March 27, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode, we talk with Eliana Brown, Water Quality and Stormwater Specialist with University of Illinois Extension. Eliana explains how we can do simple things that improve lakes and rivers and why it's important to do so. This podcast complements Extension's Stormwater@Home video series.
With Eliana, we define stormwater, explore the challenges and solutions of stormwater management, and discuss innovative technologies being implemented within Illinois communities. Erin and Amy both serve mostly rural landscapes so we talk about the differences between urban and rural stormwater management. As always, come away with a few tips about what you can do to manage stormwater at home. Check out the blog post on this topic for more information.
Resources:
Rainfall Management
Lawn to Lake Midwest
Illinois Groundwork (Green Stormwater Infrastructure design)
Questions? We'd love to hear from you!
Abigail Garofalo aeg9@illinois.edu, Erin Garrett emedvecz@illinois.edu, Amy Lefringhouse heberlei@illinois.edu
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Garrett (00:06):
Welcome to another episode of the Everyday
Environment podcast where weexplore the environment we see
every day. I'm your host, ErinGarrett,
Amy Lefringhouse (00:14):
And I'm your cohost, Amy Lefringhouse.
Erin Garrett (00:16):
And today, we are here with Eliana Brown, and she
is the water quality and stormwater specialist for Illinois
Indiana Sea Grant and IllinoisExtension. Welcome, Eliana.
Eliana Brown (00:28):
Great to be here, Erin and Amy. Thanks so much for
inviting me. Thanks for thatnice introduction too.
Erin Garrett (00:34):
Yeah. We're excited to chat with you today,
and we know we have a lot ofquestions that we wanna get
into, but before we dive intothat, we kind of want to take a
step back and just ask you alittle bit, your title was a
little bit of a mouthful, canyou tell us about what you do in
your work with Sea Grant andwith Extension?
Eliana Brown (00:54):
So I came Extension and Sea Grant after
managing the universitystormwater program for ten
years. I am really passionateabout stormwater management and
green infrastructure. When Istarted here in Extension, I
managed the nutrient lossreduction strategy program for
the university, and I took onleading the renovation to the
Red Oak Rain Garden. As yousaid, I'm now Extension's water
(01:16):
and sea grant's water qualityand stormwater specialist
working for NREE program leader,Dr Kar, and I serve as the
director of the Red Oak RainGarden. I lead a team that looks
into how green stormwaterinfrastructure, which is also
known as nature based solutions,can reduce flooding and improve
water quality. And, you know, itseems like these days we're
either in feast or famine as faras rain goes, and many Illinois
(01:40):
communities need assistance andresources to prepare for floods
and drought. Flooding is themost common and costly disaster
in The US, and every county inIllinois has faced it badly
enough to be declared a federaldisaster area. We also
collaborate with campusresearchers and the water survey
to create toolkits that helpcommunities prepare for floods
(02:00):
and sets them up for success,and we partner with our
colleagues at Community andEconomic Development to bring
these resources to ruralIllinois. An exciting part is
that these efforts don't justhelp communities prepare for
disasters, they also enhanceneighborhoods, create
recreational spaces, and improvewater quality for activities
like fishing. To bring thisinformation directly to the
(02:23):
public, I coordinate programsthat you wonderful educators
provide to your communities,such as watershed stewards and
the rainscaping educationprogram. These help people
understand all aspects of waterand teach them how to build rain
gardens. And as you probablyknow, a lot of folks are really
interested in rain gardens thesedays, to help with flooding and
water quality, and also tobring, like, those wonderful
(02:44):
pollinators to their own yardsand engage kids in these topics
too.
Erin Garrett (02:49):
You do just a few things, right? A few things.
Eliana Brown (02:52):
Well, I have a fantastic team. There is there's
a lot of work to be done withstormwater and water quality,
and and we're just so honored tobe able to do it.
Erin Garrett (03:03):
Definitely. And I hope our listeners can hear why
we brought you on the podcastbecause everything had to do
with water, which is our theme.So, of course, we have quite a
few folks from Sea Grant thatare joining us, which is really
exciting for us, getting tokinda tap into all of your
expertise and share that withall of our listeners. So we're
really excited to have you andto chat with you today about
(03:25):
stormwater.
Amy Lefringhouse (03:26):
You talked a lot about what you did. Let's go
back to the basics and juststart with, like, a basic
definition of stormwater.
Eliana Brown (03:36):
Stormwater is just rain or snow melt that flows
over hard impervious surfaceslike, you know, roads,
buildings, parking lot. Thereare two main challenges with
stormwater, the the quantity, sothe amount, and quality, like
how clean it is. And spoileralert, what's really cool about
stormwater is that you as anindividual can actually play a
(03:58):
big part in solutions. Not everyenvironmental problem kind of
feels that way. Right? Some feelpretty big, but with stormwater,
you can definitely make animpact, and it can even be
rewarding and beautiful.
Amy Lefringhouse (04:12):
That is spoken from a true stormwater. I don't
wanna say nerd because sometimes
Eliana Brown (04:18):
I'm a self professed stormwater geek here.
I do have I do have a story ofstormwater that I'd like to tell
you.
Amy Lefringhouse (04:23):
Absolutely.
Eliana Brown (04:24):
Alright. So it used to be that communities
focused mainly on sendingstormwater away. Like, it it,
you know, it goes into stormdrain. It gets collected into
storm drains, conveyed intopipes that that go to nearby
streams and lakes. Right? So thegoal is simple, protect property
and keep roads clear duringstorms. All good things, mind
(04:46):
you. We we wanna have those. Buthere's the problem. As cities
and towns expand and create moreof those hard surfaces, the
amount of stormwater runoffincreases, and pipes can't keep
up, which can lead to floodingand big storms, and then all of
a sudden property's flooded androads are underwater. And there
is also a consequence to sendingall that water to the streams
(05:07):
and lakes. They end up introuble in two main ways. First,
the rainwater that runs offentire neighborhoods, it can be
powerful enough to erode thosestream banks every time it
rains. Like, so it used to be,like, with without getting all
that neighborhood rain in a bigstorm, a stream might you know,
it might that might happen everyonce in a while, but now every
time it rains, it's getting it'sgetting hit. And and the problem
(05:30):
with that is that the erodedsoil makes the water muddy, and
it harms aquatic habitats. Sowith that, I'm gonna I'm gonna
define the term watershed. Sowatershed is all the land that
would be draining to thatwaterbody. And if you have 10%
of that watershed as a hardsurface, you're gonna get
measurable water qualityimpairments, and at 25%, it's
(05:51):
significant. A little bit moreis another way that we can help
with storm water that our lakesand rivers can be in trouble.
All that storm water is it flowsover streets, lawns, driveways,
it picks up all kinds ofpollutants like, you know,
anything on the land birddroppings, car oil, brake dust,
lawn chemicals, pet waste, andand even those fall leaves and
(06:12):
and spring blossoms too. If thatif that gets into the street, it
gets really high in phosphorus,and all of that gets carried
into rivers and lakes untreated.So everything washed into storm
drains goes directly to nearbywaterways. So that's where we're
here today facing both quantityand quality challenges with
stormwater, but but, you know,there is hope.
Amy Lefringhouse (06:34):
Thinking about stormwater right now just like
in this podcast, when I wasyounger, I just was like, it it
is it is what it is. Right? Ididn't pay attention to it.
Like, oh, yay. It rained reallyhard. We can go splash around in
our front yard where it was, youknow, draining down. And but
just to think about it a littlebit more in-depth about how to
(06:55):
manage it is just I don't know.I guess it's just something I
don't think about every day.It's just something you take for
granted. Right? That it's allgonna just go away, and it goes
away and nothing happens, right?I don't see anything physically
happening. But what you'rebringing to light, Eliana, is
there are lots of things thatare impacted by, you know, like
(07:15):
you said, that the quantity ofrain that we're having in a lot
of these rainfall events isreally having an impact on on
our communities.
Eliana Brown (07:24):
Yeah. Yeah. It can. But, you know, the the
systems that we have in place,those were all good reasons. You
know, we wanted we need we needto protect our property. We need
to have we need to have thesestorm systems. We need to have
these pipes. They're they're notbad in of themselves. It's just
that that there is thisconsequence, and so we want to
have this good thing. We want tohave dry streets. We also want
(07:45):
to have this good thing ofhaving good water quality, Like,
you know, I used to go fishingas a kid. I want people to enjoy
boating. We wanna be able to weneed that water for for our
drinking water resources too. Soif we wanna have these both good
things, that is where somethinglike green storm water
infrastructure comes in. And Iloved your description, Amy, of
(08:07):
you being a kid and having funin the water because that is
exactly the kind of thing thatwe we that we wanna that water
can be. And with greenstormwater infrastructure, we
can bring some of that joy backand have a stormwater management
that is more of an amenity for acommunity.
Erin Garrett (08:28):
Yeah. I love that because you're already getting
into my next question, Eliana,which is my favorite. It keeps
happening this season onpodcast, and I'm a fan of it. So
can you tell us what greeninfrastructure is, kind of break
down what that concept is, andthen how it plays a role in our
stormwater management.
Eliana Brown (08:45):
Absolutely. One of my favorite topics. So alright.
So you're just talking about howokay. How stormwater systems,
they send the water away. So itkinda it treats it treats water
as a waste. The thing that greenstorm water infrastructure is
that it's capturing water lands,and it uses it as a resource.
water is expensive. Like, iffrom from I mean, like, you
(09:06):
know, from your time your waterbill, whether that is
individually expensive is amatter of a number of things,
but we're talking about, like,for a community, it's expensive
to have water treatment plants.It's expensive to have the
upkeep and everything that comesto that. So with green
stormwater infrastructure,that's where the the where you
could really use stormwater toits to as an advantage. The
(09:28):
infrastructure itself mimics thenatural ecosystems. So you might
have heard not have heard ofrain gardens. Rain gardens are a
great example of it. Rainwaterharvesting, like rain barrels
and cisterns are another.Permeable pavement, so the
replacing, of parking lots anddriveways with concrete
impervious asphalt that actuallycan soak in the water. Green
(09:52):
roofs is another one, And thenand I always want to say even
just our our trees. Trees cansoak up a lot of rainwater, so
they're super important in thissystem. Additionally, we wanna
let that soak that water soakinto the ground, and that
replenishes groundwater, whichis very important. One of my one
(10:13):
of my stormwater heroes because,you know, a stormwater geek, I'm
gonna have a stormwater hero.One of stormwater hero is a man
named Roger Bannerman from fromWisconsin, and he was a
researcher there. He wasnoticing that the groundwater
levels were decreasing, and hefound that it it was because we
weren't soaking in enough. Itwas all too much of it was going
(10:34):
running off is is storm water.So he became a big proponent of
rain gardens, and he's thereason I actually learned about
rain gardens twenty years agowhen I'm visiting Wisconsin. I
just I'd started my job managingthe university storm water
program, and I brought that ideaback to the university campus,
and that's how, that's how theRed Oak Rain Garden got started.
