admin, Author at Center for Watershed Protection

Beyond Lead: Infrastructure Concerns and Water Quality

All infrastructure, including municipal pipes, roads, bridges and dams, is susceptible to damage and wear and tear over the years. Corrosion, crumbling and age not only weaken these systems, but lead to them breaking down or leaching chemicals and other toxins into drinking water supplies and runoff areas. Pesticides, debris and even pharmaceutical contamination from the surrounding population can impact water quality and system health. But when the pipes themselves become an issue, finding the source and assessing the situation can uncover an overlooked hazard. Lead pipes are commonly thought of as a potential threat, however, asbestos may also be [...]

admin2021-09-14T08:26:09-04:00April 30th, 2018|

Life-Changing Green Jobs Training Program Expands to D.C.

Program will train unemployed or underemployed young adults for stormwater jobs For Immediate Release Contact: Kristen Peterson, The Hatcher Group, 410-990-0284, kristen@thehatchergroup.com ELLICOTT CITY, Md. (March 29, 2018) - Eight D.C. residents, aged 18 to 24, who have been struggling to find work have been selected to participate in a training program to build successful careers in the "green" stormwater industry. The Clean Water Certificate Training Program, which launched in Baltimore City in 2017, is now expanding to the Washington, D.C. area thanks to a partnership between the Latin American Youth Center River Corps program, the Center for Watershed Protection and funding [...]

admin2018-04-24T12:00:43-04:00April 24th, 2018|

Technical Support for Agricultural BMPs in the Mississippi River Basin

The Center recently wrapped up work funded by the Walton Family Foundation (WFF) to advance and inform the concept of a “common measure” for agricultural best management practices (BMPs) in the Mississippi River Basin. The common measure refers to a consistent method to credit water quality improvements from these BMPs and quantify their cumulative benefits as part of the multi-state strategy to eliminate hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. EPA’s Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan calls for the 12 states within the Mississippi River basin to produce agricultural nutrient loss reduction strategies to reduce nutrients to the Gulf of Mexico by [...]

admin2018-03-14T09:07:21-04:00March 13th, 2018|

New Case Studies on Conservation Design and Smart Growth

The case studies listed below describe and illustrate residential, commercial, and mixed-use developments that are notable for their innovative features, such as compact design enabling more land to be conserved for infiltration and recharge. They are similar to the 76 case studies included in the 2015 update of Rural by Design (subtitled Planning for Town and Country), which contains a long chapter on “low-impact development” approaches to manage stormwater more effectively. To paraphrase from the introduction to that book, “my goal has always been to provide the kind of resource that I wish had been available when I was a [...]

admin2022-09-08T12:47:24-04:00February 2nd, 2018|

New Ways to Capture the Power of Urban Trees to Reduce Pollution

Improved method for quantifying how trees limit runoff into local waters For Immediate Release Contact: Kristen Peterson, The Hatcher Group, 410-990-0284, kristen@thehatchergroup.com ELLICOTT CITY, Md. (Jan. 17, 2018) – The Center for Watershed Protection announced today it has developed a ground-breaking new method to account for the capacity of trees planted in urban areas to reduce runoff pollution. The Center has used that model to develop two tree planting credits — a pollutant load reduction credit and a stormwater performance-based credit. “Urban trees and forests improve water quality primarily by decreasing the amount of stormwater runoff and pollutants that reach [...]

admin2018-01-16T09:45:45-05:00January 17th, 2018|

Updated Planning Tool Helps Communities Evaluate Development Regulations

Facilitates better site design to reduce pollution and costs For Immediate Release Contact: Kristen Peterson, The Hatcher Group, 410-990-0284, kristen@thehatchergroup.com ELLICOTT CITY, Md. (Jan. 4, 2018) – The Center for Watershed Protection announced today that it has updated its widely used “Code and Ordinance Worksheet (COW),” a tool for evaluating development rules in communities. Originally created in 1998, the COW is a tool for municipal staff or non-governmental organizations whose communities are experiencing or anticipating new development or redevelopment in urban, suburban or rural areas and need help evaluating their local development regulations. “Our main goal is to help communities [...]

admin2018-01-04T11:29:01-05:00January 4th, 2018|

Making Urban Trees Count

The use of trees as a stormwater best management practice (BMP) has been limited by the uncertainty of how to “credit” trees for runoff and pollutant reduction to meet water quality requirements. In 2014, the Center for Watershed Protection (the Center) began a study to address this gap by developing a science-based crediting system for urban tree planting. The project was funded through a grant from the U.S. Forest Service’s National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council. As a first step, the Center reviewed 159 publications to help answer the question “What is the effectiveness of urban tree planting for [...]

admin2017-12-28T15:01:54-05:00December 28th, 2017|

Can Urban BMPs Treat Toxics Too?

In 2015, Tom Schueler and Anna Youngk of the Chesapeake Stormwater Network asked themselves: To what degree can urban stormwater BMPs (e.g., bioretention, constructed wetlands, detention ponds) reduce toxic contamination of waterways? In service to EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program Toxic Contaminant Work Group, they undertook a massive literature review to try to answer the question. Out of thousands of potential urban toxic contaminants, their literature review focused specifically on 12 categories (Table 1). This list comes from an assessment of environmental risk in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (USEPA et al. 2012). Table 1: Priority urban toxic contaminants in the Chesapeake [...]

admin2017-12-21T12:59:47-05:00December 21st, 2017|

An Updated Code and Ordinance Worksheet for Improving Local Development Regulations

Published in 1998, the Center for Watershed Protection’s Better Site Design Handbook outlines 22 model development principles for site design that act to reduce impervious cover, conserve open space, prevent stormwater pollution, and reduce the overall cost of development. The model development principles were created through a national Site Planning Roundtable, a consensus-based process initiated to create more environmentally sensitive, economically viable and locally appropriate development. The roundtable consisted of over 30 influential individuals from various organizations around the nation, including environmental groups, transportation officials, planners, realtors, homebuilders, land trusts, fire officials, county mangers and more. The Better Site Design [...]

admin2017-12-19T13:55:51-05:00December 19th, 2017|

Chesapeake Bay Program Urban Stream Restoration FAQs

By Lisa Fraley-McNeal and Bill Stack Stream restoration is a billion-dollar industry across the nation and is expected to grow exponentially to address water quality needs. In the Chesapeake Bay watershed alone, approximately 700 miles of stream restoration projects are expected to be implemented to achieve the nutrient and sediment load reductions defined by the Chesapeake Bay TMDL (Schueler and Stack, 2014). The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) convened an Urban Stream Restoration Expert Panel that was co-chaired by the Center for Watershed Protection and the Chesapeake Stormwater Network (CSN) to develop nutrient and sediment crediting protocols for stream restoration. The [...]

admin2021-08-02T08:38:30-04:00November 6th, 2017|

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