Vehicle travel on Washington’s state roads fell again last year.  It was a modest decline—just 0.8 percent—but as the chart to the right shows, it was a continuation of a full decade of essentially flat traffic. In fact, WSDOT estimates that total traffic on state roads was slightly lower in 2012 than it was in 2002.

There’s really not much to say about the trends that I haven’t said before. The flat-lining of traffic is due not to one single factor, but to many. Higher fuel prices are discouraging driving. Baby boomers have aged past their peak driving years. The “millennial” generation is driving less. Mobile and internet technologies make transit more convenient and rewarding. And the popularity of compact neighborhoods lets more people live in places where they don’t need to drive much.

And of course, I should mention a key fact that is getting overlooked in today’s transportation debates: the flat-lining of vehicle travel has occurred during a period when the state has done little to expand the urban highway network. And as a growing body of research suggests, driving in major metropolitan areas grows roughly in lock step with road space. Which makes me despair about the latest proposals for highway megaprojects in Washington’s major cities.

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

Joel Connelly has an excellent piece on the way that Northwest tribes are fighting the coal export plans.

A new multimedia documentary, Patricia’s Story, by Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele explores conservation fieldwork in Peru’s tropical forests and the importance for understanding the impacts of climate change.

If you’re wondering whether the Canadian oil sands are good news or not, you might take a gander at oil sands reality check.

The City of Seattle published detailed energy use information for more than 90 city-owned buildings—including iconic buildings like City Hall and the Central Library—comprising more than 6.2 million square feet. (A summary version is here.)

Anna

A shocking inside look at China’s air pollution problem.

Check out this terrifying, fascinating timelapse of thirty years of human impact on the earth.

Clark

Geekery for the week: Did you ever wonder who’s faster, the Starship Enterprise or the Millennium Falcon? Well, here ya go: a graphic comparison of fictional interstellar travel speeds.

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

Rain garden, Lisa Stiffler.

In the stormwater world, if a rain garden is releasing more pollution into the environment than it’s capturing, word gets around.

So when the city of Redmond crunched its first flush of data from a new roadside rain garden and discovered the water coming out of it was tainted with alarming levels of phosphorus, nitrates, and copper, the stormwater community took notice. Washington State regulators went on the record to say that they would be studying the data and possibly revising their rain garden recommendations. Proponents of the technology fear that the results will be overblown and exploited by skeptics of so-called low-impact development solutions.

But even city officials in Redmond caution that they’re far from giving up on rain gardens.

“It definitely has not lost its merit in my mind,” said Andy Rheaume, Redmond’s senior watershed planner.

Indeed, there’s a decade worth of data showing that rain gardens and related “natural” technologies are effective at treating polluted stormwater runoff. They can do a terrific job soaking up the renegade rain water, diverting it from house basements and preventing it from scouring streams or causing overflows of sewage. And numerous studies demonstrate that rain gardens will filter out and capture a toxic mix of heavy metals, petroleum pollutants, particles and nutrients. In fact, the Redmond rain garden did treat some of the pollution gushing into it.

But rain gardens aren’t fool proof. Depending on the design of the system and the soil mix that’s used, a rain garden’s ability to remove pollutants can vary –– and vary dramatically.

So what is a city or county stormwater engineer to do? Don’t panic.

“We’ve been promoting the message ‘Don’t throw away the baby with the bathwater,’ ” Rheaume said. “We’re pretty sure that (low-impact development) is here to stay.”

New Street, New Rain Gardens

In fall 2011, Redmond took advantage of a road-building project to construct some green stormwater infrastructure at the same time. The city installed pervious concrete sidewalks and three rain gardens that stretched a combined 410 feet along 185^th Avenue NE. The rain gardens, or “bioretention systems,” collect and absorb water from about one-quarter of an acre, including arterial roads that are surrounded by industrial use.

Cross section of Redmond rain garden.

Because the rain gardens were situated above an aquifer that provides the city’s drinking water, engineers lined the cells of the gardens with an impervious geomembrane to stop the runoff from seeping into the groundwater.

