A Challenge To Green Infrastructure Implementation

The Value of Green Infrastructure helps municipalities overcome a key barrier to more widespread adoption of green infrastructure. Our failure to value the full range of benefits from green infrastructure and the difficult challenge to translate these benefits into dollar figures so they can be compared to alternatives is restricting comprehensive integration of green infrastructure into local water management. And, determining the value of green infrastructure benefits for a locality has required studies beyond the resource capacity of most localities.

Evaluating The Benefits Of Green Infrastructure In Your Community

The guide produced by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and American Rivers, provides a framework that allows local communities to assess the local benefits of green infrastructure. The guidebook outlines a methodology for measuring and valuing the improvements in air quality, energy savings, carbon sequestration, and other areas. These benefits are above and beyond the stormwater control benefits, which are assumed to be equal to a similar investment in gray infrastructure. This guide allows communities to make more educated investments in infrastructure by helping them evaluate the full range of benefits from sustainable approaches to water management and realize green infrastructure’s potential to make communities more livable and less vulnerable to climate change.

American Rivers and Green for All collaborated to develop two companion reports exploring different elements of operations and maintenance of green infrastructure in the region. The Staying Green: Strategies to Improve Operations and Maintenance of Green Infrastructure in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed report highlights existing information related to costs of green infrastructure maintenance, identifies the significant barriers to effective operations and maintenance of these practices, recommends strategies to improve operations and maintenance, and provides resources and case studies that local governments can use as models.

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Examining and addressing low-flow problems in the upper Flint River basin is important for the entire Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin. The Flint also offers examples of what can and likely will happen to more rivers in urbanizing areas and in historically wet regions facing increasing water quantity stress.

What’s wrong in the upper Flint? Recent droughts have reduced popular sections of the river to wide expanses of exposed rock with trickles of water running in between. And, in most summers the river runs lower, and for longer, than it did in the past.

This report seeks to bring greater awareness and understanding to the upper Flint’s low-flow problems, to point the way toward solutions, and to begin productive dialog among all stakeholders in a healthy upper Flint River.

These low-flow problems cannot be attributed to any single factor, but rather to many factors which have come into play over a period of decades. Among these factors are:

• Urbanization and land use change;
• Increased frequency of drought;
• An increase in ponds, lakes and reservoirs of all sizes throughout the tributary stream network;
• Increasing demand on the river system for public water supply; and
• A lack of direct return flows of water withdrawn from the river system.

When droughts arrive, the river has lost its resilience against damaging low flows due to the various different demands on its water. In other words, it is now more vulnerable and delicate in the face of chronically dry weather conditions.

Healthy flows can be restored in the upper Flint River basin, but it will take time and a broad group of stakeholders to leverage such a change. Given the wide range of factors that have led to the upper Flint’s low-flow problems, flow restoration opportunities include the following:

• Expand on the recent work by water providers to find areas of water loss in their systems and implement programs to eliminate leaks;
• Improve water efficiency and conservation, especially with regard to outdoor irrigation in the summer months;
• Employ green stormwater infrastructure to infiltrate more rainwater and restore the natural water cycle;
• Increase the volume of return flows to the river system;
• Explore more potable water reuse in the basin;
• Manage existing reservoirs to better ensure healthy flows downstream.

Taking steps to restore healthy flows can reduce the stress on the river system and enable it to regain some of its natural resilience, better preparing the river for droughts to come and protecting the river for the benefit of communities today and for future generations.

Learn more about the Upper Flint River Working Group and the plans to address these issues through the Upper Flint River Resiliency Action Plan.

In this report, Ceres and American Rivers join forces to highlight a range of innovative approaches to creating sustainable financing for our communities’ water systems. The report discusses specific actions that environmentalists, economists, water utilities, water users, financial institutions, foundations, investors and labor groups to create opportunities can adopt to improve predictable, secure revenue streams, leverage funding and financing options, and create partnerships to build and operate water infrastructure.

This report originates from a convening of water providers, finance experts and NGOs in August 2011, as part of The Johnson Foundation’s Charting New Waters. With support from the Russell Family Foundation, Ceres and American Rivers were able to continue that dialogue in a series of interviews. This document is an attempt to distill those ideas into a set of high‐priority, high‐impact strategies that can be jointly pursued by the many stakeholders who have a stake in shaping a more resilient water future.

This guide is intended to be a resource for community and watershed advocates that provides clear examples of new stormwater permits that encourage or require “low impact development” or “green infrastructure.”  These permits represent an emerging new generation of regulatory approaches and reflect the emerging expertise of water advocacy organizations, stormwater professionals and permitting agencies.  Our goal is to provide information about new trends in stormwater permitting and examples of permits that demonstrate leadership toward standards that will build green infrastructure and compliance with water quality standards.  With this tool, we hope to inform and inspire continued progress toward stormwater permitting and management that protects our rivers and other shared waters, invigorates healthy communities, and provides cost-effective solutions for stormwater managers.

