admin, Author at Center for Watershed Protection

Center Receives EPA Funding to Restore Proctor Creek Watershed in Atlanta

As part of the EPA award, The Center for Watershed Protection, Inc., will provide a replicable blueprint for pollutant load reduction crediting by developing a cost-effective approach to clean urban waters that integrates community-based water monitoring. A stakeholder group will be convened to vet the approach, which is expected to provide significant and quantifiable pollutant reduction to the Proctor Creek watershed in Atlanta. The project team includes the City of Atlanta, West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, and Center for Watershed Protection, Inc. Read full press release here.

admin2020-02-12T20:11:38-05:00December 31st, 2014|

New Tools for Sniffing Out Poop

As a mom of two, I have an uncanny ability to smell a poopy diaper from across the room. Little did I know that sense of smell can also be important to watershed work. I recently learned of two unique methods for sniffing out illicit sewage discharges. The Center has been helping communities track down illicit discharges for almost 10 years now and, although we’ve refined our outfall survey protocols to focus on the most cost-effective and reliable techniques for identification of suspect discharges, actually tracking them to their source can be a challenge. Source tracking can be costly when [...]

admin2017-09-30T10:46:42-04:00December 19th, 2014|

Sewage Happens- All Hands on Deck!

I am sitting in a coffee shop when a friend walks in and sits down to work in the chair next to me. I tell him that I’m writing an article about sewage pipes. He immediately chimes in and says, “Huh. My uncle is a wastewater engineer who inspects construction sites and he was telling me how often he finds sewage pipes that contractors have connected to a stormwater pipe instead of to the sanitary sewer system.” No, this is not the start of a bad joke…it’s just pure coincidence and a perfect way to introduce the lovely topic of [...]

admin2017-09-18T06:20:02-04:00November 24th, 2014|

Rebuilding “Who-ville”- Our Lost and Forgotten Underworld Communities

The old adage, “necessity is the mother of invention” speaks volumes to the efforts being invested to develop the next generation of smart Best Management Practices (BMPs) (1) in our efforts to restore the Bay and meet the EPA’s TMDL requirements. Part of this innovation is the development and pilot testing of a variety of enhanced media and soil amendments. One enhanced media gaining considerable interest is “biochar“ (http://www.biochar-international.org/), a charcoal-like material. While “biochar” is a relatively new term, it is not a new soil amendment - it is a 2000-year-old technology, rediscovered. In the United States, biochar research is [...]

admin2017-09-30T11:23:13-04:00September 18th, 2014|

American Clean Water Initiatives Color Blind: Ignores Gray Infrastructure

All Americans agree that abundant clean water is vital to the quality of life and economic well-being of the United States. Yet, currently 210 million Americans live within 10 miles of an “impaired water body”. This condition will continue to worsen under the relentless flow of 10 trillion gallons of untreated stormwater into our receiving waters. This sentiment is stated well by the Natural Resources Defense Council: “Dirty water is the world's biggest health risk, and continues to threaten both quality of life and public health in the United States. When water from rain and melting snow runs off roofs [...]

admin2017-09-30T11:25:07-04:00July 8th, 2014|

Center Receives National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council Grant

June 26, 2014 Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the 2014 USDA Forest Service’s National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge grant recipients. The grants provide funding that will help enhance urban forest stewardship, support new employment opportunities, and help build resilience in the face of a changing climate. Close to 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas and depends on the essential ecological, economic, and social benefits provided by urban trees and forests. Climate and extreme weather events pose threats to urban trees and forests requiring increased investment in management, restoration and stewardship. In the United States [...]

admin2017-09-27T06:51:58-04:00June 26th, 2014|

Onancock Parking Lot Soaks up Rain for a Cleaner Creek

Construction was recently completed on what is considered to be the first permeable pavement parking lot on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The parking lot project at the corner of Parker and King streets in Onancock was designed and coordinated by the Center for Watershed Protection in partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Town of Onancock. Read the press release here.

admin2017-09-27T07:01:40-04:00June 4th, 2014|

Why We Should Remember The Elk River Spill

Remember that chemical spill we all heard about in West Virginia’s Elk River not too long ago? It was the morning of January 9th when residents in the Charleston metropolitan area started smelling a strange licorice odor in their tap water. By the end of the day, 300,000 residents would have to turn off their taps and not drink, bathe in, or touch the water…for the next week or more. The culprit was 10,000 gallons of crude methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM), a chemical mixture that had leaked out of an old, but active storage tank sitting along the banks of the [...]

admin2017-09-18T06:31:29-04:00May 29th, 2014|

The Four Horsemen of Stream Restoration Sustainability

Last week our construction staff attended a preconstruction conference for what we consider a large stream restoration project that we are constructing. At the meeting, one of the project sponsors seemed almost gleeful that this project was in fact one of the most expensive stream restoration projects ever for them. The design and construction costs approached $1,000 per linear foot. You don’t have to be an expert in stream restoration or construction methods to conclude that this type of project is clearly not sustainable. I was curious how this project ended up being so expensive. To figure this out, I [...]

admin2017-09-18T06:35:52-04:00April 25th, 2014|

A Consistent BMP Performance Evaluation Process

When compared to other water pollution sectors, addressing stormwater pollution remains a relatively young discipline. Our collective knowledge of stormwater BMP performance is comprised of a patchwork of studies that relies upon many different methods and protocols in arriving at the reported results. While we have undoubtedly learned a lot about many different types of BMPs, many unknowns remain and comparing different types of BMPs side by side can be particularly difficult as a result of differences in monitoring methodology. There are numerous variables that can impact actual BMP performance as well as our ability to accurately measure said performance. [...]

admin2017-09-18T06:39:04-04:00April 2nd, 2014|

About admin