(10:56):
Other green stormwaterinfrastructure techniques that
let water soak into the groundare urban wetlands. I didn't
mention urban wetlands. This canbe really important for taking
the stormwater for an entireneighborhood, bioswales or
another. The green roofs delaythat peak flow. So, you know,
that that hit that I was talkingabout, they're really good for
(11:17):
making that not beat so, sohard. Of course, those also have
other benefits like energysavings. Green stormwater
infrastructure can be at anumber of different scales, so
that's also one of the things Ilike about it. So I can have a
small rain garden, but, like, anentire community can have that
constructed wetland, that urbanwetland, which can be really
(11:40):
helpful. They can be usedalongside our existing gray
infrastructure. So a goodexample of that is if you have
your house, maybe has a stormdrain that's right up on the
road out in front of the house,you can put in a rain garden
that that intercepts the waterthat would be coming off of your
(12:01):
roof. But then if we have asuper big rain, it can just
overflow into that existingmanhole, and that's really nice.
One other thing I wanna tell youabout green stormwater
infrastructure, and then I willtake a breath because I could
talk about this all day, and Iknow we don't need to have that
be in a whole day podcast, butthere are these other benefits,
(12:21):
and that's that's the otherthing that kind of really gets
me super excited about it. Itcan be super beautiful and real
enhancements for communities,and that's really where that
engineering meets landscapearchitecture and urban planning,
providing these amenities thatrevitalize downtowns and provide
respites of well-being. We'reconstantly being told at the Red
Oak Rain Garden that it helpswith people's mental health. We
(12:44):
have heard from some studentsthat they even select to live in
the the neighboring dormitorybecause there's no other place
on campus that has that level ofnatural beauty, and we do see
that firsthand. It's like anincrease in biodiversity that
comes from having that greenstormwater infrastructure. Our
iNaturalist project has 266observations that feature 165
(13:08):
different species of plants,insects, more, so we love it.
Amy Lefringhouse (13:12):
Eliana, you talked about a lot about urban
storm water and what's going onin cities, and, you know, I look
out my window and I see themanhole in the in the water
rushing down during storms downthe street, but I've also lived
on a farm. I've also livedoutside of town, and I've lived
(13:32):
in a small lake community too.It was just a little small lake
community. So what are like, howdo those stormwater practices
differ when you, you know, livein different places?
Eliana Brown (13:45):
That's a great question. So stormwater
approaches and methods, they'rethey are they're gonna vary
based on the uniquecharacteristics of of each
setting. With green stormwaterinfrastructure, some of them are
gonna make more economic sensein certain areas. Okay. An an
urban wetland, for example, isgonna take up a lot of land.
(14:06):
Sure. It's not going to bepractical, say, in, like, a
heavily developed area. Youknow, Downtown Chicago, land
prices are way too high to putin something like that, so it's
going to make more sense thereto use something like a green
roof even though it's it's moreexpensive per amount of
stormwater captured to have agreen roof. You have to consider
(14:29):
a whole building, and there'sother costs involved with that.
But for a a rural setting, it'sgonna have that advantage of
having different economicreality for for land prices and
and different uses for that. Andfor, say, like, smaller towns
may not have as many peopletrained in green stormwater
(14:50):
infrastructure as maybe a largerplace would, but that's one of
the places where extension canexist. We can help well, my team
is working on a maintenancecurriculum that's going to help
break down some barriers for oursmall towns to be able to
install green stormwaterinfrastructure. And we're really
excited to to be getting to dothat project. Maintenance can
(15:12):
really be an issue for largerplaces as well, though. Even on
campus when the Red Oak RainGarden was built, the
maintenance wasn't feasible forthe university's facilities to
do because their limited staffhad to do so many other things.
Mhmm. And so the garden reallysuffered at that point. So there
are with with that particularinstance, it wasn't until a few
(15:36):
years later I saw when I wasteaching a Master Naturalist
class that there was interest inhaving some involvement with it,
and especially with folks thatwere trained through the Master
Naturalist program, we were ableto bring that as a project, and
I decided to pursue therenovation to Red Oak Rain
Garden because of of of thatinterest. So sometimes it it it
(16:01):
can be a a thing where you havecertain if you have local local
folks that are really interestedin doing various things, that
can make something possible. Soit's not only the land, but the
people and the interest andexcitement around a project. And
for us, when we had no. I hadthis group of really talented
(16:24):
students that included LaneKnoche, who's now an outreach
associate, and I know it's gonnabe on one of your future
podcasts. I led that group. Weredesigned. We re reimagined the
Red Oak Rain Garden only becausewe had that support, the people
of the extension volunteers inpartnership with facilities and
some student groups. And withservice learning and continued
(16:44):
continual education, well,that's just been a really good
formula for us to be able to tohave that there. I am really
curious, Amy, I know, like, atat Nauvoo, you were part of that
rainscaping Yeah. Program, andthey had a dedicated group of
folks there Yes. That were wereable to have that rain garden be
put in.
Amy Lefringhouse (17:05):
Yep. They it's volunteer led. The rain garden
in Nauvoo, Illinois is volunteerled. And they've actually put
in, I think, two two or moreadditional rain gardens after
that initial installation. Sothey really took the concept of
rain garden and, you know, ranwith it. And they also have
(17:26):
access to a greenhouse, so theyraised some of the plants, you
know, that they put in theirrain garden sites, so it's
really taken off, and they'vepresented about them at some of
our local gardening and masternaturalist programs, so it's
been good.
Eliana Brown (17:44):
Oh, that's great. And that, you know, that's
that's one of those ways that asmall group of individuals can
really have influence on otherfolks in order to have have
stormwater be more front ofmind. Mhmm. People are thinking
about it and and can make adifference in our own
communities.
Erin Garrett (18:03):
Mhmm. When we're thinking about the difference
between, like, urban and ruralsettings, you know, a lot of the
times there's a difference inresources that are available,
and just looking at, you know,it all sounds great. Green
infrastructure sounds amazing,but what is, like, a cost
differential between some ofthese practices versus, like,
(18:25):
the traditional way of doingthings? Like, I think permeable
pavement, right, as an examplein a parking lot. Do you have a
ballpark idea, or like, number,which I know is hard, of like a
difference between traditionalpavement versus permeable
pavement, and then, like, arethere incentives for communities
and, like, grants available andhelp in order to, like,
(18:46):
implement some of thesepractices?
Eliana Brown (18:49):
That's a really great question. A really great
question. And, you know, withsomething like a parking lot,
you know, there's a number ofways that you can do it. There's
there's the, like, the the fullblown consideration of it. It's
not only just what you'reputting in, but it's the
maintenance and and and do youfor permeable pavement, do you
(19:11):
actually tell us if you're in asmall town, do you have a
tractor truck that's gonna beable to to come in and debris
out of the the the the parkinglot, whereas and but for
conventional parking lots, youalso have maintenance costs of,
say, all the sealant that has togo on. So there's the and I'm
(19:33):
not an economist. Need to talkwith Margaret Schneemann of Sea
Grant to to get the the numberswith a better specificity, but
that sort of, like, wholelifestyle cost analysis is
something that aged communitywould have to do. A lot of
parking lots will have some kindof vegetation, and our a lot of
(19:55):
the parking lots that we havewill have beds that maybe have a
tree or a tree or whatever, butthey don't receive the storm
water. And and so if you'reputting something in and you're
gonna have that anyway, it couldbe something that the engineer
designer would make it be theother way, have some of the
(20:17):
stormwater go into those bedsinstead. And and there really
wouldn't be too much of a of acough differential on that.
Yeah. There was a second part ofyour question, but I'm not sure
that I answered that part.
Erin Garrett (20:30):
Just if you know of, like, grants or incentives
for maybe smaller communitiesthat don't necessarily have the
capacity to to implement some ofthese practices.
Eliana Brown (20:40):
Yeah. Yeah. So the Illinois EPA does have a really
nice grant program called theGreen Infrastructure Grant
Opportunities. Okay. They alsooffer low interest loans for
Stormwater. That's an expansionoff of their already low
interest loans that they do forother kinds of water features or
(21:03):
water treatment plants. Withinwell, this is a nationwide
thing, but within Illinois,there's also something that any
size community can do if theywant to do it, they wish to do
it, and that's called astormwater utility fee. That is
where you have thinking ofstormwater as a utility, one way
(21:25):
to pay for some of the thingsthat you might be doing in a
community is having a a smallfee that everybody pays into
you, and that's earmarked forsome of these projects.
Currently, there are only three,four of them in Illinois, and
there are other states that havea lot more of them. Like,
(21:46):
Florida has more than 200, forexample. So they have differing
popularity throughout the nationin different states. Just, you
know, like, it it catches onsomewhere, and it is catching on
here. We are starting to havemore and more of them in no one
way to help with some of thatfunding.
Erin Garrett (22:05):
Okay. Interesting. So there are different options
out there that communities couldlook into if that's something
that they wanted to make apriority was green
infrastructure to kind of helpfund and supplement that. That's
awesome. Yeah.
Alright. So we've been talkingabout a lot of the ways that we
can handle storm water indifferent ways, not necessarily
just trying to get rid of it,keeping it in place. So what
(22:28):
kind of what's the impact? Youkind of mentioned a lot of them
just as we've gone, but ingeneral, if we look at broad
environmental impacts of poorstormwater management, what are
we kind of looking at, and then,you know, how can we kind of
mitigate those impacts?
Eliana Brown (22:43):
Yeah. Okay. So Illinois EPA has looked into
this, and they estimate thatfrom only urban stormwater
alone, that in the state ofIllinois, there's more than a
thousand miles and 40,000 acresof lakes that are impacted,
(23:04):
impaired because of urban stormwater. And a lot of those are
near population centers inIllinois, and and that kind of
makes sense. Right? Because Iwas talking about those hard
surfaces. Our population centercenters tend to have more of
those hard surf We always haveto remember that storm water
goes untreated into stormdrains. Now I know we're
(23:27):
recording this at the December,and I think folks will be
listening to it in early spring.So it'll be within recent memory
for them when we had snow. Andyou know how snow, like, really
good visual of this is snow. Inthe first couple of days of
snow, it's, like, pristine. Andthen then on the roads, it
starts to look grungy and and,you know, not so pristine
(23:53):
anymore. Well, that's yourvisual for what that's your
visual for stormwater pollution.That's all the stuff that's on
the road, and the snow meltsgoes into those lakes and rivers
untreated. Oh, it's a it's areally good way to think about
it.
Anything that happens on theland or happens on the road is
going to end up in in our waterbodies. So that's where we
(24:17):
really wanna kinda be thinkingabout what we are doing on the
land for ourselves in terms of,like, housekeeping. So if you,
for example, are puttingfertilizer on your lawn, you
wanna have a nice lawn. Fairenough. You don't do it right
before a rainstorm.