The guide is organized as a matrix that combines model permit language along with excerpts from comment letters that have helped to drive this evolution.  The concerns raised by watershed advocates, and the support they often provide to state permit agencies, frequently have been instrumental in shaping better stormwater permits. We hope that providing examples of the expertise shown by both communities that we can inform a broader movement toward better control of urban stormwater.

As the climate changes, bringing more frequentn and intense storms and floods, communities living near streams and rivers and on our coasts are facing increasing threats. Lives and property are increasingly at risk, flood damages are straining tax-payer dollars, and clean water and wildlife habitat are suffering. Our changing climate, outdated management approaches and policies, underfunded and under utilized green infrastructure, and increasing urbanization are causing a flood management crisis for federal agencies and communities alike.

Traditional Gray Infrastructure Will Continue To Place People In Harm’s Way

Our country is struggling to break out of a long-standing negative feedback loop. Gray infrastructure such as dams, levees and concrete flood control channels, incentivizes people to live in harm’s way. Living in harm’s way creates a perceived need for more gray infrastructure that ultimately makes flooding worse, passes the problems downstream, disrupts natural river processes, and perpetuates a flood-damage-repair cycle that has devastating costs to life, property, taxpayers, and the environment.

Georgia reservoir proposals on the drawing board, for example, could total $10 billion in taxpayer and ratepayer dollars. The report also shines a light on recent water supply reservoir projects that provide cautionary tales of communities burdened by expense and debt.

The report outlines the following financial and resource risks inherent in the pursuit of new water supply from reservoirs:

• Reservoirs are highly expensive, racking up debt for ratepayers and taxpayers.
• A reservoir’s price tag is typically a moving target.
• Reservoir financing plans often rely on inflated population growth projections, ultimately leaving existing residents holding the bag.
• In order to remain full, a reservoir depends on increasingly uncertain rainfall. And, a reservoir loses water when high temperatures cause evaporation.
• Reservoir water is a contested resource subject to competing demands in the river system.

The report also offers five key recommendations for local leaders who seek to reduce their communities’ risks—both financial risks and closely linked water resource risks—in planning for enough clean water for the future:

• Optimize existing water infrastructure first.
• Plan for water use to decrease as a community grows.
• Pursue flexible water supply solutions, like efficiency measures.
• Demand accurate assessments of costs.
• Examine water availability to minimize resource risks.

As communities endeavor to find ways to secure water supplies, it is critical that decision-making add to a community’s flexibility and resilience. The high-price, high-risk water supply reservoir strategy can leave a community financially vulnerable, tying up assets and leaving taxpayers and ratepayers on the hook without a guarantee that the water will be there when they need it.

There is a more prudent and proven path to providing water supply and ensuring flexibility for the future, one rooted in stewardship of public dollars and natural resources both. As Southeastern communities move forward to develop strategies to meet tomorrow’s needs, the communities that choose a prudent path will be better positioned—from both a financial and water resource perspective—to address the needs of today and the future.

Traditionally, building more dams and reservoirs was the first and only answer to water supply problems. But these 19th century approaches should not be the primary solutions for our new 21st century challenges. They don’t address the root problem — water is finite and we are not using the water we do have wisely. Relying solely on building large new dams is not costeffective and it won’t solve today’s water needs. Per gallon, dams cost up to 8500 times more than water efficiency investments. Dams are fixed in one place and hold a limited amount of water. Even when we do get sufficient rains to fill reservoirs, these giant pools can lose tremendous amounts of water through evaporation.

For these reasons, building new dams should be the absolute last alternative for solving our water supply needs. Hidden Reservoir makes the case that water efficiency is our best source of affordable water and must be the backbone of water supply planning. By implementing the nine water efficiency policies outlined in this report, communities across the Southeast can secure cost-effective and timely water supply.

Forests and forested watersheds in the region need to be protected and better managed to maintain the invaluable services natural infrastructure provides to local and downstream populations. Because the majority of forested lands in these watersheds are privately owned, upstream forest landowners can benefit from financial incentives and support to maintain forest cover on their property. Downstream water users — municipal governments, water providers, industrial, commercial and private facilities, and residential consumers — can invest in upstream forestland protection and management as a cost-effective alternative to construction of expensive, engineered water supply and treatment systems.

The Etowah River in north Georgia is a characteristic example of a Southern Appalachian forested watershed providing clean and abundant water to downstream users. It also illustrates the vulnerability of these watersheds to development and land use change. American Rivers, The Forest Guild and the Mountain Conservation Trust of Georgia have together established the “Etowah Forest Collaborative” to promote the concept of downstream benefits of upstream forestland conservation and management by educating forest landowners, forest managers, and water users about how they can work together to protect water quality and supply in this beautiful and important forested “source” watershed.

Although best management practices for private and public forestlands in Georgia have been available since 1981 and are widely used, more comprehensive and systematic application of some of these practices on forests in the Etowah watershed would contribute to improved water quality in creeks and streams. One of the keys to minimizing the likelihood that private forestlands in source watersheds will be sold for development is to provide financial alternatives to landowners to keep their property forested.

