News – Page 2 – Center for Watershed Protection

Project Update: Stormwater Management Retrofit Inventory in Strasburg Borough, PA

For the past three years, the Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) has operated a Circuit Rider program to provide technical assistance to municipalities in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on reducing stormwater pollution. This work has included technical support to the Lancaster Clean Water Partners, working collaboratively with the Center for Water Quality Excellence to bridge gaps between agricultural and municipal stakeholders, and, most recently, engaging Strasburg Borough in a green infrastructure opportunity analysis. This past Spring, CWP worked with the Strasburg Borough manager and ELA Group to conduct a stormwater management retrofit inventory across the entire Borough. Stormwater retrofits are structural [...]

admin2022-07-22T15:00:32-04:00July 22nd, 2022|

Evaluating the Economic Benefits of Land Protection in the Savannah River Basin

The mission of the Savannah River Clean Water Fund is to protect and restore forests in the Savannah River Basin to help provide safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water for the communities and businesses in the region. The Fund was formed based on the shared recognition among public and private interests in the Savannah River Basin of the explicit connection between the Basin’s land resources and uses and their impacts on raw water supplies. To maintain the quality of the Savannah River as a drinking water source, the Fund has set a goal of maintaining 60% natural cover in the [...]

admin2022-05-31T11:11:17-04:00March 29th, 2022|

Five Reasons to Join Us in St. Pete

Despite being one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, being consistently ranked as a top arts and cultural destination among cities its size and holding the Guinness World Record for the longest number of consecutive sunshine days in the world (768 days), the city of St. Petersburg, Florida still somehow manages to slip under the radar as a top destination. I’ve been visiting St. Pete for a couple years now and every time I go, I find another reason to go back! If you have been to one of our events before you know that you are in for a unique [...]

Marlyn Argueta2022-06-20T13:28:55-04:00March 23rd, 2022|

The Self-Recovery of Stream Channel Stability in Urban Watersheds

For more than 10 years, stormwater engineers in Carroll County, Maryland have experimented with the retrofit of existing stormwater ponds originally designed to reduce the rate of runoff to downstream receiving streams. Modeling results indicate that these retrofit designs—specifically, enhanced sand filter and wet pond designs—capture and retain enough rainfall that peak flows from the two-year storm are less than those from a wooded site in good condition. Carroll County also observed that the highly eroded streambanks downstream of the retrofits stopped retreating and began to re-vegetate over months or years after the construction of the retrofits. Given these results, [...]

admin2022-01-25T10:22:06-05:00January 24th, 2022|

Stormwater Improvements at Audubon Naturalist Society’s Woodend Sanctuary

The Audubon Naturalist Society’s Woodend Sanctuary is a haven for native plants that is visited by thousands of students, individuals, and families from the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area each year. The Center assisted with an ambitious plan to improve the property that included green infrastructure projects, a permeable path along the stream, and a large play space. The Center designed, obtained permits, and managed construction for a series of green infrastructure projects to address severe stream erosion and polluted runoff. The Center’s design converted 1,400 feet of eroding stream running through the property into a series of 45 sequenced step [...]

admin2021-08-18T12:16:27-04:00August 18th, 2021|

Analysis of MS4 Monitoring Data in Maryland: What are the Effects of Restoration on Stream Quality?

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Phase I Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permittees in Maryland have been conducting monitoring for more than 20 years to meet their permit requirements, the most recent of which specifies the use of monitoring to assess the effectiveness of watershed restoration efforts. The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) directed the MS4s to focus their monitoring efforts on small watersheds where significant restoration opportunities were planned, and to conduct pre- and post-restoration monitoring to evaluate whether the best management practices (BMPs) were effective in restoring physical, chemical and/or biological conditions. As a result [...]

admin2021-05-20T11:56:22-04:00May 20th, 2021|

2021 National Watershed & Stormwater Conference Highlights

On April 13th through April 16th, the Center for Watershed Protection hosted its sixth annual National Watershed & Stormwater Conference virtually. Our National Watershed & Stormwater Conferences are offered each Spring, and they provide a forum for sharing fresh ideas on the principles and practices of watershed and stormwater management. For the second year in a row, the 2021 National Watershed & Stormwater Conference was held virtually to keep our attendees, presenters, sponsors, and staff safe and healthy. This year, we worked especially hard to create opportunities for the same interactive and engaging networking as the Center’s in-person events. We [...]

admin2021-05-18T16:08:17-04:00May 17th, 2021|

Great Lakes Communities to Gain Stormwater Expert

February 17, 2021 Marquette, MI – The Center for Watershed Protection, a national leader in stormwater management and watershed planning, is expanding its work to the Great Lakes region. Greg Hoffmann, the Center’s Director of Stormwater Services, recently opened a satellite office in Marquette, Michigan to serve the watershed. “Opening the Great Lakes office provides an opportunity to expand our reach and protect critical water resources in another vital United States watershed,” said Hye Yeong Kwon, the Center’s Executive Director. “We are thrilled Greg will be bringing his wealth of stormwater knowledge to the largest freshwater system in the world [...]

admin2021-02-26T12:56:34-05:00February 25th, 2021|

Town of New Market Step Pool Storm Conveyance System

A stormwater retrofit designed by the Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) and constructed by Resource Restoration Group (RRG) in the Town of New Market, Maryland is now complete. This project transformed an historic fire pond into a step pool storm conveyance system that reduces stormwater pollution in the Linganore Creek watershed, a drinking water supply that is part of the larger Potomac River Basin. The project was initially identified as a top priority in the Town’s Stormwater Retrofit Plan developed by CWP in 2019. The New Market fire pond was constructed more than 68 years ago as a water source [...]

admin2021-01-11T15:05:55-05:00January 11th, 2021|

Innovative Stormwater Management in the District of Columbia

The Center for Watershed Protection (the Center) has been helping the District of Columbia stay up-to-date on stormwater management standards for over 20 years. The Center first assisted the District in 1999, with revisions to their draft Stormwater Guidebook, which dated back to 1994. The new guidebook contained what at the time were innovative new sizing criteria for water quality, overbank flood control, and extreme flood control for new development. In 2013, the Center worked with the District Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE) to again revise their Stormwater Management Guidebook. This time, the update focused on how to [...]

admin2020-12-02T14:09:55-05:00December 2nd, 2020|