Tag: non-point source pollution

Rain Barrels and Rain Runoff

  • One city is asking people to use rain barrels like this one to prevent rain runoff that can overload drains and creeks. (Photo courtesy of the Huron River Watershed Council)

As cities cover more and more surface with pavement and buildings,
it’s taking a toll on the environment. Heavy rains flood off the
impervious surfaces and overload drains and creeks. Some cities are
trying new methods to control the problem. As Tracy Samilton
reports, Ann Arbor, Michigan is asking its residents to play a role by
catching their home’s rainwater in rain barrels:

Transcript

As cities cover more and more surface with pavement and buildings,
it’s taking a toll on the environment. Heavy rains flood off the
impervious surfaces and overload drains and creeks. Some cities are
trying new methods to control the problem. As Tracy Samilton
reports, Ann Arbor, Michigan is asking its residents to play a role by
catching their home’s rainwater in rain barrels:



Miller’s Creek in Ann Arbor is not a pretty creek. Part of it runs
alongside a congested four-lane road in one of the most developed
areas of the city. Since there’s almost no place left for rain to seep
slowly in the ground, it pours off the road and parking lots and
rooftops right into the creek:


“What you can see is all the roots that are exposed and very high
banks…”


Laura Rubin is head of the Huron River Watershed Council. Miller’s
Creek is part of the watershed. She says rain storms carry pollutants
and sediment into the creek, and sweep away animal and plant
species that might otherwise live here:


“This is not a healthy creek we call this impaired when they get flows
they’re so strong that they’re tearing away the banks.”


Rubin would like Miller’s Creek to be vibrant with life again one day.
But a lot of changes will have to happen first. She says nearby
businesses will have to build wetlands to retain their storm water.
The city will have to repave the roads to allow more drainage. And in
such a heavily populated area, residents will have to do something
too. Rubin says the first step is teaching people that a single point
source of pollution like a big factory is no longer the biggest threat to
water in their neighborhood:


“Now the main source of pollution is non-point pollution and that’s
us.”


Rubin says rain barrels could play a significant role in healing Miller’s
Creek. Rain barrels are just like they sound: big barrels that collect
water from a home’s rain gutters, to be dispersed later onto lawns or
gardens. One rain barrel can retain up to thirty percent of storm
water falling on a house. Under a dark grey sky that bodes rain,
Dave Aikins shows off his:


“It’s a big, uh, green trash can-like object…aesthetically, uh, I’m not
prepared to defend it.”


Aikins owns a medium-size house in downtown Ann Arbor. Now, with
a rain barrel installed on one side, he’ll catch half the rain that falls on
the house. He uses it to water his garden, but says someday he
might rig it so he can use the water for his laundry machine. A
neighbor kiddy-corner from him has installed one too, and they’ve
had neighborly arguments about proper installation and usage. He
likes how the rain barrel makes him feel.


“Living in an urban area, there’s no direct impact on you whether it
rains or not and this puts you back connected to natural environment,
so you start to care about whether you get your rain today.”

Aikins and other city residents have more than environmental
reasons to install rain barrels. The city water department is using a
carrot and stick approach to encourage their adoption. Installing a
rain barrel gets you a modest discount on the City of Ann Arbor’s new
storm water rates. Tom McMurtry is head of the new program:


“Under the old system, we charged one flat rate for every single
household whether you were an 800-square foot home in the city or a
5,000 square-foot mega-mansion.”


Now, the city will charge four different rates depending on the amount
of impervious pavement and size of the roof on the house. The
highest rate is three times more than the former flat rate, to better
reflect a big home’s impact on the city’s drains and creeks.
McMurtrie says about (blank) people have installed a rain barrel and
applied for the credit. He’d like to see at least 3,000 rain barrels
installed throughout the city. He doesn’t know how long it will take
to accomplish that:


“But every little bit helps.”


It’s an experiment in progress to see if having lots of rain barrels
around Miller’s Creek will help restore it. According to Laura Rubin
of the Huron River Watershed Council, it took about fifty years to
damage the creek this badly. It could take another fifty to bring it
back to health.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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Low-Cost Sewer Solutions

  • Pat Lindemann is the drain commissioner for Ingham County, Michigan. He uses “low-impact design” in drainage reconstruction projects. Behind Lindemann, work crews are digging one of several rain gardens that will be installed in this suburban neighborhood. Rain gardens serve as retention areas for storm water, and are a natural filter for pollution. (Photo by Erin Toner)

Many communities throughout the country are rebuilding their sewer systems to comply with federal pollution regulations. Nationwide, the work is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. But in some communities, a concept called “low-impact” design is making the projects cheaper and better for the environment. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Many communities throughout the country are rebuilding their sewer
systems to comply with federal pollution regulations. Nationwide, the
work is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. But in some communities, a
concept called “low-impact” design is making the projects cheaper and
better for the environment. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:


Dump trucks, black plastic pipes and huge piles of dirt line the streets of
this suburban neighborhood. It was built on very flat land and water
doesn’t run off. It used to be covered in ponds of wetlands. Now, that’s
causing big problems for people who live here. Their basements are
nearly always flooded and after it rains, they have pools of water in their
backyards for weeks, or months. Many run sump pumps all day and all
night.