The bioretention systems were built according to Washington standards with 18 to 36 inches of “bioretention soil mix” that was 40 percent compost and 60 percent sand. The soil was planted with grasses and small shrubs. Beneath the soil layer was 6 to 8 inches of sand, 3 inches of pea gravel, and 11 inches of gravel backfill in the lowest layer (see diagram in Figure 4).

In the gravel layer, the engineers installed 8-inch underdrains that were designed to carry overflow stormwater out of the rain gardens and into nearby Bear Creek.

Given that the city depends on groundwater for drinking, officials wanted to know if the stormwater carried contaminants that could pose any risk to residents should it percolate into the aquifer. Stormwater regulations advise that engineers not concentrate stormwater runoff near stores of drinking water. But in truth there’s not a lot of data in the Northwest on what’s seeping out of rain gardens.

So three months after construction wrapped up, from February to July 2012, researchers monitored one of the cells. They grabbed stormwater samples where it entered the rain garden and as the “effluent” flowed out of it.

By taking the samples so soon after construction, researchers knew they were collecting some of the first flushes of water that would likely have unusually high levels of nutrients from the soil’s compost. But even with these expectations, the results –– at least for some of the chemicals –– were worrisome.

Rain garden, Lisa Stiffler.

The Trouble with Compost

Scientists have known for years that rain gardens can be finicky.

In Michael Dietz’s 2007 review of low-impact development strategies, he reported widely varied performances from rain gardens tested in Maryland, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and North Carolina. All removed metals including copper, lead, and zinc. But while most rain gardens effectively captured phosphorus and nitrogen-containing pollutants, in a couple of cases they released more of these pollutants in the effluent than they trapped.

Then in 2012, the East Coast’s rain garden rock stars William Hunt, Allen Davis, and Robert Traver teamed up to deconstruct bioretention systems. Their publication gave point-by-point advice on how to tweak rain gardens depending on which pollutants you’re most concerned about removing.

Want to clean petroleum pollutants out of your water? Don’t forget to spread a couple of inches of mulch on your garden, the scientists advised. If nutrients such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and nitrates are your targets, dial back the amount of organic material, including compost.

The soil used in a rain garden has a big effect on what seeps out of it, experts say.

“We and others have known this for years and continue to work on media,” wrote Davis, a professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in an email exchange.

“Compost will leach (phosphorus) and some composts will leach a lot of (phosphorus),” he wrote. “This has been known for many years.”

So here’s the challenge: How do you build a rain garden that contains enough organic material to support plant life, hold enough water through the summer, and create a habitat where pollutant-gobbling microbes will hang out, but not add so much compost that the garden disgorges too many nutrients, potentially fouling waterbodies downstream?

Washington State’s Stormwater Management Manual for Western Washington calls for 35 to 40 percent compost in the soil mix for rain garden systems. Scientists at Washington State University are investigating whether lower amounts of compost can keep plants happy while releasing lower levels of nutrients. They’re also looking at whether compost that’s sat around and aged for a while will shed less phosphorus and nitrogen.

Redmond’s Numbers

Roadside rain garden, Lisa Stiffler

In Redmond, automated devices collected runoff during storm events, resulting in eight separate samples for nitrogen, phosphorus, copper, and other pollutants.

Nitrogen in the form of nitrate and nitrite is particularly worrisome because high levels of these chemicals in drinking water can cause “blue baby syndrome” in which the nitrate binds to hemoglobin in the blood, robbing oxygen from the baby’s cells. Phosphorus is a problem primarily when dumped in rivers, lakes, and enclosed sea water where it can trigger harmful blooms of algae. And copper is known to cause problems for salmon and other aquatic organisms.

The results from Redmond showed dramatic increases in the amount of pollution leaving the garden, at least for certain chemicals:

Average Amount of Pollutants Entering and Leaving Redmond Rain Garden* (mg/L)

By contrast, the garden did a good job of filtering pollutants including fecal coliform, motor oil, and zinc. In those cases, the levels in the effluent leaving the rain garden were lower than in the stormwater that entered it.

Curtis Hinman, who leads the green stormwater research at WSU’s stormwater center in Puyallup, said the data were high by comparison to other studies and research that he’s done.

“We haven’t seen any numbers like that ever, even remotely close,” said Hinman, whose rain garden pollution results have not yet been published.

