Millions of United States citizens continue to battle the effects of massive hurricanes this month. Many have lost electric and water service. As water and wastewater utilities struggle to get their systems up and running again, some are in a better position than others. What makes a utility more resilient in the face of this type of natural disaster?
Category: Watersheds, Wetlands & Stormwater (Page 5 of 15)
In March, the UNC Institute for the Environment hosted the Clean Tech Summit, a multi-day event in which students and professionals convene and foster leadership and discussion among the Southeast’s clean tech industry. Many summit panels incorporated and focused on the topic of water management in all its forms: drinking water, stormwater, and wastewater.
What is the average household stormwater fee in North Carolina? This is a harder question to answer than you might assume. User fees for stormwater management are influenced by many factors, including a utility’s service population, the importance of managing stormwater runoff to the community, and the amount of impervious surface. The Environmental Finance Center (EFC) recently completed a statewide stormwater fee survey in North Carolina. We collected and analyzed 73 different service area fee structures. These structures paint a picture of North Carolina’s stormwater management across the state.
Smart Growth programs—developing urban areas with a variety of building types and land uses in a concentrated space—are touted for their potential to spur economic development through the creation of more attractive, environmentally sustainable, and walkable communities. One underlying theme is that increased urban density allows people to access a variety of shops, housing options, and recreational areas without having to hop in their cars. The most commonly cited potential benefits of smart growth include improved public health, higher air quality due to reduced vehicle traffic, more efficient use of land, protection of valued natural or open spaces from sprawl, increased property values because of high demand, and often greater community involvement in the development process.
A recent post on the School of Government’s Community and Economic Development blog outlined some examples of Smart Growth programs here in North Carolina, and Glenn Barnes earlier wrote about five ‘tools’ included in the EPA’s Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program. This post examines what I think is a sometimes overlooked benefit of Smart Growth and higher densities: water conservation.
Many of you know us for our Financial Sustainability and Rates Dashboards, but you may not know that these are not just limited to water and wastewater rates: there’s also stormwater! In recent years stormwater has perhaps not received the attention it deserves. Five years ago the EFC created stormwater fee dashboards for North Carolina and Georgia, and this year we’re taking them to a whole new level. For 2017 we are unveiling new stormwater dashboards for both Georgia and (eventually) North Carolina with a host of new features. The new dashboard comes at a time when stormwater has been catapulted into the limelight as the hot topic of the moment in Georgia environmental legislation.
