Lenexa City Council’s rain to recreation programme (www.lenexa.com/raintorecreation/index.html)was a result of their 1997 strategic planning document -The 2020 Vision out of which fell their Stormwater utility and watershed management master plan. The programme joins flood protection, water quality and recreation drivers.
Its interesting after all the previous chat on this exchange about no national or federal environmental direction the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) was introduced to us. The system requires cities to work to remove microbiological contamination from stormwater (stage 1) and then to address sediment and heavy metal pollution of stormwater discharges (stage 2). Lenexa is a stage 2 city.
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Dam at Lake Lenexa
NPDES is a formal version of the SPE project Wellington City Council embarked on 18 years ago; a 15 year (1993- 2008), $70 million, sewage pollution elimination (SPE) project aimed at progressively substantially reducing sewage pollution from the harbour and coastal waters. Twelve years after commencement it can be said SPE was successful in meeting its goals of substantially reducing sewage contamination of stormwater discharges. Councils focus has now changed from microbiological contamination public health risk to management of the risks associated with sediment and the heavy metal content of stormwater discharges and their effects on the receiving environments . Wellington could be a considered a stage 2 city.
We talked about these approaches and discovered there is no consistency in environmental standards and enforcement across America….sound familiar??
The Rain to Recreation stormwater team consists of an engineer, a (landscape) planner and compliance officers. This team is separate from their public works (infrastructure) department. This echoed what Jan Hjeis of Auckland City had said to me weeks before leaving for the exchange that stormwater management is totally different to water and wastewater management. Stormwater management is more closed related to land use management. Auckland City manages stormwater in a different team to water and sewage networks, just like Lenexa. Food for thought….
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Car park swale
Like Auckland, Lenexa take a systems approach to stormwater. The four key areas of management are site development, run off control, neighbourhood and city detention provision (to maintain hydraulic neutrality from developed sites), and riparian corridors; they have HUGE set backs from watercourses that ARE NEVER to be piped (www.lenexa.com/lenexaCode/codetext.asp?section=004.001.015) . Detention features are primarily for water quantity rather than quality control, though treatment is provided.
Detention can be roofwater collection tanks, rain gardens, bioretention ponds, wetlands etc. Detention devices are all designed and constructed to their BMP manual. The manual contains different options for management of stormwater, which much be detailed in what NZ would know as an AEE supporting a consent application. The final development is checked against this report and non compliance is not an option!
The council (including the fire department) uses roofwater for their activities- including irrigation, watering of planted beds, and for their fire and sumper trucks.
As well as polices to manage stormwater they have a real strong education programme. Rainscape is a city wide educational campaign that promotes water conservation, water quality, stormwater awareness, action and home solutions. They offer build your own rain barrel and rain garden workshops for the community :)
There were three stars of the Lenexa show- in no particular order;
1 the number of green field development sites with specific biorention, the rain gardens and the wetland built long before the houses are built (Central Green).
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Central green development
2 the sheer number bioretention facilities around town – for office developments (Kiewit), for public works (Fire stations, road side) and in private subdivisions (Manchester Road)
And 3 Lake Lenexa- an art work of a detention dam and beautiful lake amenity, with biodiversity and recreation. This made the Stebbings dam look dull and boring!