By Brett Rosenberg
March 23, 2009

The House Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment – part of the larger Transportation and Infrastructure Committee – invited three mayors to testify March 19 at a hearing on stormwater runoff, thanks in large part to the new promise of transparency and accountability under the auspices of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The mayors, Tom Leppert of Dallas, Mark Funkhouser of Kansas City (MO) and Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, each provided details of how their cities have incorporated green infrastructure into existing stormwater management programs, while often struggling to improve existing infrastructure and meet unfunded mandates.

Stormwater runoff, the mayors and several House members noted, has the potential to pick up various contaminants from urban surfaces and transport them to area waterways, if not treated and removed first. Even though most cities have strategies to alleviate rapid surface runoff, which may have severe public health and environmental consequences, many continue to struggle to meet their costly legal obligations to stop combined sewer overflows (CSOs). Similarly, many cities plan to use state revolving fund cash for green infrastructure projects.

Both ARRA and H.R. 1262, the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009 as passed by the House, require states drawing on state revolving fund cash to give priority to projects that construct natural, vegetation-based systems to filter and store stormwater runoff and floodwaters for future water supply and recharging of natural aquifers.

In addition to their prepared remarks, each mayor was asked what the greatest barriers are to meeting their stormwater runoff challenges. In Dallas, Leppert said that his city has made great strides in becoming greener, but the challenge has and remains obtaining buy-in from engineers and developers. Leppert said the great success his city has met is due largely to engaging all kinds of community groups and continually making the case that, in the short term, building green is just as economical as traditional forms. In the long term, Leppert suggested that green buildings provide a better payoff, both economically and environmentally, than traditional building. Leppert also said, “Reauthorizing state revolving loan funds is vital.”

Funkhouser noted that time and money are the largest barriers to alleviating stormwater runoff issues and meeting CSO requirements. Kansas City faces a $2.4 billion consent decree to fix its CSOs and another $2.1 billion to mitigate potential flood damage while its median per capita income continues to shrink. While green solutions are part of the overall plan, Funkhouser noted that Kansas City “lives at the outer edge of what the EPA considers affordable” because of declining incomes and population. He said that the city is amortizing the costs over the longest time currently allowed, but it is a struggle.

Barrett cited Milwaukee’s efforts at greatly reducing the amount of contaminated stormwater that reaches Lake Michigan. He noted a massive Brownfield redevelopment at a former rail yard that now include a business park, hiking trails, ponds and wetlands. He also described the Milwaukee Deep Tunnel, which intercepts and holds hundreds of millions of gallons of stormwater before it can enter area waterways, then sends it to a treatment plant once a storm event ends. Barrett noted that the federal government should consider a clean water trust fund to address stormwater runoff, green infrastructure and other water issues.