Like, you're not first of all,you're kind of wasting your
money because it's gonna washoff, and it's not even gonna
(24:37):
help your lawn, and then it endsup and and causes can can
contribute to algal blooms. Wehave a lot of nitrogen and
phosphorus that ends up in ourwater bodies. Harmful algal
blooms, and then harmful algalblooms can happen, and that
really makes an impact anegative impact, say, our
(24:58):
recreational areas Mhmm. Apartfrom then when it goes down to
the Mississippi River and we endup with the issues that they
have there with the the deadzone. We don't wanna be
contributing to that.
Also, we're doing something onour lawn. We wanna and we're
spending the time and money todo it. We wanna make sure that
it's having the impact therethat we want it to have. You can
(25:19):
check out Sea Grant's Lawn toLake program. That's a really
great way to get some resourcesand some good information on on
what to do.
I'm always a proponent, and Erinand Amy, I know Erin, you
especially, I think you're gonnaagree with me on this. I'm
always a proponent to maybe nothave as much lawn and start
(25:42):
bringing in some native plants,perhaps some of those beautiful
native grasses that you talkabout, Erin. We that's that I I
know one of my one of my mastergardener friends will every year
just kind of chip away at thelawn, so she'll she'll move the
border of her native plant beds.It took her husband like five
(26:06):
years to figure out what she wasdoing.
Amy Lefringhouse (26:09):
That's awesome. I'm going to adopt that
strategy.
Erin Garrett (26:12):
Like it.
Amy Lefringhouse (26:13):
Well, seems manageable, right? You're like,
oh, I'm just going to expand itjust a tiny bit?
Erin Garrett (26:17):
A little bit, yeah. Just a little bit, and a
Eliana Brown (26:19):
few more beautiful native plants and and and
pollinators. Smart thing theydo. So those are good. Those are
just little things that that canmake a big difference. You know,
I'm always gonna gonna say greatthings about green stormwater
infrastructure.
Right? Really, especially forthings like sediment, it can
(26:39):
reduce that by as much as 90%.There we have, like, a ton of
studies that show the the greatpollution reductions that we see
as the heavy metals, forexample. Like, if you have in in
the Northwest, they have they'realways trying to they always
need to protect, say, theirtheir salmon and some of their
(27:01):
some of the heavy metals fromtheir roof. There are
industries, whole industriesthat have made these really cool
little stormwater planters, butthey're not small.
They're they're big by, like, aby by they make them out of big
toads. But kind of like a a soit's kind of like a movable rain
garden and that that they putunder some of their roofs to
(27:24):
reduce the amount of heavymetals so that they can protect
the the salmon. That'sfascinating.
Amy Lefringhouse (27:31):
That is cool. How creative we can be. So
regulations and policies in ourcommunities, like we're
thinking, okay, we wanna do somegreen stormwater management
infrastructure. Sorry. I gotthat wrong, I think, On our on
our property, on our yard, oreven advocate that in our
community, what aboutregulations, policies?
(27:53):
How do they play in our decisionmaking?
Eliana Brown (27:56):
They play a really big part. Basically, how we
handle storm water. Okay. Theyset guidelines for managing
runoff to make sure that we keepour water clean, prevent
flooding, and just to keepeverybody on an even playing
field. And the the regulationsare here for a reason.
I already told you the story ofstormwater, and I tell you the
very brief story of stormwaterregulations. So, you know, in
(28:19):
the way back when after theCuyahoga River, you know, burned
at least 13 times, the CleanWater Act was enacted 1972, and
those were really looking atthose end of pipe. So, like,
wastewater treatment plants, thepoint source pollution. And a
lot of our our our lakes andrivers water quality improved a
(28:39):
lot, but not as much as as aswas expected and hoped for. And
so in in the eighties, therewere a number of studies that a
lot of studies nationwide thatwas looking into what's what's
going on?
What's the cause of this? Andand the stormwater runoff. And
so more regulations came intopass. There was the clean water
(28:59):
amendment in 1987, and thatstarted the first stormwater
regulations came down in 1990.That was phase one, and those
were large large municipalcommunities.
Then in 2003, so we only had oneof those in Illinois, and it
wasn't Chicago. It's Chicago isactually under a different kind
of system. It was Rockford. Butthen in 2003, small stormwater
(29:24):
communities, the acronym is MS4, those regulations came down.
There were more than 300.
We have a lot of them inIllinois. And that's actually
the the program that I wasmanaging for the university.
University is considered a smallmunicipality because we own our
storm system. But there are thething with those regulations
(29:45):
that were really that I thinkare really interesting for the
the the treatment plants, theyhad to come up and meet these
numerical standards and do abunch of testing. With the
municipalities, they had come upwith a plan that had six main
parts of a plan, and for a lotof municipalities, they were
always very rightly concernedwith flooding, and and and that
(30:07):
was the thing with stormwaterthat that they were really
looking at.
And this plan broadened that outso that to a number of things,
also including public outreachand education. So people in the
community would know what wasgoing on with stormwater and and
encourage these people to maketheir own individual choices
(30:29):
that could also help themselvesand their own property and the
community. Mhmm.
Amy Lefringhouse (30:34):
I think regulations and policies are one
of those things that I, like,gloss over when I was in school.
But then as I grow up and just,like, learn more, I just I don't
know. I just find it veryinteresting to look back at
history and just see how itshaped everything. And I guess I
don't gloss over it as much, youknow, as as an adult now, you
(30:56):
know, listening to you and howit's kind of evolved in
stormwater management. I'velistened to some lectures about
just land ownership and thehistory of the policies of land
ownership over time, and it'sjust I don't know. It is kind of
fascinating, I will say.
Eliana Brown (31:11):
It's fascinating. It it I I agree with you. And,
you know, I mean, oh, boy,regulation is not something that
a lot of people like, and that'sfair. And the other hand,
they've had these regulationsare based in science and based
in in trying to make sure thatthere isn't one group of folks
(31:34):
that's maybe profiting at theexpense of an entire community.
So they they do have a place.
Amy Lefringhouse (31:41):
Mhmm.
Erin Garrett (31:42):
Yeah. And I think it's important when you can
break it down and understand whythe regulation is there. Right?
It's really easy to just belike, ugh. Right.
Why does it make everything moredifficult or more expensive
where we have to meet all theseguidelines? But kind of
understanding, of course, youknow, the background. It's
there. Right. A lot of the timesthey're there for a reason, and
so just being more cognizant ofthat can just help you
(32:03):
understand your community alittle bit better, and your
environment and kind of thefuller picture of what's going
on there. Right? For sure.
Eliana Brown (32:12):
Yeah. Well said. Well said.
Amy Lefringhouse (32:14):
Eliana, quick question. When you say flooding,
are you so I'm from West CentralIllinois.
I'm from a river town.
Right? A river town. So when Ithink of flooding, I'm like, oh
my gosh. Levees, sandbagging,big time flooding. When you talk
about flooding in the stormwatersense, are you're talking about,
(32:35):
like, street flooding, yardflooding, you know, like, what
does that mean exactly?
I know that seems like a kind ofa funny question.
Eliana Brown (32:43):
But No. It's a it's a great question. It's a
great question, and and it'skind of all the above. And
Great. Where I'm at, we're,like, you know, Boneyard Creek
is like, it's a small creek.
It's it's not the MississippiRiver. So
Amy Lefringhouse (32:56):
Right. Okay.
Eliana Brown (32:57):
But but there's a lot of in in Eastern Illinois, a
lot of Illinois, we have we werewe we built cities and small
towns in what used to bewetlands, and so that's why we
put in those pipes. Sure. Andwe're at a place now because of
those cities expanding that Iwould say water always wins in
(33:20):
end, and so those those camethose came back. So, yeah, so
basement flooding, yard floodingI mean Street flooding, but also
what you're talking about withriver flooding, with those kinds
of of things that you need tohave in place with the sandbags
with with when the when theriver gets high.
Erin Garrett (33:38):
That's really interesting because I grew up
next to the Fox River too in ourcommunity, and so we would
always and we would cross it toget to school every day on the
bridge, and so you could alwaystell, like, how high the water
was. Right? There was, a level,and then, like, right in that
community, they built a fewparks in that area, so, like,
(33:59):
sometimes the parks would flood.I had a friend that lived, like,
right next to the river, andsometimes, you know, it like,
the water would get to theirhouse, and so being more mindful
that we didn't live directly onthe river. But just, like, that
whole concept too, like you weretalking, Amy, like living in
that town.
Like, flooding means differentthings to different people.
Right? And can have very seriousimplications. Right? Whereas for
(34:21):
me right now, it's just like apond in my yard.
Right? When I was like, that'skind of the impact. So just kind
of keeping that in mind that,like, we all have different
perceptions and and realities. Iguess realities is the better
word of what flooding means inour communities.
Eliana Brown (34:37):
I I can remember oh, come on. I was a grad
student years ago. That was whenthe the Mississippi had really
big flooding, and peoplecouldn't get from you all
couldn't get from Iowa andIllinois, and, like, it was it
that was huge implications onpeople's lives.
Amy Lefringhouse (34:57):
Oh, and it's still you know, that was maybe
the ninety three flood? I don'tknow. That was That's
Eliana Brown (35:01):
the one I'm thinking about. Yep.
Amy Lefringhouse (35:03):
Yeah. That was the biggest impact. I was 13 at
the time, and it was just veryimpactful for me, and and we
still talk about it. We still,you know, have stories about it
here. It's our it's ourcommunity history.
Erin Garrett (35:14):
So There's a flood marker down the street from me
that shows where the floodwatersgot. Mean, like, well, that
gives me hope. It wasn't quiteto my house yet, and so if that
happens yet, But lots of thingshave changed in our environment
since then, and we've builtthings up a lot, so, like, that
doesn't really mean anything.Right? Or
Eliana Brown (35:34):
It's interesting, though, like, like, it all kinda
comes down yeah. Those are thelike, physically, those are very
different kinds of floods. Andbut when you are talking about,
say, like, your basement takingon water, there is, I think, a a
common emotional aspect of thestress that is around the
flooding and how much it's goingto cost you, what you're losing,
(35:57):
what those implications aregoing to be, and the anguish
that can come from water. Wateris is such a force that it's
such a I'm obviously fascinatedby water, that it it is such a
life giving thing that isnecessary. Water weighs, like, a
(36:19):
little bit more than eight.
It's 8.3 pounds per gallon. Andso when you're talking gallons
and gallons of water, itactually becomes a a force that
can do significant damage. So itit is really this this
incredible thing that enhancesour life and that we have to
have a lot of respect for andwork with and have a good
(36:41):
understanding of it that we canbefriend it and be able to have
our property and really ourmental health enhanced by it
rather than impacted negatively.
