Terrifically-interesting post on Hyperlocalizing Hydrology in the Post-Industrial Urban Landscape

Here at Pruned

One of the things which excites me about the issue of storm-water runoff is that it looks to me like a problem which actually capable of resolution i.e. there are low-tech and cost-effective methods by which polluted waters from roads and parking lots can be treated and before they reach rivers, lakes and oceans.

Comments

[JRoth]

Shortly after your rain garden post, I saw about this small-scale, urban example here in Pittsburgh.

It is a work in progress; when it's all done, I'll take a look myself and send along pics (or post them at my rather moribund site, perhaps).

[Sabina Pade]

Permeable road surfaces, especially in areas of naturally slow-moving traffic such as alleyways, pedestrian-heavy intersections and parking lots, can be an enormous help in diminishing the quantity of run-off.

Apparently Chicago has recently been supplanting storm sewers, in its city alleyways, with permeable concrete.

In Europe, entire city districts are often paved with cobblestones. Parking spaces are paved with skeletal cement bricks that support the weight of vehicles while exposing soil. Sidewalks frequently, and roads sometimes, are paved with unmortared concrete bricks, slower to lay than asphalt but easily lifted and re-set should the need arise, for example when accessing cables.

This is indeed age-old technology, and potentially cost-saving.

[David]

Seattle has been experimenting in this vein as well beginning in 2001...

http://www.seattle.gov/util/About_SPU/Drainage_&_Sewer_System/Natural_Drainage_Systems/index.asp

[Douglas Tooley]

A bit of a tangent here, but still within the emerging subject of urban hydrology - in Seattle:

A pet project of mine is the expansion of the Ballard Locks to include a Whitewater Recreation Channel. These are becoming more and more common, and a Poulsbo native, Paul Shipley, is perhaps the leading engineer.

Water flows in summer months are limited, but a late fall- june season is still quite worthwhile.

One question I've not had the time to investigate was whether the discharge tunnel from the new Brighwater Sewage treatment plant located in the Lake Washington drainage was even needed - if in fact the water is a clean as claimed.