Several federal and state agencies offer a number of technical assistance, cost-share and financial incentive programs to landowners for managing, protecting, and restoring forests on private property in Georgia. Nonprofit local and national land trusts and conservancies will work with landowners interested in protecting their forestland property with a conservation easement. Such easements are voluntary, with the terms crafted to reflect the short and long-term management objectives of the landowner while also preserving the conservation values of the property.

Finally, emerging “ecosystem services” markets, particularly “payments for watershed services” approaches, may provide additional tools to promote upstream forest conservation and management as a mechanism to ensure abundant clean water for downstream communities.

American Rivers With Economics Evaluation And Research Prepared By University Of Maryland Environmental Finance Center.

While the ecological benefits of riparian buffers are well understood, the current state of research provides estimates for only two sources of economic value for residential property and community. This report discusses valuation of buffers in terms of their function and identifies economic models that have been used to monetize the environmental, societal and human value of riparian buffers.

The reported findings from current literature and research include:

• Riparian buffers have a positive economic value in terms of private and public benefits.
• The economic value of riparian buffers generally increases with width and length.
• Riparian buffers generate a price premium for residential property. And,
• The public is willing to pay for watershed restoration with riparian buffers.

The report also identifies room for more research and a need for greater understanding of riparian buffers and the attributes of buffers that are valued in society in order to achieve broad acceptance, improved protection and restoration implementation and measurable conservation gain.

This guide is intended to acquaint advocates with the financing practices and imperatives that define drinking water management today. it can be used to prepare for engagement with drinking water utilities, the city councils that set water rates and the State Revolving Fund administrators that help to finance water infrastructure. And it can be used by advocates of all different stripes – environmental, affordability and taxpayer advocates – to strategize collaboration.

This guide should help advocates understand not only how to be more effective opponents of destructive and bloated infrastructure projects, but also how to be more effective proponents of sustainable drinking water systems. It covers such important topics as:

• How do water systems pay for infrastructure?
• What risks come along with financing water infrastructure?
• Why don’t water systems put conservation first?
• How should water systems structure their rates?
• How do water systems pay for conservation?
• How do we balance conservation and affordability?
• How do we build support for conservation?

This report describes the importance of small streams and provides the context for why many of today’s urban streams are buried. It also identifies and analyzes the benefits of stream daylighting, including water quality improvements, flood mitigation, and community and economic revitalization. Case studies below illustrate the benefits provided to communities by daylighting. While there are many examples of daylighting, we found daylighting projects in both Kalamazoo, Michigan and Yonkers, New York illustrated the most developed benefits to flood mitigation and community revitalization, respectively.

Daylighting, furthermore, provides economic benefits to communities through cost effective alternatives to ongoing culvert maintenance and by keeping stormwater out of combined sewer systems, thereby reducing water treatment costs.  Municipalities also gain ecological and water quality benefits, such as improved habitat and nutrient retention, by revitalizing a previously buried stream. In fact, daylighting streams can also mitigate floods by restoring floodplains which increases hydraulic storage, reducing channelization which slows water thereby decreasing flooding potential, and removing choke points such as culverts where water backs up and causes localized flooding.

Finally, to identify ways to better facilitate daylighting projects in the future, this report examines barriers to daylighting, including major water policies. This report also highlights numerous case studies where communities have implemented daylighting, and provides potential funding mechanisms for communities considering daylighting.  Recommendations for enhancing the use of stream daylighting as a tool to improve clean water and communities, improve habitat, and reduce localized flooding include:

Increasing scientific research and comprehensive monitoring

Additional research and monitoring efforts will improve scientific data on daylighting allowing for more comprehensive guidance.

Utilizing a standardized daylighting database

A comprehensive database with a set of standardized measureable values would vastly assist stream daylighting implementation.

Removing policy barriers to aid the implementation of stream daylighting where appropriate 

Policies and funding which make daylighting projects easier to implement are imperative in order to make these more common practices.

Raising awareness of buried streams to galvanize community involvement and reconnect people to rivers

Raising awareness of buried streams within urbanized environments can engage community residents and create interest in clean water, community health, and revitalization.

Implementing these recommendations can vastly improve daylighting, while also making it easier for communities addressing stormwater controls and water quality issues to adopt this relatively new approach.  Currently, there are a suite of practices used to control stormwater runoff including bioretention, rain gardens, and green roofs; however, daylighting could add to this repertoire and in some instances be a more economical and environmentally effective option, if certain policy barriers are removed and scientific data improved.  As communities find ways to improve their built environment, daylighting should be considered with the suite of techniques used to improve urban environments.

The report highlights numerous case studies where communities have implemented daylighting including:  Bee Branch Creek, Dubuque, Iowa; Arcadia Creek, Kalamazoo, Michigan; Saw Mill River, Yonkers, New York; Peyton Creek, Staunton, Virginia; Blackberry Creek, Berkeley, California. Additionally, case studies from Michigan, South Korea, Indiana, and Washington are discussed.