Erin Garrett (36:56):
Yeah. You just took me back to when we moved
into our new house last year,and there was over the course of
forty eight hours, I think wegot 13 inches of rain. Oh. And
that was fun when we were downin the basement because, you
know, the tornado sirens weregoing off, so we were taking
cover in the middle of thenight, and there's just water
(37:18):
pouring into the basement fromlike where the there used to be
an old window, and then theyconverted that to where our air
conditioner comes in, and wewere like, oh my gosh, what did
we do? We bought this house, andthat was like, that rain event,
right, that doesn't that doesn'thappen all the time, but when it
happens, what are theimplications of it?
And like, we haven't seen thathappen since, right, because we
(37:39):
haven't had a rain event likethat, but we're like, okay, that
needs to be like sealed and likefixed right there. But it was
just like that panic, right, aslike new homewaters were like,
what do we do?
Eliana Brown (37:50):
Oh, no. Like That panic and that the feeling of
hopeless or helplessness,helplessness.
Erin Garrett (37:55):
Yeah.
So we've chatted a lot aboutdifferent examples of stormwater
management projects. I know forme, it's always really exciting
when I go somewhere, and I seelike stormwater practices
happening, so that's what I waslooking up when you were
chatting earlier because I justwent to a place and I couldn't
remember the name of it, Iwanted to get it right. But I
went to the Audubon Center atRiverlands Oh, yeah. In the
(38:17):
Mississippi Flyway . Yeah.
Amy Lefringhouse (38:19):
Yes. Represent.
Erin Garrett (38:21):
And loved getting there and just seeing, like,
permeable pavement and just theway that they've structured
their building to capturerainwater and they had some rain
gardens and it was just reallyexciting to kind of see that
example in real life. Right?It's always fun for me to see.
So I know you have lots ofexamples. Can you share one or
(38:41):
two projects?
Eliana Brown (38:42):
The one I wanna highlight is is the Uptown
Normal Circle, and this projectthis project is amazing. It is
they took this largeintersection, and it was part of
their whole revitalization of oftheir their uptown area. They
made a roundabout, so long goneas traffic thing, and and it has
(39:04):
this water feature, It hasconcrete base, and it utilizes
storm water captured from twostreets. They filter it through
some rain gardens, and just looklike garden beds. And instead of
using potable water, they havethey they use the storm water
for this kind of, like, shallow.
(39:25):
It's almost like a little like alittle like a like a a kind of
like a a concrete creek bedthat's really, really beautiful.
It's the circle, so it's calledthe circle. It's really popular
in the win excuse me, in thesummer months when people need
to cool off. People can actuallyget in that water, and that's
what is lovely about it. Like Isaid, it's it's clean storm
(39:46):
water.
Kids will play in it. People sitin the grass next to it. It's
right on the ISU campus, socollege students will will use
it for recreation. I guess theyhave it's like, you know,
stormwater management plus. Theyhave bands that play basically
utilizing it as a park, which isreally great.
And most people don't even knowthat it's storm water
(40:08):
management. But I wanna if ifsomeone's traveling around and
they're like, you know, in anyof these areas, I wanna give
people a clue to know whethersomething is stormwater
management or not. And, like, ifyou have so if you have curbs
here around a a native plant bedand those curbs have cuts in
them, probably stormwatermanagement. So some that's one
(40:29):
of the ways that the stormwateris getting in. The other like,
some of the numbers I wanna putaround this particular example
is that it's taking it's taking1,400,000 gallons of stormwater,
and they're using that becausethey're using that, they're not
using potable water, and so itsaves the city $7,600 annually,
(40:55):
which is which is really great.
But even more than that, as partof that revitalization of that
area, it's generating nearly$700,000 of revenue through
conferences that are held innormal. So it's like it has
these practices cost things,right? But as we talked about,
(41:21):
GIGO and some of the other grantprograms can be really helpful,
and they can be nice things forhelping to revitalize and
generate some revenue forcommunities. That's one of my
favorite ones. Mhmm.
I just yeah. I I think it's agreat project.
Amy Lefringhouse (41:36):
Well, and I think it's really cool because
it's in the middle to wherepeople are, like you said,
interacting with it a lottraffic wise, then also
pedestrian, and people can seegood example and be inspired and
hopefully start to come youknow, continue starting to
continue the conversation aboutwhat's happening there. Right?
Like, what's its function?
Eliana Brown (41:55):
Yeah. Some projects like this one, folks, I
know don't I don't know thateverybody knows that it's
stormwater management, but thosethat do really are like, wow.
This is really super cool. Therehave been some projects where
stormwater management has beenreally studied, and a lot of
people know about it, and that'sone of my second examples.
There's a I wanted to bring onefrom different parts of parts of
(42:18):
Illinois and different kinds ofgreen stormwater infrastructure.
There's a and then I call, like,the classic the classic
experiment, and that was city ofChicago city hall. So they had a
green route, and this was, like,twenty years ago. Mayor Daley at
the time wanted to make ChicagoOne of the green roof exam or,
(42:39):
like, places best places in theworld. So they on the building,
he wanted to have the wholebuilding's roof be turned into a
green roof, But the city onlyhad half the building, and the
county had the other half thebuilding. And the county said,
we don't think so.
So you got the like, for, like,you know, academic nerds here
are like, oh my gosh. That'sit's a classic experiment. And
(43:02):
they have been able a lot ofresearch, a lot of studies have
been done showing thedifferences between the two
sides, and that's kind ofexciting. So I mentioned a
little bit before that greenroofs also have that energy
savings benefit. So thegreen roof side, the research
has shown that it savesapproximately $5,000 per year in
(43:25):
utility bills.
Mhmm. And that's because onaverage, that side of the
building is 10 to 20 degreescooler than the side that
doesn't have the green roof,which is really important for
our our big cities with urbanheat islands. Yeah. My last
example, my third example, isfrom from my hometown in
(43:47):
Southern Illinois, and and Ifound this one when I was
visiting. I was visiting my momfor the holidays, and I just
kind of like, you know, youknow, you gotta, like, when
you're at your hometown, yougotta, like, drive around and
see the new things in thehometown.
Right? So I was driving past thethe town's hospital, and I I
(44:08):
looked, and I just look. I kindalooked, and I looked again.
Lucky okay. It's a small town.
Like and it was a real it was aside street, so I could actually
stop in the middle of the roadand, like, back up. Only
something you can do in a in asmall town. We're due now. And I
was like, it's a bioswale . Itturns out, again, small town.
My brother went to high schoolwith the with the administrator
(44:33):
of the hospital, so I'm, like,asking him questions. I'm like,
why why? What happened? How didthis happen? And so they they
expanded the parking lot, thehospital and the hospital
parking lot, and when thathappened, they started flooding
the guy's house down the street.And so I'm like, know, okay.
We're gonna do the right thing.So they put in this bioswale
that takes up all the stormwater coming storm water runoff
(44:56):
coming from from the hospitalparking lot. And and I kinda
love that one because that onewas not driven by regulation. It
was driven by, like, hey. We'rejust gonna, like, Yeah.
Really? The heck that'shappening here. I'm gonna do the
right thing. Mhmm. And and theyand they did it, and now and now
they have this great example ofgreen stormwater infrastructure.
Erin Garrett (45:16):
That's awesome. I love all of those examples.
That's fantastic. And I like howyou picked places across
Illinois, which is my favorite,to kinda take the different
things that can happen.
Eliana Brown (45:26):
Well, it it's it's for everywhere, and there's
there's certain things thatsmall towns can be more nimble
and be able to do that largetown, large cities can't do.
There's Really? Like, this isthis is something for every
every part of Illinois if thatcommunity wants to do it. Mhmm.
Erin Garrett (45:44):
Alright. Well, thank you so much, Eliana, for
sharing all of your wonderfulknowledge about green
infrastructure and stormwatermanagement. We're going to shift
into our everyday observation,so this is the part of the show
where we highlight kind of themundane and normal of our
environment that is actuallyreally interesting, at least to
us, we hope it's interesting toeveryone that's listening too,
(46:06):
and inspires you to think aboutwhat you see in your everyday,
environment. But Amy, I'm gonnapick on you first.
Amy Lefringhouse (46:13):
Sure. I would love to share. So I drive out my
driveway down this littlestreet. I'm kind of in a older
neighborhood of Quincy is whereI live, and there's two giant
bur oak trees down this street,this little kind of like, it's
almost like an alley. And theyhave been around for a long
(46:36):
time.
I mean, these were not plantedby us. Right? They were there,
and they're probably at they'reat least 48 inches diameter. I
looked up the Big Tree Registry,which is an Illinois Extension
program, just just a plug foreverybody there. Burr Oak, big
tree record is like 89 inches,so not even close to that, but
(46:57):
these are big these are prettybig trees.
Anyway, one day I'm driving justthe other day to work, look up,
it has a huge lightning scarthat, like, it must have been
hit because it's one of thetaller trees obviously in the
neighborhood, and comes all theway down and kind of like
diagonally crisscrosses the treedown to the ground, and part of
(47:21):
me is sad, a little bit sad, butalso like, what a, I don't know,
awesome, I almost said a swearword, but what an awesome tree
to be able to, you know, takethat and just be like, Here I
am. I'm still going. I'm still,I'm still living and doing all
the work that I'm doing here asa tree in the middle of the
(47:42):
city. So I can't say that it's apositive everyday observation,
but it was really like, wow, aneat thing to see.
Erin Garrett (47:50):
A battle scar.
Amy Lefringhouse (47:51):
Yeah. A battle scar.
Erin Garrett (47:52):
Absolutely. That's great. Thanks, Amy. Mhmm.
Alright, Eliana.
What's your everydayobservation?
Eliana Brown (47:59):
Alright. So I couldn't I couldn't pick this
one. I have two. I know this isgonna air in the spring, and so
with storm water, we talk aboutleaves quite a bit. And I I
always encourage people to makesure that they that they don't
have leaves that are going intothe storm or on the street
(48:20):
because that can contribute tostorm water pollution.
But that's what I do in my frontyard. Like, put those into my
compost pile, but my backyardgets to stay with leaves. And so
what I get to enjoy and what Ilook forward to in spring and
summer, summer especially, is alot a lightning bug show,
(48:41):
fireflies everywhere. It istruly spectacular and just such
a joy to get to see that. Myfirst one, stormwater related.
The second one is my my myspringtime joy. My absolute
favorite place in the world isAllerton in the world is
(49:02):
Allerton Park in the springtimewith their bluebells. It is
something spectacular. So thatis Allerton Park in Monticello.
They have a very wooded area,and I'm sure all across Illinois
you can go to whatever is youryour favorite nature preserve.
If they have bluebells andwildflowers, it's something
(49:24):
really to never to miss, alwaysto behold. And as we think about
looking at, say you know I'mgonna talk about green storm
water infrastructure one moretime. As we walk out a hike,
it's a really important thing togo out in nature and see the the
kind of landscapes that you findbeautiful because those are the
(49:45):
kinds of things that can reallyinspire, say, like, what kind of
native plants that you wannaincorporate into your own yard
or what kind of native plantsyou wanna have in in your rain
garden. The allerton parkbluebells inspired the bluebells
that are at the Red Oak RainGarden, and they're just my
ultimate joy.
