Managing Wet Weather with

Green Infrastructure
a periodic update on activities
Volume 2008, Issue 1 January 2008

On January 17, 2008 EPA, American Rivers, Asso- Contacts

ciation of State and Interstate Water Pollution
Control Administrators, Low Impact Development EPA Headquarters

Center, National Association of Clean Water Jenny Molloy, OW/OWM

Agencies, and the Natural Resources Defense Robert Goo, OW/OWOW

Gary Hudiburgh, OECA

Council released Managing Wet Weather with

Green Infrastructure, Action Strategy 2008. The EPA Regions

document is an action plan for bringing green in- Jackie LeClair, R1

frastructure practices and approaches into the Stephen Venezia, R2

mainstream of wet weather management. The Dominique Leuckenhoff, R3

document is available at http://www.epa.gov/ Jim Giattina, R4

Joan Karnauskas, R5

npdes/pubs/gi_action_strategy.pdf. Feedback on the action strategy

Brent Larsen, R6

is welcomed. We would especially like to hear your thoughts on how Pradip Dalal, R7

your efforts may dovetail with the strategy. If there are opportunities Elaine Lai, R8

for cooperative effort, please let us know. Contact: Jenny Molloy, John Tinger, R9

molloy.jennifer@epa.gov Krista Mendelman, R10

Steering Committee

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that was signed into Partners

law on December 19, 2007 includes a provision located in Title IV Nancy Stoner, NRDC

(Energy Savings in Building and Industry), Subtitle C (High Perform- Nathan Gardner-Andrews,

ance Federal Buildings) with enormous potential to drive greener wet NACWA

weather management in federal projects. Chris Kloss & Neil

Weinstein, LID Center

Sec. 438 Storm Water Runoff Requirements for Federal Development Katherine Baer,

Projects. The sponsor of any development or redevelopment project American Rivers

Linda Eichmiller, ASIWPCA

involving a Federal facility with a footprint that exceeds 5,000 square

feet shall use site planning, design, construction, and maintenance
strategies for the property to maintain or restore, to the maximum
extent technically feasible, the predevelopment hydrology of the
property with regard to the temperature, rate, volume, and duration
of flow.

The Federal Environmental Executive has the leadership for federal

agency compliance with these provisions.

For more information on managing wet weather with green infrastructure see the website at:
www.epa.gov/npdes/greeninfrastructure. To be added to an e-mail distribution list for future is-
sues of this bulletin and other notices, send an e-mail request to molloy.jennifer@epa.gov.
Volume 2008, Issue 1
The Federal Highway Administration has awarded
$1.4 million in grants for 14 ecosystem based in-
frastructure projects. Projects were chosen for
their potential to demonstrate best practices for
integrating transportation and environmental
planning. Summaries of these projects are at
http://www.environment.fhwa.dot.gov/strmlng/
newsletters/jan08nl.asp
The Sustainable Sites Initiative (SSI) is an inter-
disciplinary partnership between the American
Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird
Johnson Wildflower Center, the United States
Botanic Garden and other organizations to de-
velop landscape guidelines and standards that
will protect and enhance services such as climate
regulation, clean air and water, and improved
quality of life. SSI is developing standards for
the construction and maintenance of sustainable
sites; a rating system with specific performance
goals; pilot projects to test the rating system;
and a reference guide evaluating the pilots. SSI
released the Preliminary Report on Standards and
Guidelines in November 2007, http://
www.sustainablesites.org/report.html
A Green Infrastructure Research Forum was held
on January 17 and 18 at the American Institute of
Architects in Washington, D.C. The forum, hosted
by EPA, the Water Environment Research Foun-
dation and the Low Impact Development Center,
brought together researchers and practitioners to
discuss how to fill information gaps in areas of
performance, modeling and economics for using
green infrastructure to manage wet weather.
Follow on activities from the forum are underway
to develop specific research action plans.
New Publications
Obendorfer et al. Green Roofs as Urban Ecosys-
tems: Ecological Structures, Functions and Ser-
vices. BioScience 57(10) November 2007.
U.S. EPA. Reducing Stormwater Costs through Low
Impact Development (LID) Strategies and Prac-
tices. EPA 841-F-07-006. December 2007. http://
www.epa.gov/owow/nps/lid/costs07/
January 2008
Partner Features
Using Rainwater to Grow Livable Communities
A recently completed Water Environment Re-
search Foundation (WERF) project has devel-
oped a new website to facilitate the integration
of stormwater BMPs into development projects.
The website is public-friendly and can be used
by municipalities and others to educate and
inform constituents and stakeholders about sus-
tainable stormwater practices. Learn about
Kansas City’s “10,000 rain gardens” initiative,
Chicago’s green roofs program, or how Phila-
delphia is converting vacant land covered with
trash and debris into valuable assets that offer
stormwater management benefits. Information
from these and other case studies, as well as
tools that can be used for effective communi-
cation on sustainable stormwater BMPs, is avail-
able at www.werf.org/livablecommunities.
Contact: Jeff Moeller, jmoeller@werf.org
Upcoming Forums & Events
Green Development, Good for Water and the
Bottom Line. February 24-26, Nashville TN
http://www.outreach.utk.edu/
greendevelopment/
6th Annual Greening Rooftops for Sustainable
Communities Conference: Awards & Trade
Show. April 30-May 2, Baltimore MD
http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/
Summary.aspx?e=6e71365a-859a-4f9c-8bfc-
78af55f944e3
Sustainability 2008: Green Practices for the Wa-
ter Environment. June 22-25, National Harbor
MD
http://www.wef.org/ConferencesTraining/
ConferencesEvents/Sustainability/
International Low Impact Development Confer-
ence. November 16-19, Seattle Washington.
Call for abstracts is open until March 14.
http://content.asce.org/conferences/lid08/
call.html