What is your community doing to manage stormwater runoff? What effect could it have on your facility operations? Does it make any business sense for environment, health, and safety (EHS) managers to proactively support community efforts at managing stormwater? Today we will explore the latest in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) guidance for community stormwater planning and why EHS managers should be involved. Tomorrow we will look at how some communities are promoting the development of green infrastructure (GI) for commercial and industrial facilities.
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No matter the campaign rhetoric, there will most likely still be an EPA in the Trump administration. However, the focus may turn away from enforcement to compliance and business assistance. EHS managers will find that it is important to promote the business sense, including public relations, for protecting the environment. One area where assistance and money is available is for stormwater management using GI techniques.
Push for Voluntary Planning
The EPA recently funded five cities in a beta test for developing voluntary, long-term stormwater management plans. This is the type of initiative that will likely survive the radical administration change and become a model for municipalities nationwide.
Three ideas are prominent in the thinking that voluntary stormwater planning will remain attractive:
- Communities want to provide clean water for their citizens.
- Stormwater is a valuable freshwater resource in communities facing drought.
- GI approaches can reduce localized flooding events.
Three Key Steps
Step 1. Communities should assess where they are now in terms of:
- In a recently released guide promoting community solutions to stormwater management, the EPA outlined three key steps in the development of a long-term plan.
- Community objectives, such as capital improvements, economic development, water quality, stormwater runoff reduction, that are affected by long-term stormwater planning;
- Identifying applicable water quality and human health issues and challenges that should be addressed in the plan; and
- Assessing existing stormwater systems and their performance.
Step 2. Communities should analyze opportunities by:
- Developing and documenting open communication processes with relevant stakeholders for ongoing public involvement efforts; and
- Identifying, evaluating, and selecting stormwater management alternatives, such as GI and sustainable infrastructure approaches that are consistent with community goals and objectives.
Step 3. Communities should document a process for proposing investments and implementation schedules by:
- Coordinating resources and actions with other communities, state and federal agencies, local groups, and industry plans;
- Considering lifecycle costs, including capital and operation and maintenance investments;
- Identifying funding opportunities;
- Developing a financial strategy to ensure that investments are sufficiently funded, operated, and maintained and replaced when needed; and
- Developing and documenting a process for evaluating the performance/success of the projects.
Takeaway
As an EHS manager, you should consider either promoting such plans in your community or getting involved if your community is already developing a plan. This way, you can plan for and mitigate the impact on your facility and be at the table for making sure that any plans make business sense for you and your community as a whole. Realizing that time is a valuable resource, consider which step or steps make the most sense for you to be involved in your community.
Note. Companies located in municipalities that have incentives to develop new, more ecological systems have an advantage when considering greener solutions. Be sure to check with your municipality for any available funding for GI initiatives.
Check tomorrow’s Advisor for a review of how a few communities are promoting GI for industry.