Erin Garrett (50:03):
I love that. I just planted some bluebells in
my garden this fall so that Ihave the did that at my last
house too, and those are somethat I didn't transplant with me
because listeners may not knowthat I brought a lot of plants
with me to my new house, but Icouldn't bring everything, so I
had to get some more bluebellsto put in. So I'm hoping that
(50:24):
they do well, and they come upand bloom this year.
Eliana Brown (50:26):
But How do you know it's really spring? Like,
and the bluebells start comingup, it's like, oh, we made it.
We made it. Mhmm.
Erin Garrett (50:33):
Definitely. Alright. Well, I'll wrap us up
today, and, you know, we'rerecording in December. So for
us, December is what my husbandcalls the mud season. That's
winter for us.
In Southern Illinois, we get alot of rain, not that much snow,
and so we just had a really bigrain event. Yesterday, we got
(50:54):
about 1.7 inches of rain here atmy office, and it's interesting
driving to work because I knowthe spots where there's going to
be flooding, and so drivinghere, you know, there's a really
low spot where it goes under arailway overpass, and it was
(51:17):
definitely flooded yesterday,and then just watching all of
the ditches and how high all thewater was, and then just
flooding in yards too. So justkind of got that tangible view
of where all of that rain has togo. Right? It has to go
somewhere, and you know, sixhours later when I left, it was
basically all the water and theroad was gone.
(51:39):
So then I was thinking like,where did it all go? It's just
interesting to kind of thinkabout, you know, we have this
this temporary problem. Right?This temporary flooding, and
then it's resolved, but I don'tfully understand where it's all
going. So just kind of made thewheels turn in my brain to kind
of think about it more, but itis a lot more tangible for me
now in kind of the ruralsettings, I'm like, I know what
(52:00):
roads are going to be floodedand what I need to avoid on
those certain days, so I justthought it was kind of relevant
to our discussion today.
Yeah. Yeah. So
Eliana Brown (52:08):
Absolutely. And there's a in rural areas with
the ditches where you can reallysee it, there's some I think
that there's it it helps you toreally visualize what's happens
much more than in more urbanareas when you think it's
underground.
Amy Lefringhouse (52:24):
That makes sense.
Eliana Brown (52:24):
so yes, I appreciate series of ditches.
Erin Garrett (52:27):
And just how much water. Right? How water comes in
in, like, a torrential downpour,which is what we had yesterday.
It was a fun day. Alright.
Thank you so much, Eliana,again, sharing your knowledge
with us and all of ourlisteners. I really appreciate
you taking the time to come onthe pod. It's been a joy.
Eliana Brown (52:44):
Oh, well, thank you so much for the opportunity.
It's been such a pleasurespeaking with you both. This is
a great series.
Erin Garrett (52:50):
Thank you. Well, this has been another episode on
the Everyday Environmentpodcast. Check us out next week
where we talk with KatieO'Reilly about aquatic invasive
species.
Welcome to another episode of the Everyday
Environment podcast where weexplore the environment we see
every day. I'm your host, ErinGarrett,
Amy Lefringhouse (00:14):
And I'm your cohost, Amy Lefringhouse.
Erin Garrett (00:16):
And today, we are here with Eliana Brown, and she
is the water quality and stormwater specialist for Illinois
Indiana Sea Grant and IllinoisExtension. Welcome, Eliana.
Eliana Brown (00:28):
Great to be here, Erin and Amy. Thanks so much for
inviting me. Thanks for thatnice introduction too.
Erin Garrett (00:34):
Yeah. We're excited to chat with you today,
and we know we have a lot ofquestions that we wanna get
into, but before we dive intothat, we kind of want to take a
step back and just ask you alittle bit, your title was a
little bit of a mouthful, canyou tell us about what you do in
your work with Sea Grant andwith Extension?
Eliana Brown (00:54):
So I came Extension and Sea Grant after
managing the universitystormwater program for ten
years. I am really passionateabout stormwater management and
green infrastructure. When Istarted here in Extension, I
managed the nutrient lossreduction strategy program for
the university, and I took onleading the renovation to the
Red Oak Rain Garden. As yousaid, I'm now Extension's water
(01:16):
and sea grant's water qualityand stormwater specialist
working for NREE program leader,Dr Kar, and I serve as the
director of the Red Oak RainGarden. I lead a team that looks
into how green stormwaterinfrastructure, which is also
known as nature based solutions,can reduce flooding and improve
water quality. And, you know, itseems like these days we're
either in feast or famine as faras rain goes, and many Illinois
(01:40):
communities need assistance andresources to prepare for floods
and drought. Flooding is themost common and costly disaster
in The US, and every county inIllinois has faced it badly
enough to be declared a federaldisaster area. We also
collaborate with campusresearchers and the water survey
to create toolkits that helpcommunities prepare for floods
(02:00):
and sets them up for success,and we partner with our
colleagues at Community andEconomic Development to bring
these resources to ruralIllinois. An exciting part is
that these efforts don't justhelp communities prepare for
disasters, they also enhanceneighborhoods, create
recreational spaces, and improvewater quality for activities
like fishing. To bring thisinformation directly to the
(02:23):
public, I coordinate programsthat you wonderful educators
provide to your communities,such as watershed stewards and
the rainscaping educationprogram. These help people
understand all aspects of waterand teach them how to build rain
gardens. And as you probablyknow, a lot of folks are really
interested in rain gardens thesedays, to help with flooding and
water quality, and also tobring, like, those wonderful
(02:44):
pollinators to their own yardsand engage kids in these topics
too.
Erin Garrett (02:49):
You do just a few things, right? A few things.
Eliana Brown (02:52):
Well, I have a fantastic team. There is there's
a lot of work to be done withstormwater and water quality,
and and we're just so honored tobe able to do it.
Erin Garrett (03:03):
Definitely. And I hope our listeners can hear why
we brought you on the podcastbecause everything had to do
with water, which is our theme.So, of course, we have quite a
few folks from Sea Grant thatare joining us, which is really
exciting for us, getting tokinda tap into all of your
expertise and share that withall of our listeners. So we're
really excited to have you andto chat with you today about
(03:25):
stormwater.
Amy Lefringhouse (03:26):
You talked a lot about what you did. Let's go
back to the basics and juststart with, like, a basic
definition of stormwater.
Eliana Brown (03:36):
Stormwater is just rain or snow melt that flows
over hard impervious surfaceslike, you know, roads,
buildings, parking lot. Thereare two main challenges with
stormwater, the the quantity, sothe amount, and quality, like
how clean it is. And spoileralert, what's really cool about
stormwater is that you as anindividual can actually play a
(03:58):
big part in solutions. Not everyenvironmental problem kind of
feels that way. Right? Some feelpretty big, but with stormwater,
you can definitely make animpact, and it can even be
rewarding and beautiful.
Amy Lefringhouse (04:12):
That is spoken from a true stormwater. I don't
wanna say nerd because sometimes
Eliana Brown (04:18):
I'm a self professed stormwater geek here.
I do have I do have a story ofstormwater that I'd like to tell
you.
Amy Lefringhouse (04:23):
Absolutely.
Eliana Brown (04:24):
Alright. So it used to be that communities
focused mainly on sendingstormwater away. Like, it it,
you know, it goes into stormdrain. It gets collected into
storm drains, conveyed intopipes that that go to nearby
streams and lakes. Right? So thegoal is simple, protect property
and keep roads clear duringstorms. All good things, mind
(04:46):
you. We we wanna have those. Buthere's the problem. As cities
and towns expand and create moreof those hard surfaces, the
amount of stormwater runoffincreases, and pipes can't keep
up, which can lead to floodingand big storms, and then all of
a sudden property's flooded androads are underwater. And there
is also a consequence to sendingall that water to the streams
(05:07):
and lakes. They end up introuble in two main ways. First,
the rainwater that runs offentire neighborhoods, it can be
powerful enough to erode thosestream banks every time it
rains. Like, so it used to be,like, with without getting all
that neighborhood rain in a bigstorm, a stream might you know,
it might that might happen everyonce in a while, but now every
time it rains, it's getting it'sgetting hit. And and the problem
(05:30):
with that is that the erodedsoil makes the water muddy, and
it harms aquatic habitats. Sowith that, I'm gonna I'm gonna
define the term watershed. Sowatershed is all the land that
would be draining to thatwaterbody. And if you have 10%
of that watershed as a hardsurface, you're gonna get
measurable water qualityimpairments, and at 25%, it's
(05:51):
significant. A little bit moreis another way that we can help
with storm water that our lakesand rivers can be in trouble.
All that storm water is it flowsover streets, lawns, driveways,
it picks up all kinds ofpollutants like, you know,
anything on the land birddroppings, car oil, brake dust,
lawn chemicals, pet waste, andand even those fall leaves and
(06:12):
and spring blossoms too. If thatif that gets into the street, it
gets really high in phosphorus,and all of that gets carried
into rivers and lakes untreated.So everything washed into storm
drains goes directly to nearbywaterways. So that's where we're
here today facing both quantityand quality challenges with
stormwater, but but, you know,there is hope.
Amy Lefringhouse (06:34):
Thinking about stormwater right now just like
in this podcast, when I wasyounger, I just was like, it it
is it is what it is. Right? Ididn't pay attention to it.
Like, oh, yay. It rained reallyhard. We can go splash around in
our front yard where it was, youknow, draining down. And but
just to think about it a littlebit more in-depth about how to
(06:55):
manage it is just I don't know.I guess it's just something I
don't think about every day.It's just something you take for
granted. Right? That it's allgonna just go away, and it goes
away and nothing happens, right?I don't see anything physically
happening. But what you'rebringing to light, Eliana, is
there are lots of things thatare impacted by, you know, like
(07:15):
you said, that the quantity ofrain that we're having in a lot
of these rainfall events isreally having an impact on on
our communities.
Eliana Brown (07:24):
Yeah. Yeah. It can. But, you know, the the
systems that we have in place,those were all good reasons. You
know, we wanted we need we needto protect our property. We need
to have we need to have thesestorm systems. We need to have
these pipes. They're they're notbad in of themselves. It's just
that that there is thisconsequence, and so we want to
have this good thing. We want tohave dry streets. We also want
(07:45):
to have this good thing ofhaving good water quality, Like,
you know, I used to go fishingas a kid. I want people to enjoy
boating. We wanna be able to weneed that water for for our
drinking water resources too. Soif we wanna have these both good
things, that is where somethinglike green storm water
infrastructure comes in. And Iloved your description, Amy, of
(08:07):
you being a kid and having funin the water because that is
exactly the kind of thing thatwe we that we wanna that water
can be. And with greenstormwater infrastructure, we
can bring some of that joy backand have a stormwater management
that is more of an amenity for acommunity.