Jesse Ramos lives in a white ranch house in the neighborhood.


“Actually, this past couple of months I’ve had a lot of problems with
water in my basement. I’ve actually already been through one sump
pump and I’ve went out and purchased another, just so I could keep up
with that. Right now that it hasn’t rained I’m okay. So, I’m a little
nervous when it starts to rain.”


Fixing these problems the traditional way – with concrete pipes, curbs
and gutters – would have cost 20 million dollars, and it would have
sent polluted storm water straight to the river, but Pat Lindemann wanted
to do the project differently. He wanted to save people money and clean
up the environment. Lindemann often sounds more like the head of a big
environmental group, than what he actually is – the county drain
commissioner for this neighborhood near Lansing, Michigan.


“A lot of people argue that if I own the wetland, I should be able to
destroy it, but you shouldn’t because… what you do on your property
affects the river, every time you over fertilize your lawn, every time you
do not pick up your domestic pet waste… this country has such a vast
amount of beautiful resources, and for 150 years, we’ve done everything
that we could to beat up on it.”


In Jesse Ramos’ neighborhood, Lindemann’s using low-impact design to
rebuild the drain system. It’s costing half as much as concrete curbs and
gutters.


“In the case of low-impact design, we force the water to go through soils,
to interact with plant roots, to stay on the land slightly longer and
become treated before it leaves to make its way to the river.”


The main way that happens is through rain gardens, one of the main
features of low-impact design. They’re bowl-shaped gardens planted
with native flowers and grasses. Native plants have long roots that draw
water deep into the ground and provide a natural filter for pollution.
Rain water collects in the gardens and becomes cleaner before eventually
reaching the pipe that takes it to the river.


Lindemann’s installing more than seven acres of gardens in the
neighborhood. He says people will have a few hours of standing water in
rain gardens, instead of weeks of water in their backyards.


Jesse Ramos is hearing this good news for the first time today…


“…now you’ll be flooded for about an hour and a half…an hour and a
half…that’s wonderful…and it’s pretty flowers…”


There’s another low-impact design project across town. Drainage
problems were causing backups in peoples’ homes. So, Drain
Commissioner Pat Lindemann built 20 acres of wetlands – right in the
middle of the city.


“It dawned on me, why take the water anywhere, why not just keep it. If
I can find a place to store it, put it and manipulate it, and not take it
anywhere, than I could manage it.”


This site is technically a series of retention ponds, but it’s really more
like a park. A paved walking path weaves around ponds and trees and
over bridges. It’s a place you’d bring school kids to learn about frogs
and birds and about being good to the environment.


This low-impact design project, like the one in Jesse Ramos’
neighborhood, was about half the cost of installing new concrete pipes
from the neighborhood to the river.


Low-impact design projects are happening all over – in Chicago and
Seattle, to more rural communities, and they’re likely to become more
common as cities consider how to cut non-point source pollution – the
leading cause of poor water quality. Non-point source pollution is a lot
of things – the fertilizer we use on our lawns or bacteria from animal
waste.


Pat Lindemann says his philosophy is that our dirty rivers will recover if
we start developing the land or rebuilding it the right way – one rain
garden or wetland at a time.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

A Road Salt Substitute?

  • Road salt spread on the streets of Ann Arbor, MI has a corrosive effect on this sewer grate. Many cities and states are looking for a less damaging, and more environmentally sensitive alternative to road salt.

