swales along sidewalks, rain barrels, and cisterns or roof gardens, and then returned to the soil instead of letting it flow through overextended combined sewer and stormwater drains, leading to overflows.
The agreement directs EPA and state permitting agencies to explore ways or incentives to incorporate the use of "green infrastructure" into the requirements of National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits.
It also calls for EPA to develop memos and guidance materials, including language for an NPDES permit writer's manual that would explain how regulatory and enforcement officials should evaluate and "credit" the use of such approaches in meeting Clean Water requirements.
Soil, Plants to Aid 'Hard Infrastructure.'
EPA defines "green infrastructure" as the strategic use of soil and plants to help absorb, infiltrate, evaporate, or reuse excess stormwater and associated pollutants instead of, or in addition to, pipes, pumps, storage tunnels, and other "hard infrastructure" that traditionally is used to collect, store, and transport water through large buried sewer systems. EPA said this approach also can be used to reduce stormwater discharges and to help restore the natural hydrology, water quality, and habitat of urban and suburban watersheds.
Rain barrels and cisterns, roofs that are covered with vegetation and plantings, tree boxes, rain gardens, and pocket wetlands are just a few examples that EPA cites as common green infrastructure approaches, where water is treated as an important resource rather than a waste product.
"We are pleased to join the EPA and our other partners in recognizing that simple solutions like planting green roofs or giving urban trees more room to spread their roots can control some of our worst water pollution," Nancy Stoner, NRDC's clean water project director, said in an April 19 statement. She said wet weather pollution, particularly from stormwater overflows, is responsible for impairing most of the nation's urban and suburban waterways.
Linda Eichmiller, ASIWPCA's executive director, agrees that the
"payoff" for using "green" approaches is "significant" because it provides a
cheaper alternative for urban and suburban cities and towns to meet the NPDES
stormwater permit requirements under the Clean Water Act.
The agreement is especially helpful for wastewater utilities because it promotes
ways that would prevent stormwater from overloading combined sewer systems,
Susan Bruninga, NACWA's public affairs director, told BNA April 20.
Runoff as Major Impairment to Streams
Paved roads, sidewalks, and concrete buildings with no outlets for natural flow of rainwater have stressed the capacity of the nation's outmoded combined sewer systems, built nearly a century ago. EPA has identified stormwater runoff to be among the chief causes of impairment in the nation's streams (236 DEN A-6, 12/8/06 ).
"Basically, grassy swales, rain barrels on the sides of homes, and roof gardens on buildings keep stormwater out of combined systems, reduce the threat of overflows, and use nature's own mechanisms to filter rainwater," Bruninga explained. She added that combined sewer collection systems are designed to handle "only so much stormwater."
NACWA President Dick Champion cautioned against looking at green infrastructure as the solution for replacing the nation's aging pipes, drains, and overextended treatment plants.
In a statement issued April 19, Champion said green infrastructure, though capable of making a "dent" in how much stormwater enters the pipes and stormwater drains, did not absolve EPA or Congress from identifying new sources of revenue to maintain what NACWA calls the "grey" infrastructure.
"The use of pipes, tanks, and treatment plants will always play a critical role in protecting the health of our nation's cities and waters," Champion said. "As such, it is incumbent on all of us to identify new sources of revenue to maintain our infrastructure."
EPA, the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Water Infrastructure Network, a wastewater utility advocacy group, put the funding gap between what is currently being spent and what the nation's drinking water and wastewater utilities need at $300 billion to $500 billion over the next 20 years.
Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for EPA's office of water, has been extensively promoting the use of sustainable approaches, such as green infrastructure, to help wastewater utilities manage problems of combined sewer overflows owing to excessive runoff. He has repeatedly told members of Congress as well as state, environmental, and wastewater groups that communities should use all available tools to mitigate the problems associated with stormwater runoff.
More information about EPA's green infrastructure program is available at http://www.epa.gov/npdes/greeninfrastructure.
By Amena H. Saiyid