Erin Garrett (08:28):
Yeah. I love that because you're already getting
into my next question, Eliana,which is my favorite. It keeps
happening this season onpodcast, and I'm a fan of it. So
can you tell us what greeninfrastructure is, kind of break
down what that concept is, andthen how it plays a role in our
stormwater management.
Eliana Brown (08:45):
Absolutely. One of my favorite topics. So alright.
So you're just talking about howokay. How stormwater systems,
they send the water away. So itkinda it treats it treats water
as a waste. The thing that greenstorm water infrastructure is
that it's capturing water lands,and it uses it as a resource.
water is expensive. Like, iffrom from I mean, like, you
(09:06):
know, from your time your waterbill, whether that is
individually expensive is amatter of a number of things,
but we're talking about, like,for a community, it's expensive
to have water treatment plants.It's expensive to have the
upkeep and everything that comesto that. So with green
stormwater infrastructure,that's where the the where you
could really use stormwater toits to as an advantage. The
(09:28):
infrastructure itself mimics thenatural ecosystems. So you might
have heard not have heard ofrain gardens. Rain gardens are a
great example of it. Rainwaterharvesting, like rain barrels
and cisterns are another.Permeable pavement, so the
replacing, of parking lots anddriveways with concrete
impervious asphalt that actuallycan soak in the water. Green
(09:52):
roofs is another one, And thenand I always want to say even
just our our trees. Trees cansoak up a lot of rainwater, so
they're super important in thissystem. Additionally, we wanna
let that soak that water soakinto the ground, and that
replenishes groundwater, whichis very important. One of my one
(10:13):
of my stormwater heroes because,you know, a stormwater geek, I'm
gonna have a stormwater hero.One of stormwater hero is a man
named Roger Bannerman from fromWisconsin, and he was a
researcher there. He wasnoticing that the groundwater
levels were decreasing, and hefound that it it was because we
weren't soaking in enough. Itwas all too much of it was going
(10:34):
running off is is storm water.So he became a big proponent of
rain gardens, and he's thereason I actually learned about
rain gardens twenty years agowhen I'm visiting Wisconsin. I
just I'd started my job managingthe university storm water
program, and I brought that ideaback to the university campus,
and that's how, that's how theRed Oak Rain Garden got started.
(10:56):
Other green stormwaterinfrastructure techniques that
let water soak into the groundare urban wetlands. I didn't
mention urban wetlands. This canbe really important for taking
the stormwater for an entireneighborhood, bioswales or
another. The green roofs delaythat peak flow. So, you know,
that that hit that I was talkingabout, they're really good for
(11:17):
making that not beat so, sohard. Of course, those also have
other benefits like energysavings. Green stormwater
infrastructure can be at anumber of different scales, so
that's also one of the things Ilike about it. So I can have a
small rain garden, but, like, anentire community can have that
constructed wetland, that urbanwetland, which can be really
(11:40):
helpful. They can be usedalongside our existing gray
infrastructure. So a goodexample of that is if you have
your house, maybe has a stormdrain that's right up on the
road out in front of the house,you can put in a rain garden
that that intercepts the waterthat would be coming off of your
(12:01):
roof. But then if we have asuper big rain, it can just
overflow into that existingmanhole, and that's really nice.
One other thing I wanna tell youabout green stormwater
infrastructure, and then I willtake a breath because I could
talk about this all day, and Iknow we don't need to have that
be in a whole day podcast, butthere are these other benefits,
(12:21):
and that's that's the otherthing that kind of really gets
me super excited about it. Itcan be super beautiful and real
enhancements for communities,and that's really where that
engineering meets landscapearchitecture and urban planning,
providing these amenities thatrevitalize downtowns and provide
respites of well-being. We'reconstantly being told at the Red
Oak Rain Garden that it helpswith people's mental health. We
(12:44):
have heard from some studentsthat they even select to live in
the the neighboring dormitorybecause there's no other place
on campus that has that level ofnatural beauty, and we do see
that firsthand. It's like anincrease in biodiversity that
comes from having that greenstormwater infrastructure. Our
iNaturalist project has 266observations that feature 165
(13:08):
different species of plants,insects, more, so we love it.
Amy Lefringhouse (13:12):
Eliana, you talked about a lot about urban
storm water and what's going onin cities, and, you know, I look
out my window and I see themanhole in the in the water
rushing down during storms downthe street, but I've also lived
on a farm. I've also livedoutside of town, and I've lived
(13:32):
in a small lake community too.It was just a little small lake
community. So what are like, howdo those stormwater practices
differ when you, you know, livein different places?
Eliana Brown (13:45):
That's a great question. So stormwater
approaches and methods, they'rethey are they're gonna vary
based on the uniquecharacteristics of of each
setting. With green stormwaterinfrastructure, some of them are
gonna make more economic sensein certain areas. Okay. An an
urban wetland, for example, isgonna take up a lot of land.
(14:06):
Sure. It's not going to bepractical, say, in, like, a
heavily developed area. Youknow, Downtown Chicago, land
prices are way too high to putin something like that, so it's
going to make more sense thereto use something like a green
roof even though it's it's moreexpensive per amount of
stormwater captured to have agreen roof. You have to consider
(14:29):
a whole building, and there'sother costs involved with that.
But for a a rural setting, it'sgonna have that advantage of
having different economicreality for for land prices and
and different uses for that. Andfor, say, like, smaller towns
may not have as many peopletrained in green stormwater
(14:50):
infrastructure as maybe a largerplace would, but that's one of
the places where extension canexist. We can help well, my team
is working on a maintenancecurriculum that's going to help
break down some barriers for oursmall towns to be able to
install green stormwaterinfrastructure. And we're really
excited to to be getting to dothat project. Maintenance can
(15:12):
really be an issue for largerplaces as well, though. Even on
campus when the Red Oak RainGarden was built, the
maintenance wasn't feasible forthe university's facilities to
do because their limited staffhad to do so many other things.
Mhmm. And so the garden reallysuffered at that point. So there
are with with that particularinstance, it wasn't until a few
(15:36):
years later I saw when I wasteaching a Master Naturalist
class that there was interest inhaving some involvement with it,
and especially with folks thatwere trained through the Master
Naturalist program, we were ableto bring that as a project, and
I decided to pursue therenovation to Red Oak Rain
Garden because of of of thatinterest. So sometimes it it it
(16:01):
can be a a thing where you havecertain if you have local local
folks that are really interestedin doing various things, that
can make something possible. Soit's not only the land, but the
people and the interest andexcitement around a project. And
for us, when we had no. I hadthis group of really talented
(16:24):
students that included LaneKnoche, who's now an outreach
associate, and I know it's gonnabe on one of your future
podcasts. I led that group. Weredesigned. We re reimagined the
Red Oak Rain Garden only becausewe had that support, the people
of the extension volunteers inpartnership with facilities and
some student groups. And withservice learning and continued
(16:44):
continual education, well,that's just been a really good
formula for us to be able to tohave that there. I am really
curious, Amy, I know, like, atat Nauvoo, you were part of that
rainscaping Yeah. Program, andthey had a dedicated group of
folks there Yes. That were wereable to have that rain garden be
put in.
Amy Lefringhouse (17:05):
Yep. They it's volunteer led. The rain garden
in Nauvoo, Illinois is volunteerled. And they've actually put
in, I think, two two or moreadditional rain gardens after
that initial installation. Sothey really took the concept of
rain garden and, you know, ranwith it. And they also have
(17:26):
access to a greenhouse, so theyraised some of the plants, you
know, that they put in theirrain garden sites, so it's
really taken off, and they'vepresented about them at some of
our local gardening and masternaturalist programs, so it's
been good.
Eliana Brown (17:44):
Oh, that's great. And that, you know, that's
that's one of those ways that asmall group of individuals can
really have influence on otherfolks in order to have have
stormwater be more front ofmind. Mhmm. People are thinking
about it and and can make adifference in our own
communities.
Erin Garrett (18:03):
Mhmm. When we're thinking about the difference
between, like, urban and ruralsettings, you know, a lot of the
times there's a difference inresources that are available,
and just looking at, you know,it all sounds great. Green
infrastructure sounds amazing,but what is, like, a cost
differential between some ofthese practices versus, like,
(18:25):
the traditional way of doingthings? Like, I think permeable
pavement, right, as an examplein a parking lot. Do you have a
ballpark idea, or like, number,which I know is hard, of like a
difference between traditionalpavement versus permeable
pavement, and then, like, arethere incentives for communities
and, like, grants available andhelp in order to, like,
(18:46):
implement some of thesepractices?
Eliana Brown (18:49):
That's a really great question. A really great
question. And, you know, withsomething like a parking lot,
you know, there's a number ofways that you can do it. There's
there's the, like, the the fullblown consideration of it. It's
not only just what you'reputting in, but it's the
maintenance and and and do youfor permeable pavement, do you
(19:11):
actually tell us if you're in asmall town, do you have a
tractor truck that's gonna beable to to come in and debris
out of the the the the parkinglot, whereas and but for
conventional parking lots, youalso have maintenance costs of,
say, all the sealant that has togo on. So there's the and I'm
(19:33):
not an economist. Need to talkwith Margaret Schneemann of Sea
Grant to to get the the numberswith a better specificity, but
that sort of, like, wholelifestyle cost analysis is
something that aged communitywould have to do. A lot of
parking lots will have some kindof vegetation, and our a lot of
(19:55):
the parking lots that we havewill have beds that maybe have a
tree or a tree or whatever, butthey don't receive the storm
water. And and so if you'reputting something in and you're
gonna have that anyway, it couldbe something that the engineer
designer would make it be theother way, have some of the
(20:17):
stormwater go into those bedsinstead. And and there really
wouldn't be too much of a of acough differential on that.
Yeah. There was a second part ofyour question, but I'm not sure
that I answered that part.
Erin Garrett (20:30):
Just if you know of, like, grants or incentives
for maybe smaller communitiesthat don't necessarily have the
capacity to to implement some ofthese practices.
Eliana Brown (20:40):
Yeah. Yeah. So the Illinois EPA does have a really
nice grant program called theGreen Infrastructure Grant
Opportunities. Okay. They alsooffer low interest loans for
Stormwater. That's an expansionoff of their already low
interest loans that they do forother kinds of water features or
(21:03):
water treatment plants. Withinwell, this is a nationwide
thing, but within Illinois,there's also something that any
size community can do if theywant to do it, they wish to do
it, and that's called astormwater utility fee. That is
where you have thinking ofstormwater as a utility, one way
(21:25):
to pay for some of the thingsthat you might be doing in a
community is having a a smallfee that everybody pays into
you, and that's earmarked forsome of these projects.
Currently, there are only three,four of them in Illinois, and
there are other states that havea lot more of them. Like,
(21:46):
Florida has more than 200, forexample. So they have differing
popularity throughout the nationin different states. Just, you
know, like, it it catches onsomewhere, and it is catching on
here. We are starting to havemore and more of them in no one
way to help with some of thatfunding.
