In 2012, 150 years ago, Engineers realized that storm water runoff was a threat to both humanity and

nature. Rapid human development in the 20th and 21st century had destroyed natural habitats and increased the amount of impervious surfaces. Impervious surfaces do not allow water to naturally infiltrate into the ground, into the natural reservoir of ground water; therefore storm water runoff became a problem. Every acre of impervious surface that receives one inch of rainfall will have 27,156 gallons of runoff. This water contained pollutants such as nitrogen, phosphorus and sediments. These chemicals affected the natural ecosystem very negatively. An example is the North American Chesapeake Bay, located on the eastern coast. All of this water runoff containing unhealthy amounts of pollution, and the Bay suffered. In 2012, the Chesapeake Bay was rated a 31 out of 100 in the State of the Bay Report, which measures the state of the bay, against the healthiest the Chesapeake Bay has ever been described. The theoretical 100 was set by observations recorded by Captain John Smith in the 1600s, the first to explore the bay. He said that the oysters and fish were plentiful, and at the oyster population could filter the bay in three days. To compare, In 2012 the oysters took one year to accomplish the same task. Six states and DC were parts of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and in 2013, exceeded the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) which is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still safely meet water quality standards. The primary cause of this was storm water runoff from urbanization and increased amounts of impervious surfaces.