MS4 - StormWater Management through Naturalization and Riparian Buffers

What are Riparian Buffers?

Riparian Buffers are areas with vegetation planted around waterways for multiple reasons and benefits:

Benefits of Riparian Buffers:

• Lessen erosion - trees, shrubs, wildflower and grasses roots' hold soil together preventing erosion.

• Lessen excess nutrients 

  • Fertilizer 

  • Livestock waste 

• Lessen water temperature - Cooling waterways with tree shade for the health of the native marine life and macroinvertebrates 

Flood Plains

Flood plains are areas set aside to allow storm water to periodically flood. Flood Plains slow water, allowing water to permeate back into the ground recharging the ground water in the aquafer below. 

Permaculture is the science of managing water so that it can naturally recharge the ground water. 

Gabon baskets, mimic beaver dams which slow stormwater allowing it to pool giving it time to back permeate into the ground.

Streams naturally want to meander and constantly change with twists and turns where modern infrastructure has prevented and undermines the nature evolution of meandering streams as these twists and turns are natural flood plains.

A tree falls across a creek and make a turn in the waterway.

When it rains the stormwater goes straight over the new streambank turn so each turn becomes a flood plain naturally.

Beavers naturally do this by construction inter woven dams of trees and sticks which slows and divers water effectively changing the hydrology and ecosystem into a wetland. 

Naturalized Retention Basins

Naturalized Stormwater retention basins allow to trees and shrubs to slow, filter, and lessen water while creating native habitat. 

Benefits of Naturalized Basins  

• Lessen cost of landscaping, mowing retention basins

• Lessen Storm Water

• Lessen erosion/sediment

• Lessen excess nutrients from animal waste and fertilizer 

Storm Water Infrastructure Retrofitting

There are many different storm water management projects in our existing infrastructure. We are seeing more intense rain fall events which overburden these existing systems. We had the mindset of get the water into the nearest waterway as fast as possible. The newer mindset is to, divert, slow, capture the stormwater in as many ways as we can.

We can look for opportunities to upgrade existing stormwater infrastructure making it work more efficiently while beautifying and making our environment more healthy and natural.

Examples of Storm water infrastructure retrofits

• Naturalized Stormwater basins

• Storm Water Grates that prevent litter from entering the waterway

MS4 Reports

The federal government developed flood maps which point out where flooding will occur labeled as priority flood zones. The burden of remediating the liabilities of flooding in that local jurisdiction are delegated to the local government. Everything from designing to taxing to pay for stormwater management upgrades is unto the local government. 

The goals of MS4 reports are to lessen the impact of flooding by managing storm water.

MS4 reports are required to be submitted annually from each local government.

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) 

Usually each local government is required to submit its own annual MS4 report. Some municipalities have opted to created "memorandum of understanding(s)" (MOU) which is a non-binding agreement between two or more parties that outlines how they will work together to achieve a common goal.

In this circumstance, MOUs allow the coordination of larger projects, through cooperation of multiple jurisdictions mindfully developed around the watershed instead of the government jurisdiction. This allows shared resources for everything from sharing the cost between multiple governments, accessing the whole watershed while designing stormwater management projects being that a project upstream can prevent flooding downstream these designs are focused on working together to address flooding in a more responsible way. 

MOUs help organizations understand each other's perspectives and work together.

MS4 Reference Materials 

• Quick Resource Guide to the MS4 Program (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection)

• Example MS4 report

    Example Projects reported in MS4 reports

    Excel Events' projects are reported as Storm Water Management projects because they lessen Storm water.

Permaculture