Erin Garrett (22:05):
Okay. Interesting. So there are different options
out there that communities couldlook into if that's something
that they wanted to make apriority was green
infrastructure to kind of helpfund and supplement that. That's
awesome. Yeah.
Alright. So we've been talkingabout a lot of the ways that we
can handle storm water indifferent ways, not necessarily
just trying to get rid of it,keeping it in place. So what
(22:28):
kind of what's the impact? Youkind of mentioned a lot of them
just as we've gone, but ingeneral, if we look at broad
environmental impacts of poorstormwater management, what are
we kind of looking at, and then,you know, how can we kind of
mitigate those impacts?
Eliana Brown (22:43):
Yeah. Okay. So Illinois EPA has looked into
this, and they estimate thatfrom only urban stormwater
alone, that in the state ofIllinois, there's more than a
thousand miles and 40,000 acresof lakes that are impacted,
(23:04):
impaired because of urban stormwater. And a lot of those are
near population centers inIllinois, and and that kind of
makes sense. Right? Because Iwas talking about those hard
surfaces. Our population centercenters tend to have more of
those hard surf We always haveto remember that storm water
goes untreated into stormdrains. Now I know we're
(23:27):
recording this at the December,and I think folks will be
listening to it in early spring.So it'll be within recent memory
for them when we had snow. Andyou know how snow, like, really
good visual of this is snow. Inthe first couple of days of
snow, it's, like, pristine. Andthen then on the roads, it
starts to look grungy and and,you know, not so pristine
(23:53):
anymore. Well, that's yourvisual for what that's your
visual for stormwater pollution.That's all the stuff that's on
the road, and the snow meltsgoes into those lakes and rivers
untreated. Oh, it's a it's areally good way to think about
it.
Anything that happens on theland or happens on the road is
going to end up in in our waterbodies. So that's where we
(24:17):
really wanna kinda be thinkingabout what we are doing on the
land for ourselves in terms of,like, housekeeping. So if you,
for example, are puttingfertilizer on your lawn, you
wanna have a nice lawn. Fairenough. You don't do it right
before a rainstorm.
Like, you're not first of all,you're kind of wasting your
money because it's gonna washoff, and it's not even gonna
(24:37):
help your lawn, and then it endsup and and causes can can
contribute to algal blooms. Wehave a lot of nitrogen and
phosphorus that ends up in ourwater bodies. Harmful algal
blooms, and then harmful algalblooms can happen, and that
really makes an impact anegative impact, say, our
(24:58):
recreational areas Mhmm. Apartfrom then when it goes down to
the Mississippi River and we endup with the issues that they
have there with the the deadzone. We don't wanna be
contributing to that.
Also, we're doing something onour lawn. We wanna and we're
spending the time and money todo it. We wanna make sure that
it's having the impact therethat we want it to have. You can
(25:19):
check out Sea Grant's Lawn toLake program. That's a really
great way to get some resourcesand some good information on on
what to do.
I'm always a proponent, and Erinand Amy, I know Erin, you
especially, I think you're gonnaagree with me on this. I'm
always a proponent to maybe nothave as much lawn and start
(25:42):
bringing in some native plants,perhaps some of those beautiful
native grasses that you talkabout, Erin. We that's that I I
know one of my one of my mastergardener friends will every year
just kind of chip away at thelawn, so she'll she'll move the
border of her native plant beds.It took her husband like five
(26:06):
years to figure out what she wasdoing.
Amy Lefringhouse (26:09):
That's awesome. I'm going to adopt that
strategy.
Erin Garrett (26:12):
Like it.
Amy Lefringhouse (26:13):
Well, seems manageable, right? You're like,
oh, I'm just going to expand itjust a tiny bit?
Erin Garrett (26:17):
A little bit, yeah. Just a little bit, and a
Eliana Brown (26:19):
few more beautiful native plants and and and
pollinators. Smart thing theydo. So those are good. Those are
just little things that that canmake a big difference. You know,
I'm always gonna gonna say greatthings about green stormwater
infrastructure.
Right? Really, especially forthings like sediment, it can
(26:39):
reduce that by as much as 90%.There we have, like, a ton of
studies that show the the greatpollution reductions that we see
as the heavy metals, forexample. Like, if you have in in
the Northwest, they have they'realways trying to they always
need to protect, say, theirtheir salmon and some of their
(27:01):
some of the heavy metals fromtheir roof. There are
industries, whole industriesthat have made these really cool
little stormwater planters, butthey're not small.
They're they're big by, like, aby by they make them out of big
toads. But kind of like a a soit's kind of like a movable rain
garden and that that they putunder some of their roofs to
(27:24):
reduce the amount of heavymetals so that they can protect
the the salmon. That'sfascinating.
Amy Lefringhouse (27:31):
That is cool. How creative we can be. So
regulations and policies in ourcommunities, like we're
thinking, okay, we wanna do somegreen stormwater management
infrastructure. Sorry. I gotthat wrong, I think, On our on
our property, on our yard, oreven advocate that in our
community, what aboutregulations, policies?
(27:53):
How do they play in our decisionmaking?
Eliana Brown (27:56):
They play a really big part. Basically, how we
handle storm water. Okay. Theyset guidelines for managing
runoff to make sure that we keepour water clean, prevent
flooding, and just to keepeverybody on an even playing
field. And the the regulationsare here for a reason.
I already told you the story ofstormwater, and I tell you the
very brief story of stormwaterregulations. So, you know, in
(28:19):
the way back when after theCuyahoga River, you know, burned
at least 13 times, the CleanWater Act was enacted 1972, and
those were really looking atthose end of pipe. So, like,
wastewater treatment plants, thepoint source pollution. And a
lot of our our our lakes andrivers water quality improved a
(28:39):
lot, but not as much as as aswas expected and hoped for. And
so in in the eighties, therewere a number of studies that a
lot of studies nationwide thatwas looking into what's what's
going on?
What's the cause of this? Andand the stormwater runoff. And
so more regulations came intopass. There was the clean water
(28:59):
amendment in 1987, and thatstarted the first stormwater
regulations came down in 1990.That was phase one, and those
were large large municipalcommunities.
Then in 2003, so we only had oneof those in Illinois, and it
wasn't Chicago. It's Chicago isactually under a different kind
of system. It was Rockford. Butthen in 2003, small stormwater
(29:24):
communities, the acronym is MS4, those regulations came down.
There were more than 300.
We have a lot of them inIllinois. And that's actually
the the program that I wasmanaging for the university.
University is considered a smallmunicipality because we own our
storm system. But there are thething with those regulations
(29:45):
that were really that I thinkare really interesting for the
the the treatment plants, theyhad to come up and meet these
numerical standards and do abunch of testing. With the
municipalities, they had come upwith a plan that had six main
parts of a plan, and for a lotof municipalities, they were
always very rightly concernedwith flooding, and and and that
(30:07):
was the thing with stormwaterthat that they were really
looking at.
And this plan broadened that outso that to a number of things,
also including public outreachand education. So people in the
community would know what wasgoing on with stormwater and and
encourage these people to maketheir own individual choices
(30:29):
that could also help themselvesand their own property and the
community. Mhmm.
Amy Lefringhouse (30:34):
I think regulations and policies are one
of those things that I, like,gloss over when I was in school.
But then as I grow up and just,like, learn more, I just I don't
know. I just find it veryinteresting to look back at
history and just see how itshaped everything. And I guess I
don't gloss over it as much, youknow, as as an adult now, you
(30:56):
know, listening to you and howit's kind of evolved in
stormwater management. I'velistened to some lectures about
just land ownership and thehistory of the policies of land
ownership over time, and it'sjust I don't know. It is kind of
fascinating, I will say.
Eliana Brown (31:11):
It's fascinating. It it I I agree with you. And,
you know, I mean, oh, boy,regulation is not something that
a lot of people like, and that'sfair. And the other hand,
they've had these regulationsare based in science and based
in in trying to make sure thatthere isn't one group of folks
(31:34):
that's maybe profiting at theexpense of an entire community.
So they they do have a place.
Amy Lefringhouse (31:41):
Mhmm.
Erin Garrett (31:42):
Yeah. And I think it's important when you can
break it down and understand whythe regulation is there. Right?
It's really easy to just belike, ugh. Right.
Why does it make everything moredifficult or more expensive
where we have to meet all theseguidelines? But kind of
understanding, of course, youknow, the background. It's
there. Right. A lot of the timesthey're there for a reason, and
so just being more cognizant ofthat can just help you
(32:03):
understand your community alittle bit better, and your
environment and kind of thefuller picture of what's going
on there. Right? For sure.
Eliana Brown (32:12):
Yeah. Well said. Well said.
Amy Lefringhouse (32:14):
Eliana, quick question. When you say flooding,
are you so I'm from West CentralIllinois.
I'm from a river town.
Right? A river town. So when Ithink of flooding, I'm like, oh
my gosh. Levees, sandbagging,big time flooding. When you talk
about flooding in the stormwatersense, are you're talking about,
(32:35):
like, street flooding, yardflooding, you know, like, what
does that mean exactly?
I know that seems like a kind ofa funny question.
Eliana Brown (32:43):
But No. It's a it's a great question. It's a
great question, and and it'skind of all the above. And
Great. Where I'm at, we're,like, you know, Boneyard Creek
is like, it's a small creek.
It's it's not the MississippiRiver. So
Amy Lefringhouse (32:56):
Right. Okay.
Eliana Brown (32:57):
But but there's a lot of in in Eastern Illinois, a
lot of Illinois, we have we werewe we built cities and small
towns in what used to bewetlands, and so that's why we
put in those pipes. Sure. Andwe're at a place now because of
those cities expanding that Iwould say water always wins in
(33:20):
end, and so those those camethose came back. So, yeah, so
basement flooding, yard floodingI mean Street flooding, but also
what you're talking about withriver flooding, with those kinds
of of things that you need tohave in place with the sandbags
with with when the when theriver gets high.
Erin Garrett (33:38):
That's really interesting because I grew up
next to the Fox River too in ourcommunity, and so we would
always and we would cross it toget to school every day on the
bridge, and so you could alwaystell, like, how high the water
was. Right? There was, a level,and then, like, right in that
community, they built a fewparks in that area, so, like,
(33:59):
sometimes the parks would flood.I had a friend that lived, like,
right next to the river, andsometimes, you know, it like,
the water would get to theirhouse, and so being more mindful
that we didn't live directly onthe river. But just, like, that
whole concept too, like you weretalking, Amy, like living in
that town.
Like, flooding means differentthings to different people.
Right? And can have very seriousimplications. Right? Whereas for
(34:21):
me right now, it's just like apond in my yard.
Right? When I was like, that'skind of the impact. So just kind
of keeping that in mind that,like, we all have different
perceptions and and realities. Iguess realities is the better
word of what flooding means inour communities.
