A group of New Orleans area organizations are bringing in experts from around the country over the next two months to explain how other cities have adopted innovative ways to deal with flooding caused by rainfall and the environmental effects of rainwater runoff when it reaches nearby water bodies.
Post-Katrina improvements to the hurricane levee system have reduced potential damage to the region from storm surge, but parishes are still struggling to find ways to avoid flood damage from 10-year rainfall events of 8 1/2 inches or more in 24 hours. In New Orleans, the drainage system can barely handle a 1-year event, which is 2 inches of rain in an hour, or 4.2 inches in 24 hours.
Officials from Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Ore., will be in New Orleans in the coming weeks to explain how they've found ways to remove rainwater that don't include building new pipes or other expensive infrastructure. The five-part workshop is being presented by the Greater New Orleans Foundation and the Urban Institute and sponsored by more than 30 community organizations.
New Orleans also is under a consent decree with the federal Environmental Protection Agency aimed at reducing pollutants that are picked up by rainfall runoff and carried by canals into Lake Pontchartrain. Much of the pollution results from broken sewer pipes, with sewage entering the drainage system and then canals.
An official with the city of Milwaukee, for example, is scheduled to explain how that city has also struggled with an outdated sewerage system that allows sewage-contaminated rainwater to flow into Lake Michigan, resulting in both environmental damage and threats of millions of dollars in fines from the EPA.
Unlike New Orleans, Milwaukee has historically combined its drainage water with its sewerage system, which has resulted in overflows of untreated sewage during major rainfall events.
Milwaukee's problems have resulted in both inexpensive and costly fixes aimed at reducing the flow of rainwater into the sewerage system through innovative storage methods, and a storage system for sewage in advance of rainfall events.
The northern city has adopted new stringent land use rules aimed at reducing runoff from developed areas, including parking lots and roofs. That has led to the development of stormwater bioretention swales and gardens in parking lots and adjacent to industrial sites that hold some rainwater until it can seep underground, as well as backyard rain gardens in residential areas.
The expensive solution was to build a $121 million, seven-mile-long tunnel deep beneath the city that is used to store millions of gallons of sewage during heavy rainfall events.
The workshops are part of a public education program aimed at convincing New Orleans area residents and their elected officials to adopt similar methods to reduce flooding, most of which were proposed last year by the New Orleans Citizen Sewer, Water & Drainage System Reform Task Force.
For task force member David Waggoner, a principal of Waggonner & Ball Architects of New Orleans, the task force's April 2012 report is a personal mission: to connect New Orleans area residents directly with the water in their communities by finding alternative ways of dealing with runoff that might allow walls along the 17th or London or Orleans avenue canals be torn down.
"The city doesn't understand that it has an opportunity to reform itself as an attractive city," Waggoner said this week.
With the completion of improvements to the hurricane levee system, including gates on the ends of those canals, he argues, it's time to focus on the remaining water problems, including finding ways to hold water in neighborhoods so that it sinks back into the earth, which would reduce the city's never-ending subsidence problems.
He is urging Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the Sewerage & Water Board to allocate $100 million of a $247 million FEMA hazard mitigation grant to begin the new water management approach. It could include creating sunken gardens in neutral grounds for streets that are being reconstructed, and redesigning city parks to act as water storage areas during heavy rains. Other possibilities include using special concrete mixtures that capture and hold water to build new roads and sidewalks. Such sidewalks already have been used in redeveloping parts of the Lower 9th Ward.
The task force also recommended that federal money allocated for drainage projects and FEMA-funded streets projects, as well as other public space projects be redesigned to aid better neighborhood flood protection.
Such proposals also are supported by the Urban Institute and the Greater New Orleans Foundation, a key reason both are sponsoring the workshops.
"The cities that will thrive in the future are those that successfully integrate green infrastructure practices into all their water policies, most significantly in how they manage stormwater," said Sandi Rosenbloom, director of innovation in infrastructure for the Urban Institute.
"We can no longer afford to continue to 'fix' our problems by investing, over and over again, in upgrades to our conventional infrastructure," said Marco Cocito-Monoc, director of regional initiatives at the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
Workshops include:
May 15: Stormwater Challenges - Local and National Perspective. The workshop will focus on New Orleans' current water challenges, including wetland losses; the restrictions imposed by an EPA consent decree on the city's sewerage and drainage systems; potential future enforcement actions under the federal Clean Water Act; and the city's plans for improving its water infrastructure. Speakers will include Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Noah Garrison; Tulane Instiute on Water Resources Law and Policy Director Mark Davis; and Jeffrey Thomas, principal of Thomas Strategies, who managed the writing of the task force report.
June 5: Metropolitan and Comprehensive Green Stormwater Strategies. From bayous to rain gardens, Houston and Philadelphia have brought nature back into the city as a way to control rainwater. Attendees will hear about the role that community involvement played in raising funds to protect watershed areas. Speakers will include Michael Talbott, director of the Harris County, Texas, Flood Control District; and Julie Slavet, executive director of the Tookany/Tacony-Frankfurt Watershed Partnership in Philadelphia.
June 19: Green Alleys, Streets and Neighborhoods. Milwaukee and Portland have found affordable, green solutions for managing stormwater at the neighborhood level with permeable streetscapes, bioswales, green roofs and rain barrels. Speakers will talk about how these projects help absorb rainwater and relieve pressure on aging stormwater systems. Speaking will be Karen Sands, manager of sustainability at the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District; and Bill Owen, senior engineer at the Portland, Ore., Bureau of Environmental Services.
June 26: Innovative Financing Options for Green Stormwater Infrastructure. The development of financial incentives for businesses and homeowners to manage stormwater on site have encouraged communities across the nation to "go green." The workshop will focus on how public-private partnerships and creative funding sources, such as charging people for letting stormwater run off their property (already adopted in Washington, D.C.), can help pay for green infrastructure. Speaking will be Brian Van Wye, branch chief of stormwater program implementation for the District of Columbia Department of the Environment; and Charlotte Kaiser, director of finance at The Nature Conservancy.
July 10: Creating Local Change; Making a Commitment to Next Steps. Participants will discuss what New Orleans can learn from other cities and what those cities can learn from New Orleans. This final session will be aimed at applying lessons learned during the series to development of a list of next steps to be pursued in the New Orleans area. Jeff Eger, executive director of the Water Environment Foundation, and Waggoner, will act as moderators.
All of the sessions will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, 1441 Canal St. Register for the workshops on the web at www.gnof.org/urbanwaterseries, or contact Julia MacMullan at 504.598.4663, or Julia@gnof.org. Advance registration is suggested because of space limitations.