Water Environment Federation releases Position Statement on "21st Century Stormwater Management"
Principles and Recommendations
The Water Environment Federation (WEF) has developed a series of clean water policy and position statements to guide the critical work WEF provides in clean water policy. In May 2011, WEF released its Position Statement on 21st Century Stormwater Management. It comprises eight principles and recommendations:
- Update EPA Stormwater Regulations
- Utilize a Volume-based Approach for Stormwater Treatment
- Support Green Infrastructure in Stormwater Management Efforts
- Incorporate Flexibility into Regulatory Framework
- Increase Funding for Stormwater Management
- Recognize the Effects of Climate Change
- Support Stormwater Monitoring Efforts and Associated Costs
- Integration of Watershed-Based Approach into Permitting Alternatives
“WEF recognizes the importance of effective stormwater management in the pursuit of protecting, preserving, and restoring the quality of receiving waterbodies and their ecosystems. WEF also recognizes that innovative and nontraditional approaches are needed to address the stormwater management challenges of the 21st century,” concludes the Position Statement.
“WEF also believes that for these new approaches to be effective, they must address the dimensions of affordability, flexibility, site-specific constraints, performance assessment, feasibility of implementation, emerging practices such as green infrastructure, and the authorities and limitations of the existing legal framework.”
Support Green Infrastructure
“WEF believes that the use of green infrastructure distributed across the landscape in conjunction with traditional downstream solutions should serve as the foundation for effective stormwater management.”
“WEF supports effective integration of green infrastructure as an emerging method for the management of wet weather flows, and believes that this tool can best be implemented through integrated stormwater controls, such as bioretention facilities, swales, and infiltration.”
“By capturing and treating stormwater before it enters major drainage and collection systems, these practices will encourage groundwater recharge and water quality improvement through a variety of physical, chemical, and biological filtration processes.”
Climate Change Adaptation
WEF recognizes that green infrastructure “provides the resiliency required to adapt to changing climatic conditions”.
Posted May 2011