Stormwater testing facility at Washington State University’s Puyallup campus; Lisa Stiffler.

In the Northwest, the cities of Seattle, Portland, and Tacoma have sampled pollutants flowing out of some of their rain gardens.

In Seattle, scientists tested runoff as it flowed into and exited a rain garden on NW 110^th Street in a residential neighborhood in the northwest area of the city (Table 2). The rain garden is composed of 12 individual bioretention cells that allow the water to pour from one to the next, and the water was collected from the first and eleventh cells.

Researchers in Portland sampled stormwater runoff that flowed out of two rain gardens at the Oregon Zoo parking lot. They compared those values, which were collected about six months apart, to untreated runoff sampled at the same parking lot (Table OZ-3).

Officials in Tacoma have started monitoring the water going into and out of bioretention systems at R Street and 44^th Street in the Salishan residential development (see “Context” slide in this presentation).

It isn’t fair to do a rigorous apples-to-apples comparison of these rain gardens to the Redmond system, as the size, designs, compost mix, and age of the facilities are different. But even with these limitations, they can still provide some useful trend information.

If you compare the runoff entering and leaving each garden (or in Portland compare the rain garden runoff to the untreated stormwater), you see that the nitrogen and phosphorus values are frequently higher in the water exiting compost-containing rain gardens.

Comparison of Pollution in Runoff Entering and Exiting Northwest Bioretention Facilities**

And again, given caveats big as a stormwater settling pond, you can also compare the concentration of pollutants leaving the green stormwater facilities.

Amount of Pollutants Leaving Northwest Bioretention Facilities (mg/L)

Despite the risks of making such a comparison between very different systems, again it is clear that the Redmond numbers are often orders of magnitude higher than pollution levels taken from other Northwest rain gardens.

Potential Pollution Culprits

So what’s going on in Redmond to create such a spike in the pollution measurements? Could this problem be more widespread, or is this an isolated case?

The first thing to consider is the design of the Redmond bioretention system. The rain gardens on 185^th Avenue NE were built with an impervious lining to protect drinking water supplies and an underdrain, so in heavier rainstorms some of the stormwater filters through a few feet of soil and then drains quickly out of the garden.

In rain gardens without this design –– which includes most of the bioretention systems in the Northwest –– the water can soak as deeply as the soil allows and it might travel a long, long way before reaching groundwater or surface water such as a stream or lake.

Researchers have shown the more time the water spends infiltrating, the greater the opportunity for pollutants to filter out and stick to the soil, or get broken down by natural processes. Short cutting that pathway with an underdrain reduces that opportunity.

Gardening with compost, camknows, Flickr.

The second feature to address is the soil mix. To build a rain garden, you need organic material and sand, and that organic matter needs to be readily available, affordable, and –– particularly for public projects –– a source that is not proprietary. Enter the compost.

Washington State has a relatively extensive program of collecting yard and food waste and turning it into compost for public use. There are state standards that compost producers must meet for the concentrations of various pollutants including metals as well as nutrient levels. The regulations were crafted to make sure the soil was safe for gardens and yards –– not so that it would be optimal for rain gardens.

When the material used for the Redmond project was tested, it had 660 mg/kg of total phosphorus; the state rain garden guidelines recommend compost with less than 100 mg/kg of available phosphorus, which is not directly comparable to total phosphorus. The copper concentrations were 61 mg/kg (the state limit is less than 750 mg/kg), and nitrogen information was not available.

Compost producers weren’t “thinking about using this stuff as a stormwater filter. They were thinking about using this for someone’s garden,” Hinman said.

He and some others in the field suspect there was something unusual with the compost used in Redmond, that perhaps the manufacturer added manure or another nutrient-rich additive that wasn’t disclosed.

There “has to be a higher quality, more controlled material for this kind of application,” Hinman said. “The Redmond monitoring project brings up the question of consistency and reliability and our confidence in getting good (soil) media in the ground for bioretention systems.”

Pursuing a Solution

Redmond officials are planning to build another rain garden this summer, and they’re seeking funding to expand their monitoring program to include six installations.

Rain garden, Lisa Stiffler.

