National Conference on Urban Runoff Management: Enhancing Urban Watershed Management at the Local, County, and State Levels

Since passage of the Clean Water Act, federal, state, and local governments together with the private sector have spent billions of dollars attempting to meet the act’s goals of restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. While great progress has been made, especially with respect to reducing traditional point sources of pollution, we are faced with a much more complex and difficult challenge: reducing the pollution associated with our everyday activities. Facing the environmental challenges presented by nonpoint sources and stormwater discharges requires a more comprehensive and integrated approach, especially if we are to maximize the environmental benefits in a cost-effective manner. This approach is known as watershed management—the integration, on a watershed basis, of the management of land resources, water resources, social-cultural resources, financial resources, and infrastructure. Implementation of this approach requires a cooperative Watershed Management Team effort involving all levels of government, the private sector, and each citizen. Besides addressing the need for watershed management, this paper discusses briefly the many components of a comprehensive watershed management program. Key program elements include growth management, land preservation/purchase, wetlands/floodplains protection, erosion and sediment control, stormwater management, wastewater management, watershed prioritization and targeting, inspections and maintenance, research, public education, and dedicated funding sources. Other papers in this publication review the evolution of Florida’s watershed management program, with emphasis on successes and failures together with recommendations to improve the environmental effectiveness of the program (e.g., “The Evolution of Florida’s Stormwater/ Watershed Management Program”). Introduction When land within a watershed is changed from its natural state to agricultural land and then to urban land, many complex interconnected changes occur to the natural systems within the watershed. These changes can and do have profound effects on the health of these systems as well as their inhabitants. As Earl Shaver describes in his paper, one of the greatest changes is the alteration of the watershed’s hydrology, especially the infiltrative capacity of the land. Additionally, the everyday activities of humans within the watershed add many potential environmental contaminants to the watershed that can be easily transported by precipitation and runoff. Managing stormwater and nonpoint sources of pollution presents many complex challenges to the water resources manager that are somewhat unique and quite different from those encountered when managing traditional point sources of pollution. These challenges include: • Integrating land-use management, because change in land use creates the stormwater problems. • Educating the public about how everyday activities contribute to the stormwater/nonpoint source problem and how they must be part of the solution. • Developing a management framework that is based on the fact that “we all live downstream” and that stormwater flows are not constrained by political boundary lines. • Obtaining the cooperation and coordination of neighboring political entities that exist within a watershed. • Not only managing stormwater from new development but retrofitting existing “drainage systems” that were built solely to convey runoff away from developed lands to the nearest water body as quickly as possible.