Nonpoint Pollution | Success Stories | Urban

Urban Success Stories

Note: Highlighted projects are not necessarily funded by the Coastal Nonpoint Program nor do they necessarily represent projects that have been approved by NOAA and EPA to remove remaining conditions on state programs.

PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS

Coastal Resources Management Council Leading LID efforts in Rhode Island: The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) has taken proactive steps to require low impact development (LID) techniques in Rhode Islandís coastal cities and towns. Through its Urban Coastal Greenways (UCG) regulations, an integral part of the revisions to the Providence Harbor (now Metro Bay) Special Area Management Plan (SAMP), the CRMC now requires LID techniques for redevelopment and development projects in urban coastal areas. In addition, all applicants seeking development permits in the Metro Bay SAMP must demonstrate that their project design has been reviewed by someone with a Master Design Low Impact Development Certificate. The University of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Center has been offering LID certification classes and specific training on how to apply them to urban coastal settings.

The Metro Bay SAMP includes the urban waterfronts of the cities of Cranston, Providence, East Providence and Pawtucket. The once heavily industrial waterfronts are undergoing an urban revitalization, attracting many developers to the area. By requiring the use of LID techniques, the CRMC is helping to reduce polluted runoff in these redeveloping areas.

In addition to its urban areas, the CRMC is also working on changes to the Greenwich Bay SAMPís buffer zone regulations to address suburban redevelopment. These revisions will include requirements for using LID to treat stormwater on individual coastal lots. To facilitate implementation of the buffer zone regulations, the CRMC is also developing a specialized suburban design manual for Greenwich Bay to improve storm water management.

South Carolina Develops Onsite Septic System Management Toolkit:   In South Carolina’s Coastal Zone, efforts to promote onsite septic system management have been spearheaded by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (DHEC-OCRM) as part of its Coastal Nonpoint Program. The latest NOAA-funded effort is the development of the Onsite Septic System Management Tool Kit CD for Local Governments. The Tool Kit CD is the end result of numerous coastal pilot projects conducted and sponsored by DHEC during the past ten years.  This valuable resource disk was distributed in 2006 to local governments, public utilities and planning agencies in the Coastal Zone. The tool kit also available online.

The interactive tool kit provides information to assist local planners and decision makers to develop a comprehensive septic system management strategy that will promote community health, protect natural resources, and even improve property values through homeowner education. The tool kit looks and operates like a website with over 80 documents, a database template, web-links to state and national resources, PowerPoint presentations, and more. The documents include pilot project reports, EPA management guidelines, articles, fact sheets, case studies on local government management efforts, and septic management ordinance examples and templates.

Rhode Island Policy Altered Based on Stormwater Center Data:  The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) has implemented an interim policy discouraging the use of hydrodynamic separators based on work at the University of New Hampshire’s Stormwater Center, which is part of the NOAA-UNH Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET).

After reviewing the Stormwater Center’s side-by-side studies of a dozen stormwater treatment systems, the CRMC concluded that certain types of hydrodynamic separators are not effective in achieving the required water quality standards for total suspended solids in runoff.  The council “strongly discouraged” their use as the sole method of treatment for new development and redevelopment projects in the state.  The policy was adopted even as the council is in the process of re-writing its stormwater regulations.

The Stormwater Center has been working with Rhode Island officials who are drafting regulations that would limit hydrodynamic separators to pre-treatment roles while requiring Low Impact Development technologies such as infiltration facilities, vegetated systems, constructed stormwater filtration wetlands, and other approved methods. The Stormwater Center has shown these methods to be very effective in treating stormwater runoff. 

For more information, contact CICEET’s co-director, Dwight Trueblood.

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