Their engineers will try different soil mixes in some of the rain gardens, including so-called “amendments” to the soil such as biochar and shredded cedar bark to better capture pollutants.

They will also try a design that incorporates a “saturation zone,” or an area of the rain garden where water will pool underground and create an oxygen-free environment favorable to chemical reactions that remove nitrates from the water.

Rheaume is eager to see what the monitoring will show at the new sites, as well as at the original rain garden.

“We want to see if this thing gets better,” he said.

The preliminary results from Redmond prompted the state Department of Ecology to remind stormwater folks in Washington not to use bioretention within 100 feet of a spring or a well used for drinking water, and not to install an underdrain if it leads to a phosphorus-sensitive body of water. In a move that surprised many, the state went a step further to say it’s considering whether to revise these guidelines to recommend against installing underdrains that ultimately empty into any surface water.

Planting a rain garden, robinsan, Flickr.

Ecology recently issued new regulations intended to increase the use of low-impact development stormwater treatments, including bioretention. Some cities and counties have challenged the rules, and all sides are waiting for the state’s Pollution Control Hearing Board to take up the issue later this year. Some stormwater experts worry that the Redmond data will be ammunition against Ecology’s regulations.

For now, Rheaume and Hinman will keep testing new soil mixes and designs to optimize what they both see as technology that can ultimately help the environment.

“We don’t have the silver bullet to say what the change is” that will yield better results, Rheaume said, “but we’re in pursuit of it.”

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

And there’s also been quite a lot of attention to ethanol—particularly the fact that US ethanol consumption has grown so quickly that refiners are starting to bump against the so-called “blend wall,” the point at which no more ethanol can be added to highway fuel without running into legal and/or technical troubles. (For more on the blend wall, see this Congressional Research Service report.)

But the two issues—declining gas consumption, increasing ethanol consumption—actually interact in interesting ways. Ethanol has about one-third less energy per gallon than gasoline does. Combining the slight declines in the volume of gasoline sold with steady increases in the amount of ethanol in the nation’s gas supply, the energy content of gasoline used on the nation’s roads has shrunk at a surprising clip. Take a look:

As the chart shows, US gasoline consumption peaked in 2004. Measured by volume, gas consumption has fallen modestly since then. But as ethanol in the gasoline supply grew, the energy in the average gallon declined—leading to a steep, 6 and 7 percent decline in the annual energy content of fuels consumed. All told, the energy consumed by cars and trucks has declined almost as steeply as it rose during the latter stages of the driving boom.

The upshot: we’re driving less; we’re driving more efficient vehicles; and we’re using less energy-rich fuels. It’s quite a change! And yet it’s been slow enough that it’s gone virtually unnoticed; and it’s certainly a change that hasn’t yet filtered into how we make decisions about our transportation future.

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

Photo Credit: VinothChandar via Compfight cc

Today Yale and George Mason are releasing the third report from their latest national survey, Public Support for Climate and Energy Policies in April 2013.

The takeaways? Well, for starters, big, fat majorities of voters want Congress and the president to get to work on American clean energy and climate solutions. Americans are increasingly looking to corporations and industry to take responsibility and do something about global warming (to lesser degrees they look to Congress, themselves, and the president to get to work).

A majority—61 percent—supports a carbon tax that would help pay down the national debt. But, as is typical, opposition to a carbon tax gains a majority (58 percent) when the specific cost to households is presented (in this case $180). Still, a large majority of Americans say they support a US effort to reduce global warming, even if it has economic costs.

Happily, those who continue to favor doing nothing are seeing their numbers dwindle.

The numbers are strong; there are no big adjustments to speak of one way or another. But recent fluctuations—or trends—aren’t necessarily continuing in the right direction. For example, American priorities for clean energy and global warming action by the president and Congress have decreased slightly as has support for several climate and energy policies.

Here are the highlights in more detail:

• A large majority of Americans (87 percent, down 5 percentage points since Fall 2012) say the president and Congress should make developing sources of clean energy a “very high” (26 percent), “high” (32 percent), or medium priority (28 percent). Few say it should be a low priority (12 percent).

