Improving Water Quality by Partnering With Private Property Owners: Six Steps to a Proactive Stormwater Program Nathan Walker The best way to understand the current public-private challenge facing stormwater management is to consider the following example: The state determines that too much pollution is getting into a stream that flows through town. Runoff from buildings and blacktop washes grit into the stream, while the concentrated flows tear up its channel. Upstream, agricultural fields and suburban lawn runoff send excess nutrients into the stream, and trash from commercial districts blows into storm drains. The result is an aquatic habitat that becomes covered with silt and starved of oxygen.
Over the past decade, local municipalities surrounding the stream, as well as private foundations and state government, have invested millions of dollars into fixing this issue by building wetlands, restoring floodplains, stabilizing streambanks, inspecting pollutant sources, and educating the public about what they can do to protect the stream. While impressive in scope, these solutions have not been enough. The stream is still polluted and is not expected to meet water quality goals, even after 30 or more years of restoration efforts. Nobody thinks that the stream will ever become as pristine as it was 400 years ago; however, it serves the triple bottom line to enact lasting improvements: S Profit - Keeping water clean at the source is more cost-effective than treating it downstream.
Figure 1. Six steps to a proactive stormwater program.
24 August 2020 • Florida Water Resources Journal
S P eople - Access to clean water improves the quality of life for everyone in the community. S Planet - Providing clean water is part of our role as stewards of our natural resources. Similar scenarios are repeated in communities throughout the United States. Leaders are investing in stormwater management or restoration of streams, ponds, and lakes, with the expectation of protecting water quality and enhancing quality of life. Many complex challenges are addressing how to best tackle these issues—especially how to integrate climate change and resiliency into the solutions.
What the Next Decade of Managing Stormwater and Surface Water Looks Like, and Who Will Fund These Efforts When discussing stormwater and surface water, communities and conservation groups will continue to pursue local stormwater and flood mitigation goals by applying for federal government funding and foundation grants. The real cost, however, of clean water and flood mitigation falls to local government. Since the local government has the authority to regulate land use, it also has the responsibility
