Re-Evaluating Stormwater: The Nine Mile Run Model for Restorative Redevelopment

Re-Evaluating Stormwater:

by Bruce Ferguson, Richard Pinkham, and Timothy Collins, 1999. Rocky Mountain Institute, Snowmass, Colorado; 970/927-3851, www.rmi.org. Oversize spiral-bound, 32 pages, $24.95 (plus $5.50 shipping)

Re-Evaluating Stormwater presents the results of an intensive three-day “charrette” in 1998 by 60 local and nationally recognized designers, engineers, planners, artists, and policy experts to examine how low-cost stormwater measures could be used to solve long-standing problems of runoff and combined sewage overflows in the Nine Mile Run watershed in Pittsburgh. As in some 950 communities nationally, this densely developed area uses combined sewers that carry both stormwater and sewage; during large storm events, “combined sewage overflow” dumps untreated sewage into area streams. The charrette was charged with finding solutions at a budget of $2 per gallon ($530/m³) of hydraulic capacity that could be incorporated into redevelopment projects in the watershed—especially those that would generate other benefits—such as watershed restoration, economic revitalization, and park enhancement.

The results of this exercise are summarized in this concise, well-illustrated booklet. Among the many strategies described are:

•Rainwater harvesting for irrigation or nonpotable indoor use;

•Disconnecting pavement and roof drainage from sewer lines;

•Reconfiguring driveways, parking lots, and streets to turn more of a site over to pervious, vegetated soil;

•Replacing impervious pavements with porous ones; and

•Routing runoff through swales to slow its velocity, remove pollutants, and infiltrate it into the soil.

In addition to presenting technical fixes, the report also addresses management strategies that could foster such changes. While

Re-Evaluating Stormwater would have benefited from better editing, it is packed with useful information and serves as an invaluable model for many hundreds of cities and towns facing similar problems.

– AW