• Most Americans (70 percent, down 7 points since Fall 2012) say global warming should be a “very high” (16 percent), “high” (26 percent), or “medium priority” (29 percent) for the president and Congress. Three in ten (28 percent) say it should be a low priority.

• Six in ten Americans (59 percent) say the US should reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do. Relatively few (10 percent) say the US should reduce its emissions only if other industrialized and/or developing countries do—and only 6 percent of Americans say the US should not reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

• Americans say that corporations and industry (70 percent), citizens themselves (63 percent), the US Congress (57 percent), and the president (52 percent) should be doing more to address global warming. These numbers have held steady over the past few years.
• A majority—55 percent—of Americans support setting strict CO2 emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants to reduce global warming and improve public health, even if the cost of electricity to consumers and companies would likely increase by $100.
• Majorities of Americans support: Providing tax rebates for people who purchase energy-efficient vehicles or solar panels (71 percent—high, but down 15 points since 2008); funding more research into renewable energy sources (70 percent—a solid number, but down 21 percentage points from 2008); regulating CO₂ as a pollutant (68 percent); requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax and using the money to pay down the national debt (61 percent, 20 percent strongly); eliminating all subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry (59 percent); requiring electric utilities to produce at least 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources, even if it costs the average household an extra $100 a year (55 percent).
• While a carbon tax with revenue going toward reducing the national debt gets majority support, Americans still don’t buy the idea of a tax swap or rebate. Carbon tax support drops for proposals that would reduce the federal income tax (45 percent support); reduce the payroll tax (44 percent support); or give a tax refund to every American household (43 percent). However, many Americans—around a third—simply say they don’t know if they would support or oppose such proposals.

Courtesy Yale and George Mason University.

• Majorities of Americans oppose increasing gas taxes by 25 cents a gallon and returning the revenue by reducing the federal income tax (66 percent oppose, 36 percent strongly); the elimination of federal subsidies for the renewable energy industry (58 percent oppose, 21 percent strongly); requiring companies that produce or import fossil fuels to pay a carbon tax that could cost the average American household $180 a year (56 percent oppose, 24 percent strongly).

• A majority—58 percent—supports expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas off the US coast. However, support for drilling is down 7 points from 2008.
• Surprisingly, half of Americans (50 percent) have never heard of the Keystone XL pipeline. Only 18 percent say they are following the issue closely. And among those Americans who have heard of the Keystone pipeline, about two in three support the project (63 percent).

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

Besides keeping carpools and transit moving, the SR-167 HOT lanes have an additional value: they give researchers more nuanced understanding of how much people are willing to pay for a quick trip. And when we took a look at the SR-167 HOT lane data last year, the numbers surprised us: apparently, drivers really aren’t willing to pay much for a faster commute. Few drivers on SR-167 opted to the free-flowing HOT lanes, so HOT lane traffic volumes typically stayed low.

University of Washington PhD students Austin Gross and Danny Brent have taken our initial research several steps further. I’ll probably mention more about their work in a subsequent post. But in the short term, I was struck by their data showing how badly WSDOT transportation planners misjudged demand for the HOT lanes:

That’s right: actual HOT lane revenue in 2012 was about one-third of the “low case” projection that WSDOT made before the lanes were opened. That was likely due to two separate effects: fewer cars than anticipated using the HOT lanes; and lower toll rates needed to keep HOT lanes from clogging up. Both effects flow from flawed early assumptions and beliefs about how much demand there would be for driving in general, and for the HOT lanes in particular.

These findings don’t prove that HOT lanes are a bad idea! But they clearly have a bearing on today’s transportation debates. For well over a decade, the Washington and Oregon departments of transportation been planning massive highway megaprojects—wider urban highways, higher-capacity bridges, expensive tunnels, and more. And they’ve pursued these plans in the belief that bigger highways will ease congestion—and that drivers put a high value on congestion-free trips.

But the SR-167 HOT lane experiment shows that most drivers on that stretch of road simply aren’t willing to pay much for a fast commute. Which raises a question: given that drivers may not be all that willing to pay for a quicker trip, does it really make sense for taxpayers to invest so much in trying to give them what they won’t pay for themselves?

