Thanks to the Water Environment Federation (WEF) for organizing a great meeting today with EPA’s Nancy Stoner (Acting Assistant Administrator), Mindy Eisenberg (Associate Chief, Protection Branch), and Kellie McGinness Kubena (Chief, Sustainable Communities Branch). Participants included Stormwater Maintenance, LLC, DC Water, WSSC, Loudon Water, among others.

The topic was employment as related to water initiatives. Lots of good stuff.  We were able to share our viewpoint from a small business and stormwater perspective:

• The paradigm shift that is occurring as the design and construction industries transition from new-construction to operations, maintenance, and rehabilitation.
• Community based non-profit organizations, such as Blue Water Baltimore are engaging school systems to help facilitate environmental and water education – bringing a new generation of interest to the water employment field.  Driver = Grant and Foundation funding.
• Existing stormwater treatment infrastructure is reaching lifecycle limits in many cases and is requiring more attention to avoid public safety and water quality issues.  More attention to these rehabilitation issues can help the design and construction industries re-focus to reduce the impact of the current economic conditions.
• Green infrastructure construction and maintenance requires more labor intensive resources.  This means more jobs.  Traditional contractors must re-tool to be successful with green infrastructure.
• Increased focus on maintenance is an important way to help the design and construction industries recover from the challenging economic situation.  Jobs created to perform maintenance are permanent jobs – not one-time assignments.

Ted Scott will have two presentations:
– Efficiently Performing ESD Calculations in a Production Design Context
– Operations and Maintenance Issues with ESD Infrastructure

Check it out & sign up at: http://usgbcmd.org/Default.aspx?pageId=1208593

3720-070710-011, a photo by Stormwater Maintenance, LLC on Flickr.

Is that they are a hideous pollutant.
They are easy to drop or discard.
It is easy for the wind to snatch them from your hands.
They are easy to be quickly transported via wind or water.
Then, they easily clog stormwater infrastructure.
And then, they never go away, ending up as microscopic bits of pollution swirling in the ocean garbage patches.
Suffice to say that we see a lot of them in our maintenance activities.

Of course, to every point, there is a counterpoint. In this article, Marc Gunther defends plastic bags.

But our vote goes to Stiv Wilson’s response here.

With the first substantial snowfall of the year on the ground here in the Mid-Atlantic, thoughts drift to warmer times.  Sorting photos and happened on this great shot of Prettyboy Dam taken on a hot summer day…

Prettyboy Dam

Ted Scott has been invited to speak at the Purdue University Indiana Local Technical Assistance Program’s Stormwater and Drainage Conference on February 9, 2012.  He will be leading two sessions:

• Stormwater Inspection and Maintenance Programs and Techniques
• Design Impacts on Stormwater Maintenance

It should be interesting to share our perspective in the Mid-West.  Check it out here.

This little fella was a bit confused…

It is game-on for the Baltimore Harbor: check it out here and here.