WEBVTT - Soaking up Stormwater

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Unmitigated

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Stormwater has a lot of impacts

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to streams and rivers and biology

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that lives in the streams.

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Anytime you have a deluge of water

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that is coming into urban areas,

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it can cause damage.

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The unmanaged stormwater runoff can

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also carry pollutants like pesticides,

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road salts, fertilizers.

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It can also carry heat as well.

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You know, we wanted to see if

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there's a different way that

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we could manage stormwater.

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So we were looking at.

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Comparing this older version

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of stormwater management,

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where you typically have large

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detention ponds to this newer

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type of stormwater management

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where you have a lot of smaller

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stormwater facilities that use

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plants and soils to try to manage

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the stormwater in the neighborhood

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rather than down by like where the stream is

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In older communities,

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you know the purpose of stormwater

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management was just to evacuate stormwater

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off streets as quickly as possible.

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And since a lot of the water from

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across the landscape is just running

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off impervious surfaces and it's

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not infiltrating into the ground,

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what this does is it causes

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a lot of erosion problems.

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This can also impair aquatic habitats,

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and it results in poor water

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quality because a lot of times,

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stormwater is also carrying

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a lot of pollutants.

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What we were looking for was

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whether the treatment watersheds,

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which were the ones that were

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being implemented with this new

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type of stormwater management.

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Whether their patterns matched

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more closely to the forested

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watershed and less like the urban

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control which had the older

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stormwater management implemented,

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Clarksburg and Montgomery County

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general have really looked at stormwater

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from as many angles as possible.

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So we've just put out this paper

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that looks at 20 years of monitoring

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data that we've been doing there,

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along with Montgomery County,

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that have also done their own monitoring.

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The way that our study was

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designed was unique in that we were

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able to collect a lot of baseline data

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at the watersheds that were changing.

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And so we could really dive

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into what specific changes were

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occurring at the streams before

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anything happened in these streams.

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And then what did they look like

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during the construction phase

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and what did they look like

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once they've been developed,

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how have they responded to

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this change in the landscape?

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We did find differences between the

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distributed stormwater management

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and the centralized stormwater

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management for managing runoff

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during small rainfall events.

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So the distributed stormwater management

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did a better job of retaining stormwater.

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So those watersheds acted more like the

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forested control than the urban control.

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I guess what US brings to the table

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is the ability to synthesize all

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of this information and be able

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to convey that back to the county

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to provide them with information

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that's useful in terms of their

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planning decisions that they

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have to make about developments.

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We're always curious how the data

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that we produce is being analyzed.

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It's been great.

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The Clarksburg Monitoring

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Partnerships has gone for

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about 20 some years now.

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And just getting the different

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perspective from various people

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along the way was super helpful.

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Clarksburg is really a case study that

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represents a pretty large land use change

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that we're seeing across the region.

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There are thousands and thousands of

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acres that are being converted from

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prior ag land to development over time

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to accommodate growing populations.

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And so I think these results can

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certainly be extrapolated to those

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areas to better understand this very

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large regional land use change that's

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happening in the Chesapeake Bay.

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Watershed.

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So the more information we can gather,

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the more informed we become.

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We're always learning more.