With winter officially arriving, many towns and cities in the Midwest are preparing to fight the snow and ice that can make roads slippery and dangerous. That traditionally means spreading salt, but salt is damaging to the environment, so there is a growing movement toward using less corrosive and polluting means to make streets safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

With winter officially arriving, many towns and cities in the Great Lakes Region are preparing to fight the snow and ice that can make roads slippery and dangerous. That traditionally means spreading salt. But salt is damaging to the environment. So there is a growing movement toward using less corrosive and polluting means to make streets safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


Rock salt and calcium chloride have been the workhorses of snow removal for many years. Together, they help lower the freezing temperature of snow and slush, making it easier for the snow to be plowed away or worn down by cars before it turns into ice. But along with the good has come a great deal of bad. Besides keeping our streets clear, both chemicals can also pollute nearby waterways. They release chlorides and heavy metals into the environment and their corrosiveness can damage roadways, causing cracking and even potholes. So governments have been trying to find alternatives that can help remove the snow, and do less damage. Among those alternatives are snow and ice melters made of corn by-products. Ari Adler is a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Transportation. He says the department is in the second year of testing those alternatives:


“In Michigan, what we’re doing is we’re actually applying this material by itself, preferably before a snowstorm hits. So it sort of puts like a Teflon coating on and what it does is not allow the snow and ice to bond with the pavement. So its certainly easier to clear away just from people driving over it or if we send a plow, it’s going to clear up quicker than if we had to send a team of plows out after we get snow pack out there.”


Adler says the tests so far have been very encouraging, and his agency plans to increase the use of such products in the future. Manufacturers of corn and soybean based de-icers say there is a growing trend to look to these more natural products. Craig Phelps is with Natural Solutions, a company that makes a product called Ice Ban. It’s made from parts of a cornstalk that are not used for food. The result is a liquid that melts ice and snow even at very low temperatures. Phelps says the product can be used alone, or in combination with salt. He says when used in combination, the product reduces the amount of salt required to keep roads clear:


“The way to decrease the effective use of chlorides is to somehow increase their performance or increase their range of activity. Using a liquid in combination with a granular, dry salt can help. Most highway departments have found they use less salt, so that does decrease the amount of accumulated chlorides in the environment.”


Phelps says the biggest obstacle in getting cities and states to use corn based de icers is the added cost. But he says in addition to the environmental benefits, corn based de-icers will reduce wear and tear on streets, bridges, and cars because it does not have the corrosive effect of salt. Phelps says if those costs are taken into consideration, the corn based products are actually cheaper than salt. But not everyone believes that is true. Dave McKinney is the Operations Director for the City of Peoria, Illinois’ Public Works Department. He says using salt is not a major cause for street repairs in midwestern cities:


“The problem we are having with streets isn’t so much the salt as it is the wear and tear of the freeze-thaw. So yes, there are these benefits, but I don’t think it can offset the cost. Certainly not in my budget.”


McKinney says he has tested the corn-based products, and is satisfied that they work well. But he says Peoria will only use them if the price comes down. And there may be evidence that will happen. The market for corn and soybean based de-icing products has increased by a thousand percent over the past seven years, largely because producers are finding cheaper ways to make the products. And as demand continues to increase, manufacturers say the price will keep dropping. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

A ROAD SALT SUBSTITUTE? (Short Version)

  • Road salt spread on the streets of Ann Arbor, MI has a corrosive effect on this sewer grate. Many cities and states are looking for a less damaging, and more environmentally sensitive alternative to road salt.

Many highway departments in the Midwest are looking into alternative ways to remove snow and ice from streets. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

Many highway departments in the Midwest are looking into alternative ways to remove
snow and ice from streets. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


Most states and cities use rock salt and Calcium Chloride to keep streets from becoming
slippery and dangerous, but several companies are marketing additives to salt that they
say are just as effective, but do not include many of the pollutants that come from salt.
Graig Phelps is with Natural Solutions, a company that makes one of the additives:


“There’s a definite move to limit the nutrients that are applied through snow and
ice control. Phosphorus, copper, zinc, irons, and your heavy metals, which also have a
tendency to accumulate.”


Phelps says in addition to reducing pollutants, the additives also cut down on wear and
tear of streets and trucks because the bio-based products are non-corrosive. While the
use of the corn-based de-icers is on the rise, many cities say they have to wait until the
price comes down before converting to the new products. For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

Education Before Enforcement?

A new proposal announced last month by President Clinton and the
Environmental Protection Agency is being hailed as a new effort to
achieve clean water throughout the country. Officials say the method
will enforce the regulations that are already in place. But some
environmentalists say educating the public should be first and
foremost. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Scheck reports:

Disagreements Over Manure Runoff Policy

Environmentalists are concerned that big business agriculture will weaken a government proposal to reduce pollution. The federal government’s proposal would make large farm feedlots come up with a management plan to dispose of animal manure. The Great Lakes RadioConsortium’s Lester Graham reports that some farm groups are fighting it:

EPA Focuses on Agricultural Runoff

The federal government is planning to deal with one of the nation’sbiggest water pollution problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’sLester Graham reports…the government is cracking down on agriculturalpollution…and farmers wonder who’s going to pay for it: