News
June 19, 2008
Approval Given To Recommendations Regarding Low-Impact Development
The Raleigh City Council voted at its June 17 meeting to approve recommendations related to low-impact development (LID). The recommendations were developed by the council’s Public Works Committee and the City’s staff work group on LID.
The following are the approved recommendations:
- Authorize the City’s Public Utilities staff to move forward with a text change allowing controlled stormwater discharges into the City’s sanitary sewer system to facilitate the use of stormwater for toilet flushing, vehicle washing and other non-potable uses;
- Refer to the City’s tiered utility rate study the issue of cost recovery for treatment of unmetered stormwater discharges into the sanitary sewer system;
- Authorize City staff to continue negotiations with the State of North Carolina to ease restrictions on the allowable uses of stormwater and reuse water. The City is seeking to expand allowable uses of reuse water.Reuse water is a result of advanced treatment of wastewater at the City’s wastewater treatment plants. The high quality of water produced from this higher level of treatment can be reused for non-potable purposes under state law, such as lawn irrigation and cooling;
- Refer to City Council budget deliberations a proposal to provide additional funding to the City’s Public Utilities Department to accelerate construction of a reuse water distribution system; and,
- Encourage the state to ensure that building codes, contractor training programs and licensing boards recognize beneficial applications of reuse water and stormwater in plumbing trades.
Low-impact development has emerged in other communities as an alternative approach to controlling stormwater pollution and protecting developing watersheds and already urbanized communities. Conventional stormwater controls rely upon ponds and other impoundment structures to capture and treat runoff from large areas. LID techniques, however, manage runoff at the source by integrating green space, native landscaping, natural hydrologic functions and various other techniques on individual lots on a much smaller scale.
The primary goals of LID design are to reduce stormwater runoff volume and pollution by infiltrating rain water to groundwater, evaporating rainwater back to the atmosphere after a storm, and finding beneficial uses for stormwater rather than exporting it as a waste product down storm drains. The more common LID practices include the use of “rain gardens” or bioretention areas, rooftop gardens, narrower streets, cisterns and rain barrels, impervious surface reduction and disconnection, soil amendments, tree preservation, and vegetated swales, buffers and strips.
Prepared by:
Jayne Kirkpatrick
Director
Public Affairs Department
For More Information Contact:
Mark Senior
Senior Project Engineer
Public Works Department
222 West Hargett Street
Raleigh, NC 27602
919-996-4012
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