Note: just to be clear, the interpretations of Gross’s and Brent’s numbers are my own, not theirs. And their research goes much, much deeper into the specifics of pricing and driver willingness to pay; the chart above is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m very much looking forward to diving into their findings! And hat tip to GoodMeasures.Biz for the graphic!

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

maistora, flickr

Of the 100 medical opinions I’ve gotten, 97 of them say that my liver damage is a result of binge drinking. Two of them weren’t sure if it was caused by the booze, and one actually disputed the idea.

My friends aren’t so sure though. I’ve asked ten of them, and only four think it’s mainly the liquor at fault. So although no one denies I’m in serious danger of liver failure, there’s some uncertainty over the cause, particularly among non-doctors.

Whatever. The point is: I’m heading out to happy hour soon.

If by chance my reasoning strikes you as problematic, you may enjoy reading the results of a thorough survey of published climate science:

The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% or 83 of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear.

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

Northwesterners should pay attention.

Cascadia is home to federal atomic facilities at Hanford and eastern Idaho, where much work remains to be done. Each site is heavily contaminated with atomic and chemical wastes from past weapons-connected operations, and the US Department of Energy (DOE) is carrying out environmental cleanup in both locations. Previous Sightline posts have covered each site. At Hanford, state and local officials are most concerned about “high level” radioactive wastes, in the form of some 50 million gallons in huge underground tanks, wastes that remain in liquid form today. Among other contaminants, Idaho holds liquid and solid “transuranic” wastes containing plutonium or other elements of higher atomic numbers than uranium. Elected officials have been fighting the federal government for decades, trying to get those wastes stabilized and moved out of state.

A dilemma for Hanford, eastern Idaho, and similar sites across the country is that the contamination already there makes them targets for receiving even more when federal officials go looking for locations to store chemical or atomic wastes. In fact, in 2007, DOE identified eight federal facilities, including Hanford and the Idaho nuclear site, as recipient candidates for one particular category of atomic wastes produced at federal facilities and by commercial atomic plants. This is the map of the eight candidate locations:

Locations that the US Department of Energy (DOE) designated in 2007 as candidates to receive a particular type of radioactive wastes from across the nation. All eight are federal facilities, managed and/or being cleaned up by DOE. [Map Source: US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Environmental Management.]

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

National Journal takes a look behind the scenes at what Republican leaders and activists are saying about climate change, and it includes some good news.

Anna

The best thing I read this week was this European history told the way we’re used to hearing about Native American history. It’s funny in that way that also makes you want to cry for shame.

The best thing I heard this week was Barbara Ehrenreich on Alternative Radio talking about how in this country we have a nasty practice of kicking people when they’re down. “Do we lend a helping hand to the poor? Barely. Let them eat op-eds about values and the virtues of hard work. There’s billions to fund the latest F-whatever fighter jet but scant little for people in distress. The pounding the needy are taking is particularly severe because much of the social safety net has been shredded. Can anyone say compassion and caring?”

And, trusty old Bill Moyer talks to the authors of Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children—continuing his excellent series on how money secretly (or not so secretly) rules politics in this country.

Eric

Check out the table on the bottom of the first page of Pew’s polling on European attitudes. My favorite element is that, almost without exception, every country believes that it is the least arrogant and most compassionate country in Europe.

The Washington Post’s world map of racism is worth absorbing. Based on a Swedish researchers’ (admittedly limited) survey, it produced results that I did not find entirely surprising.

Washington is the least foul-mouthed state.

I confess that I find Michael Pollan to be insufferable. So on the occasion of his recent visit to Seattle, I wallowed gratuitously in the writings of those who share my point of view here, here, and here.

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.

Poster for Tox-Ick stormwater campaign.

We recently updated you on the new stormwater permits that will soon dictate how Washington State’s most populated areas manage polluted runoff that damages water quality and can flood low-lying property. Here we’ll tackle the new Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permit, which covers the next most populated areas and affects nearly 100 cities around the state.

These cities are legally obligated to try to control water that runs off pavements, roofs and streets in built areas every time it rains. Along the way, that water picks up toxic metals, motor oil, lawn fertilizers, animal droppings, and a cocktail of other pollutants before it washes into local waterways and oceans. The rules governing how cities and other jurisdictions manage this dirty runoff are contained in municipal permits, which were recently updated in Washington State and are about to kick in throughout much of the state.

