Managing Wet Weather with

Green Infrastructure
a periodic update on activities
Volume 2007, Issue 1 September 2007

Green Infrastructure Website EPA Contacts

On April 19, 2007, EPA and four national groups formed a partnership to EPA Headquarters
promote green infrastructure as an environmentally preferable approach Jenny Molloy, OW/OWM
to stormwater management. As an important first step towards meeting Robert Goo, OW/OWOW
partnership goals, members of this collaborative effort have joined forces Gary Hudiburgh, OECA
to create a web-based resource center focusing specifically on green infra- EPA Regions
structure. Launched in June, the resource center will serve as an informa- Jackie LeClair, R1
tional clearinghouse, and will be continuously updated to provide visitors Stephen Venezia, R2
with the latest information available. Dominique Leuckenhoff, R3
Jim Giattina, R4
The partnerships’ new resource center, located at www.epa.gov/npdes/ Joan Karnauskas, R5
greeninfrastructure, has been created for people with varying levels of Pradip Dalal, R7
interest and expertise, and has been designed so that visitors can quickly Elaine Lai, R8
access useful information. To make the resource center more user- John Tinger, R9
friendly, the site has been divided into several sub-sections that focus on Krista Mendelman, R10
specific aspects of green infrastructure. One section, for example, is de-
voted entirely to performance data, and contains links to technical re- Presentations to date:
ports, predictive models and calculators that demonstrate how green in-
frastructure practices can effectively reduce the amount of stormwater NACWA Annual Confer-
runoff entering our combined and separate sewer systems. Other sections ence, July 2007
of the website focus on things like general information, case studies, fund-
ing, and links to additional resources. OW Brown Bag, August
2007
In addition to providing visitors with substantive, up-to-date information,
the online resource center is also being used to garner support for the new ASIWPCA Annual Confer-
green infrastructure partnership that EPA has helped forge. Recently, a ence, August 2007
new section has been added to the website where local and state govern-
ments, environmental groups, developers and other corporate entities can National Stormwater Co-
join the partnership. At present, more than 40 organizations have signed- ordinators Conference,
on to the Statement of Support for Green Infrastructure, with additional September 2007
groups added daily. As support for the partnership continues to grow,
NACWA Leadership Con-
green infrastructure practices will ultimately become a more widespread
ference, September 2007
stormwater management strategy. Contact: Greg Voigt
Upcoming Forums &
On August 16, 2007 a joint memo, Use of Green Infrastructure in NPDES Events:
Permits and Enforcement, was issued by Water Permits Division and Water
Enforcement Division to regional and state NPDES programs. The memo Managing Wet Weather
clarifies that green infrastructure technologies are consistent with NPDES with Green Infrastruc-
permitting and enforcement frameworks, and encourage use of these ture, Northern Kentucky,
techniques as appropriate. Contact: Gary Hudiburgh and Jenny Molloy September 20, 2007
A joint OGWDW, OWM and OWOW workgroup is
developing guidance on stormwater infiltration
practices and class V wells under the under-
ground injection control (UIC) regulations. The
guidance will clarify when specific management
practices are subject to the regulations, and
what those requirements are. Conclusions so
far are that most LID infiltration techniques are
not class V wells, but that a small subset of
practices with certain design characteristics
are. Contact: Greg Voigt & Jeff Jollie

Contractual efforts are underway to:

• Expand the D.C. Green Build-out Model to
evaluate reductions in stormwater and CSO
discharges attributable to additional green
infrastructure practices in D.C. The initial
modeling effort looked at green roofs, trees
and tree boxes. Now additional green
measures will be incorporated into the
model.
• Develop standard protocols to evaluate per-
formance of green practices, both for water SEA Street in Seattle. The street was redesigned
with vegetated swales. Over 2 years of monitoring
quality and quantity, as well as other bene-
these measures infiltrated and evapotranspirated
fits, such as carbon sequestration, urban 100% of the precipitation, with no discharge.
heat island mitigation & energy savings.

A joint OWM, OWOW, OPEI (smart growth pro-
gram) effort is underway to provide draft MS4
permit language to interested states that would
provide a framework to facilitate implementa-
tion of green infrastructure practices. To-date
West Virginia, Region 10 (for Idaho and Alaska),
and Massachusetts (in conjunction with Region
1) permitting authorities have requested tech-
nical assistance. Several other programs have
also expressed interest. Contact: Lynn Rich-
ards, Robert Goo and Jenny Molloy
Development of a support document is under-
way to provide additional explanation on green
infrastructure in permits, CSO long-term con-
trol plans and settlements, e.g., what would
monitoring, tracking, reporting and reopener
provisions look like. The document will also
include examples of existing green infrastruc-
ture provisions in permits, LTCPs, SEPs, and
injunctive relief. Contact: Gary Hudiburgh

In the Next Issue:

♣ Green Infrastructure at large retail facilities

♣ Green Infrastructure research forum

♣ Municipal incentives to encourage Green