“Over time, politicians and staff will come and go. With the natural and inevitable replacement of those responsible for establishing the Blueprint, the possibility that ‘corporate memory will fade’ increases and, unfortunately, the likelihood of inconsistent application of key policies increases as well,” wrote Paul Gerrard.
Deborah Carlson explained that the Green Bylaws Toolkit is a document that comprehensively outlines land use regulatory tools that can promote conservation of sensitive ecosystems and green infrastructure, which can help promote wetland conservation at municipal and regional scales.
“Asset management usually commences after something is built. The challenge is to think about what asset management entails BEFORE the asset is built. Cost-avoidance is a driver for this ‘new business as usual’. This paradigm-shift starts with land use and watershed-based planning, to determine what services can be provided affordably,” states Glen Brown.
“It’s well past time for EPA to better support the green infrastructure work in Seattle and other cities and issue new standards that will allow communities across the country to enjoy the benefits of green infrastructure and clean water,” concluded Karen Hobbs.
“EPA will need to put something out soon so that all sides are at least debating a specific proposal rather than speculating on its content,” concludes Janice Kaspersen.
“The rule proposal would expand the universe of regulated stormwater discharges, requiring new controls for newly developed and redeveloped sites and possibly even old developments. It could also expand the number of cities and towns regulated as Municipal Separate Sewer Systems (MS4s) under the Clean Water Act,” wrote Annie Snider.
“Primarily what we’re looking to do is have stormwater controls incorporated into the development and redevelopment process when we have opportunities to incorporate those cost-effective and flexible controls rather than address these urban areas after they’ve already been developed and the costs are much greater, as we’ve done in the past,” stated Chris Kloss.
“We went above and beyond by not only considering green solutions but also making preliminary plans to actually implement and test them. If the green infrastructure experiment goes well, the plan could be altered to require less grey infrastructure. Green infrastructure is far cheaper and could help mitigate project costs,” said Jim Good.
“The Canadians do appear to be ahead of the US in this field because the US EPA took a really bad approach to LID that was based on the premise that enforcing every site to the same standard would somehow fix the problems of water quality in the US,” commented Paul Crabtree.
“The guide is meant to assist communities of all types: large, small, rural, resort-based, urban, and suburban. It is designed to help maximize both creativity and adaptability to varied scales, specific contexts, and changing on-the-ground conditions,” stated Dr. Laura Tate.