There are actually two Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permits: one for western Washington and one for eastern Washington. That’s because each side of the state has very different climate conditions, soils, and geology, which are important considerations when thinking about how water moves around.

The Western Washington Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permit, which goes into effect on August 1, 2013, covers 80 medium and small cities and the urban portion of four counties. The Eastern Washington Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permit, which takes effect one year later, covers 18 cities and urban areas in six counties. Both will remain in effect for five years.

As you may imagine, there are significant differences between two region’s Phase II permits. In particular, the new low-impact development (LID) regulations are very different. So let’s take a look at each permit in turn.

Western Washington Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permit

eutrophication@hypoxia, flickr

The new western Washington permit contains important new requirements in three areas:

1. New watershed-scale stormwater planning requirements
2. New monitoring and assessment requirements
3. New low-impact development (LID) requirements

The first major change is based on the concept that many pollution and flooding problems are best addressed at the watershed level. That wider focus also helps identify the most cost-effective pollution control strategies to meet clean water goals. The watershed planning process, outlined in an earlier post, requires Phase II permittees to work with counties and other municipalities in the watershed. After pulling together water quality data, flow records, biological baselines, and zoning maps, they must collectively develop strategies to change land use plans and development codes in ways that can manage polluted runoff more effectively.

The second major change involves the new Regional Stormwater Monitoring Program (RSMP) that will collect information on water quality, habitat, and biota in the Puget Sound basin; conduct regional studies of stormwater practices; and develop a public information repository. Permittees can either pay to participate in the regional program or comply with individual monitoring requirements on their own. The benefit of the RSMP is that it will provide a comprehensive approach to monitoring in the Puget Sound basin (think economies of scale).

Rain garden in West Seattle’s High Point development; Lisa Stiffler.

The third major change involves low-impact development that works with nature to manage stormwater as close to its source as possible, rather diverting it into pipes or large collection areas. LID techniques include rain gardens, vegetated rooftops, rain barrels, French drains, and permeable pavement that allows water to soak through rather than run off hardscapes. These tools reduce the impact of built areas on local water bodies and help water move more naturally through an ecosystem or watershed.

Phase II permittees have to incorporate LID standards into their development codes by December 31, 2016 (except for newly added permittees, who have an extra year to comply). Once those are in place, builders and landowners will be required to consider and use low-impact development best management practices (BMPs) when they’re developing or redeveloping land. The process is detailed in Appendix 1 to the Western Washington Phase II permit. Depending on the size of the project, where it’s located, and where runoff winds up, builders must work from one of two lists of recommended low-impact development practices. The developer must consider each BMP on the list, in the order listed, and use the first one that is feasible.

Finally, another important change is that the new Western Washington Phase II permit requires that certain standards apply to sites less than one acre. The prior version exempted new development, redevelopment, and construction sites that disturbed less than one acre of land.  That exemption has been removed.

Eastern Washington Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permit

The eastern Washington permit differs in two main areas—monitoring and low-impact development. In particular, the LID requirements for eastern Washington are wholly different than the requirements for western Washington.

They’re less evolved, in the sense that they’ll be phased in. The eastern Washington permit requires that initial steps be taken to implement low-impact development techniques. By December 31, 2017, for instance, eastern Washington permittees must require certain projects to retain runoff on-site or in regional facilities allowing it to percolate into the ground, or to develop feasibility criteria that factor in local conditions like soils that are too poor to let runoff soak in.

The new monitoring requirements for the Eastern Washington Phase II permittees require them to work together on studies that evaluate stormwater management programs. The hope is to start gathering basic information that will improve the permittees’ programs and future permit requirements.

In addition, the Washington Department of Ecology is working with eastern Washington permittees to develop a low-impact development manual for that side of the state. The state agency is also planning to support low-impact development research in eastern Washington, training for local government staff and contractors, and education to expand the use of LID practices.

So that’s the landscape for Washington’s municipal stormwater permits through 2018. That is, if the permits aren’t changed due to pending legal appeals.

Ashley Pedersen is an environmental attorney and policy analyst who lives in Seattle.

Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at daily.sightline.org.