A groundbreaking effort to deal with the region’s storm water problems is being considered at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. The District's board, which has representatives from cities throughout the area, expects to vote this year on a new stormwater fee that would be imposed on all residents and businesses. The goal is to create a “regional stormwater agency” and to take a coordinated approach to handling a growing number of floods in the area while improving water quality. Go here to see the District's program description, rate structure and funding.

Here’s more information about stormwater agencies, what they might do to reduce flooding, and some ideas to green your property and possibly lower your storm water fees for your property:

Why should we care about this ‘new’ thing called storm water? Isn’t that something that our cities can handle on their own?

“Storm-water problems don't know boundaries," Parma Mayor Dean DePiero said in February 1, 2009 Plain Dealer article introducing the concept. DePiero, a board member of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District—the organization that wants to manage the regional stormwater agency—adds that rapid growth in neighboring communities has exacerbated flooding problems in Parma (just like other cities downstream from new development).

In recent years, NEORSD staff and consultants have been studying stormwater problems in the district’s service area. Local communities have identified hundreds of stormwater problem areas. Specifically, a survey of 49 communities in the area uncovered 334 stormwater problem areas. Problems included stream debris, bank erosion, stream flooding, basement flooding, and street flooding. The communities said they were spending $17 million per year on maintenance and capital improvement programs to alleviate these problems.

In addition to bearing the costs of stormwater problems, local communities are facing increased environmental regulations for stormwater. In 1999, the 54 communities served by the district will become newly regulated under the U.S. EPA Phase II Stormwater Regulations and will be required to secure a stormwater permit. Allowable pollution from stormwater will also be limited by new water quality regulations that will set “total maximum daily loads” for streams from all pollution sources.

Read about the history of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, and the case for handling the region’s storm water issues here.

What are stormwater agencies and how do they work?

Like dozens of other stormwater agencies around the country, a Northeast Ohio regional stormwater authority will recommend a fee structure for homeowners and businesses based on how much paved surface we have on our property, which contributes to polluted rivers and lakes.

Models of effective stormwater agencies include Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Chicago and Portland—all are reducing water pollution, stream erosion and aquatic life impacts by developing green infrastructure, which includes green roofs, rain gardens, tree cover, even downspout disconnection and porous pavement.

"Green infrastructure has the potential to improve more than the aesthetics of our region,” says Linda Mack of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD). A feasibility study in Fayetteville, Ark. concluded that if the tree canopy was increased from 27% to 40% they could realize a reduction of stormwater runoff by 31% and more than $40 million in capital improvement savings for stormwater infrastructure.

To see examples of green infrastructure projects in Northeast Ohio, go here.

What can individuals and businesses do to help reduce storm water and (possibly) reduce fees?

Individuals and businesses can act now to slow storm water by planting very inexpensive greening ideas in their property. Examples include:

• Rain gardens are a nice way of beautifying a property and slowing down storm water. It’s simple genius—by re-directing a downspout from your house, you avoid stormwater from your roof flooding the system and you grow a lovely garden. Read more.
• On a larger scale, bioswales are being installing to handle stormwater in parking lots, including the new Cleveland Clinic Global Cardiovascular Center and at the Gospel Press redevelopment in Tremont. Some developments, like Steelyard Commons, have installed retention ponds in the middle of their parking lot.
• Green roofs—like those on the Cleveland Environmental Center and on top of the Geauga Park District West Woods Nature Center—have proven it’s possible to reduce run off from impervious roof surfaces (and are a huge business opportunity for the likes of locally based Garland Roofing and Weston Solutions). For more information, go here.
• Rain barrels offer an inexpensive way to reduce your storm water runoff and reduce the water bill for your summer garden. Rain barrel building workshops—including those at Shaker Lakes Nature Center and the city of Cleveland summer youth jobs program—are ongoing. For more information on where to get a rain barrel, go here.
• Plant trees—They provide shade, absorb water and carbon and improve your quality of life.
• Permeable pavement – Some stormwater authorities are collecting fees to pay for more green infrastructure, like those mentioned above, and for a new type of pavement that allows water to filter through.
• Buy vacant land in the city and raise chickens and bees.

For more information about these green, water-saving ideas, go here.

Can I expect doing this will lower my storm water fees?

As of February 4, 2009, it hasn't been decided yet whether the stormwater agency will give you a credit for installing a rain barrel or planting a rain garden. Part of the issue is whether the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District decides to take on the administration of small greening efforts or if they can get the cities to agree to administer a process that credits homeowners for doing the right thing.

The sewer district will have an appeals process if your gravel or brick or pourous pavement driveway at home isn't counted in their initial estimate, says Betsy Yingling, stormwater program manager at NEORSD.

And non-residential properties will definitely have a credit system from the outset for bioswales, green roofs and similar green infrastructure in commercial and institutional property (Yingling also hopes schools will buy into the program. Teaching about stormwater and green infrastructure may be enough to earn them a credit.).

What’s so bad about storm water—doesn’t it just go down the drain?

What we do in our yards, on our streets and parking lots connects directly to the health of Lake Erie and local rivers (our source of drinking water). A new comprehensive study led by the US Geological Survey looked at the health of all freshwater fish species in North America and found that nearly 40 percent are in jeopardy. Nineteen fish species in the Great Lakes region are imperiled, including the lake sturgeon. Unchecked, stormwater runoff is a major threat to the health of Lake Erie and its fish, Noah Hall writes in Great Lakes Law Blog.

What should we expect a stormwater agency to do in order to tackle the problem?

A look at the leading practices in other cities may shed some light on what a Northeast Ohio Regional Stormwater Agency might do. Let’s look at Philadelphia where they:

• Have a management plan for each of its five watersheds
• Introduced legislation to allow the stormwater agency to start billing customers based on how much impervious cover is on their property, rather than the old way of estimating your sewer bill based on water use.
• Plan to offer incentives to grow green rather than grey infrastructure—including a city council proposal for a 25% tax credit for installing a green roof (up to $100,000).
• Are combining CSO replacement work (similar to Northeast Ohio's $2 billion, 20-year CSO project) with low impact development (LID), including repaving municipal lots and basketball courts at city parks with porous pavement, installing green roofs, and;
• Working with the city’s building department to fast-track development projects that have an LID plan.

“We’re looking at what our impacts are from the perspective of a fish,” says Chris Crocket, Philly Water Dept. Manager of Watershed & Engineering services. “The damage done to our streams over 200 years can’t be fixed in 20 years. A whole watershed approach is our goal.”

"(Philadelphia) has a very aggressive program of requiring any redevelopment to be done with green infrastructure," Yingling says. "When we talked to them, they said, 'we don’t know what the impact (on reducing stormwater overflows) is going to be.' They’re looking at it as way of getting out of spending on a CSO.

"But they’re in (EPA) Region Three, and we’re in Region Five – when you talk to enforcement people it’s a different story here. People in The U.S. Department of Justice say, 'No way. We want you to show us measurable outcomes. We want to know exactly how many millions of gallons you’ve taken out of the system."

Read more about green infrastructure leading practices here.