Stormwater Management

Before urbanization, much of the rain that fell from the sky was absorbed into the landscape through a natural process that filtered out pollutants, recharged groundwater, and reduced the likelihood of erosion and flooding. Today, rain falling on urban areas washes over roofs, streets, parking lots, and other impervious surfaces, creating runoff that is channeled and diverted by downspouts and storm drains to local sewer systems or rivers, lakes or oceans. Along the way, runoff from these impervious surfaces, picks up a wide range of pollutants, including oils, metals, chemicals, pesticides, and sediment.

Unmanaged stormwater runoff is a major cause of water pollution and watershed degradation throughout the United States. During heavy rainfalls, combined sewer systems are unable to handle the surge of channeled stormwater, resulting in the discharge of raw or untreated sewage directly into nearby rivers, lakes, or oceans. In separated sewer systems, stormwater is discharge directly to local water bodies increasing pollution, erosion and flooding.

The federal Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and Endangered Species Act direct all communities in the United States to improve water quality and to protect our watersheds, rivers, streams and drinking water resources. To date, the response to these regulations have been massive public infrastructure projects that have been designed to manage the problem after it has been created. These conventional solutions include “Big Pipe” or “Big Pond” projects to minimize overflows and/or reduce pollution or stormwater flows into local water bodies. The mounting costs of new infrastructure development projects, environmental regulations, and the impact on our natural resources caused by continued development, are driving stormwater managers to develop new and sustainable approaches to stormwater management.

ProjectDX provides stormwater managers a new solution for the management of stormwater in their communities by minimizing runoff at the source through retrofit actions. Individual private properties may account for upwards of 80-90% of a communities total land area and, unless controlled by stormwater regulations, runoff from these properties goes unmanaged. Focused on minimizing runoff from individual properties – source control – through the use of sustainable stormwater solutions, ProjectDX animates implementation of retrofit stormwater actions through the use of property specific tools, incentives and a local marketplace for construction.

By using GIS data, ProjectDX performs a rapid assessment of a property and recommends property specific sustainable stormwater solutions based on sewer system and watershed needs. ProjectDX provides property owners easy to use tools for sizing each solution and understanding costs – including utility costs if applicable – and benefits of each solution to aid in choosing which solution is right for them. ProjectDX determines whether there are any financial incentives available and provides a full marketplace of retailers, landscapers, contractors, and lenders who can help the owner to compare, finance, install, and maintain their stormwater solutions. ProjectDX makes it easy for property owners to act for the benefit of the environment.

Publications

Vizzini, Dan (2008): “Portland’s Stormwater Marketplace”, in The Water Report, Issue # 55, September 15, 2008, pp.10-18. www.thewaterreport.com