Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Water, Rohloff, and Rabe

12:17 PM  Justin Mitchell  2 comments

It is good to see that the city is responding to the massive citizen outcry concerning the state of local storm water management and the city's process for storm water project development. According to an OCMS update:

"The February edition of "Your City at Work" takes an in-depth look at stormwater management in the city. City Manager Mark Rohloff and Civil Engineer James Rabe are the guests. This week’s first broadcast date is Wednesday, February 10th at 2:00 p.m. on CitiCable 10. For replay times please visit our website at www.OshkoshCommunityMedia.org."

Note that the DNR regulations as well as the extensive local, state and national push for responsibly managing our water resources is completely focused on water quality. Let's see how many times that phrase is mentioned - I suspect not too much. Instead, it will be sold as flood mitigation work, which is obviously a subject of high importance to the city.

However, let's make it clear: If we're focusing on flood mitigation, then identify those areas where it flooded and create solutions. If we're focusing on water quality, then we have a whole lot more to do than pump unfiltered water into the lake. If we're being responsible, we'd do both, and we'd do it through a comprehensive water quality protection plan that identifies specific issues, goals and objectives, research-supported solutions to address the issues and attain the goals, partners who need to be involved in the process (from the beginning), timelines, budget estimates, and steps to ensure accountability and transparency.


NEW - Added link to Feb Your City at Work Show: CLICK HERE

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2 comments:

Mr. McD and I talk about that EVERY TIME they sell it as flood mitigation.

The DNR mandate is to prevent sediment from flowing into the Fox River. But just about every time there's a public discussion, it's about flood control.

If the city really wants flood control they need to do several things. Slow development on the west side. Create a series of retention ponds along the Sawyer Creek (sediment and flood control). Restore area wetlands. And the big one---Repair east side sewage and storm systems

You can't shove a volleyball through a straw.

And if you've got flooding all over the west, east and south side, sediment control is the least of your issues.

Link to the show added to bottom of post. This was a great idea, but not a whole lot of new information came forth.

One thing that was made very clear right away is the city's position that the idea of a comprehensive storm water management plan is not possible.

I am interpreting this as a miscommunication between us "plan advocates" and those involved in the day to day storm water management work. So, to clarify, let me try to offer some poitns:

Each watershed has its own drainage region and flow - given. This is not exactly what we're talking about.

Rather, there should be an identified procedure, a decision flow chart - something that the public can look at and say, "ah, I see why they did this. They went through the approved decision process and this is the best conclusion". If there is an alternative that the city wants to pursue (as they continually emphasize that each area must be different), then they simply need to extensively articulate why they deviated. This type of procedure will help to reduce the "they aren't doing the project there because those people are rich and complain alot" mentality that a large portion of the city currently feels following the golf course cartoon.

But more importantly is the idea that many communities have implemented best management practices that offer solutions to help with the improvement of water quality in responsibly dealing with storm water. Ideas such as:
- mandatory curb tree planting
- reduced road width increasing water absorption ground / eliminating impervious surfaces
- like most of southeastern wisconsin, implement and support a rain gardens program
- etc etc etc.

A simple internet search brings up hundreds of ideas that are effective, based upon research and proven examples, to help reduce storm water runoff while improving water qualtiy. That way even if you must resort to the pumping of poluted water (its not clean Mark..), the quantity is significantly reduced - especially over time.

Unfortunately, our city is currently blind to these types of proven techniques. I'll post more on this later.

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