Eliana Brown (34:37):
I I can remember oh, come on. I was a grad
student years ago. That was whenthe the Mississippi had really
big flooding, and peoplecouldn't get from you all
couldn't get from Iowa andIllinois, and, like, it was it
that was huge implications onpeople's lives.
Amy Lefringhouse (34:57):
Oh, and it's still you know, that was maybe
the ninety three flood? I don'tknow. That was That's
Eliana Brown (35:01):
the one I'm thinking about. Yep.
Amy Lefringhouse (35:03):
Yeah. That was the biggest impact. I was 13 at
the time, and it was just veryimpactful for me, and and we
still talk about it. We still,you know, have stories about it
here. It's our it's ourcommunity history.
Erin Garrett (35:14):
So There's a flood marker down the street from me
that shows where the floodwatersgot. Mean, like, well, that
gives me hope. It wasn't quiteto my house yet, and so if that
happens yet, But lots of thingshave changed in our environment
since then, and we've builtthings up a lot, so, like, that
doesn't really mean anything.Right? Or
Eliana Brown (35:34):
It's interesting, though, like, like, it all kinda
comes down yeah. Those are thelike, physically, those are very
different kinds of floods. Andbut when you are talking about,
say, like, your basement takingon water, there is, I think, a a
common emotional aspect of thestress that is around the
flooding and how much it's goingto cost you, what you're losing,
(35:57):
what those implications aregoing to be, and the anguish
that can come from water. Wateris is such a force that it's
such a I'm obviously fascinatedby water, that it it is such a
life giving thing that isnecessary. Water weighs, like, a
(36:19):
little bit more than eight.
It's 8.3 pounds per gallon. Andso when you're talking gallons
and gallons of water, itactually becomes a a force that
can do significant damage. So itit is really this this
incredible thing that enhancesour life and that we have to
have a lot of respect for andwork with and have a good
(36:41):
understanding of it that we canbefriend it and be able to have
our property and really ourmental health enhanced by it
rather than impacted negatively.
Erin Garrett (36:56):
Yeah. You just took me back to when we moved
into our new house last year,and there was over the course of
forty eight hours, I think wegot 13 inches of rain. Oh. And
that was fun when we were downin the basement because, you
know, the tornado sirens weregoing off, so we were taking
cover in the middle of thenight, and there's just water
(37:18):
pouring into the basement fromlike where the there used to be
an old window, and then theyconverted that to where our air
conditioner comes in, and wewere like, oh my gosh, what did
we do? We bought this house, andthat was like, that rain event,
right, that doesn't that doesn'thappen all the time, but when it
happens, what are theimplications of it?
And like, we haven't seen thathappen since, right, because we
(37:39):
haven't had a rain event likethat, but we're like, okay, that
needs to be like sealed and likefixed right there. But it was
just like that panic, right, aslike new homewaters were like,
what do we do?
Eliana Brown (37:50):
Oh, no. Like That panic and that the feeling of
hopeless or helplessness,helplessness.
Erin Garrett (37:55):
Yeah.
So we've chatted a lot aboutdifferent examples of stormwater
management projects. I know forme, it's always really exciting
when I go somewhere, and I seelike stormwater practices
happening, so that's what I waslooking up when you were
chatting earlier because I justwent to a place and I couldn't
remember the name of it, Iwanted to get it right. But I
went to the Audubon Center atRiverlands Oh, yeah. In the
(38:17):
Mississippi Flyway . Yeah.
Amy Lefringhouse (38:19):
Yes. Represent.
Erin Garrett (38:21):
And loved getting there and just seeing, like,
permeable pavement and just theway that they've structured
their building to capturerainwater and they had some rain
gardens and it was just reallyexciting to kind of see that
example in real life. Right?It's always fun for me to see.
So I know you have lots ofexamples. Can you share one or
(38:41):
two projects?
Eliana Brown (38:42):
The one I wanna highlight is is the Uptown
Normal Circle, and this projectthis project is amazing. It is
they took this largeintersection, and it was part of
their whole revitalization of oftheir their uptown area. They
made a roundabout, so long goneas traffic thing, and and it has
(39:04):
this water feature, It hasconcrete base, and it utilizes
storm water captured from twostreets. They filter it through
some rain gardens, and just looklike garden beds. And instead of
using potable water, they havethey they use the storm water
for this kind of, like, shallow.
(39:25):
It's almost like a little like alittle like a like a a kind of
like a a concrete creek bedthat's really, really beautiful.
It's the circle, so it's calledthe circle. It's really popular
in the win excuse me, in thesummer months when people need
to cool off. People can actuallyget in that water, and that's
what is lovely about it. Like Isaid, it's it's clean storm
(39:46):
water.
Kids will play in it. People sitin the grass next to it. It's
right on the ISU campus, socollege students will will use
it for recreation. I guess theyhave it's like, you know,
stormwater management plus. Theyhave bands that play basically
utilizing it as a park, which isreally great.
And most people don't even knowthat it's storm water
(40:08):
management. But I wanna if ifsomeone's traveling around and
they're like, you know, in anyof these areas, I wanna give
people a clue to know whethersomething is stormwater
management or not. And, like, ifyou have so if you have curbs
here around a a native plant bedand those curbs have cuts in
them, probably stormwatermanagement. So some that's one
(40:29):
of the ways that the stormwateris getting in. The other like,
some of the numbers I wanna putaround this particular example
is that it's taking it's taking1,400,000 gallons of stormwater,
and they're using that becausethey're using that, they're not
using potable water, and so itsaves the city $7,600 annually,
(40:55):
which is which is really great.
But even more than that, as partof that revitalization of that
area, it's generating nearly$700,000 of revenue through
conferences that are held innormal. So it's like it has
these practices cost things,right? But as we talked about,
(41:21):
GIGO and some of the other grantprograms can be really helpful,
and they can be nice things forhelping to revitalize and
generate some revenue forcommunities. That's one of my
favorite ones. Mhmm.
I just yeah. I I think it's agreat project.
Amy Lefringhouse (41:36):
Well, and I think it's really cool because
it's in the middle to wherepeople are, like you said,
interacting with it a lottraffic wise, then also
pedestrian, and people can seegood example and be inspired and
hopefully start to come youknow, continue starting to
continue the conversation aboutwhat's happening there. Right?
Like, what's its function?
Eliana Brown (41:55):
Yeah. Some projects like this one, folks, I
know don't I don't know thateverybody knows that it's
stormwater management, but thosethat do really are like, wow.
This is really super cool. Therehave been some projects where
stormwater management has beenreally studied, and a lot of
people know about it, and that'sone of my second examples.
There's a I wanted to bring onefrom different parts of parts of
(42:18):
Illinois and different kinds ofgreen stormwater infrastructure.
There's a and then I call, like,the classic the classic
experiment, and that was city ofChicago city hall. So they had a
green route, and this was, like,twenty years ago. Mayor Daley at
the time wanted to make ChicagoOne of the green roof exam or,
(42:39):
like, places best places in theworld. So they on the building,
he wanted to have the wholebuilding's roof be turned into a
green roof, But the city onlyhad half the building, and the
county had the other half thebuilding. And the county said,
we don't think so.
So you got the like, for, like,you know, academic nerds here
are like, oh my gosh. That'sit's a classic experiment. And
(43:02):
they have been able a lot ofresearch, a lot of studies have
been done showing thedifferences between the two
sides, and that's kind ofexciting. So I mentioned a
little bit before that greenroofs also have that energy
savings benefit. So thegreen roof side, the research
has shown that it savesapproximately $5,000 per year in
(43:25):
utility bills.
Mhmm. And that's because onaverage, that side of the
building is 10 to 20 degreescooler than the side that
doesn't have the green roof,which is really important for
our our big cities with urbanheat islands. Yeah. My last
example, my third example, isfrom from my hometown in
(43:47):
Southern Illinois, and and Ifound this one when I was
visiting. I was visiting my momfor the holidays, and I just
kind of like, you know, youknow, you gotta, like, when
you're at your hometown, yougotta, like, drive around and
see the new things in thehometown.
Right? So I was driving past thethe town's hospital, and I I
(44:08):
looked, and I just look. I kindalooked, and I looked again.
Lucky okay. It's a small town.
Like and it was a real it was aside street, so I could actually
stop in the middle of the roadand, like, back up. Only
something you can do in a in asmall town. We're due now. And I
was like, it's a bioswale . Itturns out, again, small town.
My brother went to high schoolwith the with the administrator
(44:33):
of the hospital, so I'm, like,asking him questions. I'm like,
why why? What happened? How didthis happen? And so they they
expanded the parking lot, thehospital and the hospital
parking lot, and when thathappened, they started flooding
the guy's house down the street.And so I'm like, know, okay.
We're gonna do the right thing.So they put in this bioswale
that takes up all the stormwater coming storm water runoff
(44:56):
coming from from the hospitalparking lot. And and I kinda
love that one because that onewas not driven by regulation. It
was driven by, like, hey. We'rejust gonna, like, Yeah.
Really? The heck that'shappening here. I'm gonna do the
right thing. Mhmm. And and theyand they did it, and now and now
they have this great example ofgreen stormwater infrastructure.
Erin Garrett (45:16):
That's awesome. I love all of those examples.
That's fantastic. And I like howyou picked places across
Illinois, which is my favorite,to kinda take the different
things that can happen.
Eliana Brown (45:26):
Well, it it's it's for everywhere, and there's
there's certain things thatsmall towns can be more nimble
and be able to do that largetown, large cities can't do.
There's Really? Like, this isthis is something for every
every part of Illinois if thatcommunity wants to do it. Mhmm.
Erin Garrett (45:44):
Alright. Well, thank you so much, Eliana, for
sharing all of your wonderfulknowledge about green
infrastructure and stormwatermanagement. We're going to shift
into our everyday observation,so this is the part of the show
where we highlight kind of themundane and normal of our
environment that is actuallyreally interesting, at least to
us, we hope it's interesting toeveryone that's listening too,
(46:06):
and inspires you to think aboutwhat you see in your everyday,
environment. But Amy, I'm gonnapick on you first.
Amy Lefringhouse (46:13):
Sure. I would love to share. So I drive out my
driveway down this littlestreet. I'm kind of in a older
neighborhood of Quincy is whereI live, and there's two giant
bur oak trees down this street,this little kind of like, it's
almost like an alley. And theyhave been around for a long
(46:36):
time.
I mean, these were not plantedby us. Right? They were there,
and they're probably at they'reat least 48 inches diameter. I
looked up the Big Tree Registry,which is an Illinois Extension
program, just just a plug foreverybody there. Burr Oak, big
tree record is like 89 inches,so not even close to that, but
(46:57):
these are big these are prettybig trees.
Anyway, one day I'm driving justthe other day to work, look up,
it has a huge lightning scarthat, like, it must have been
hit because it's one of thetaller trees obviously in the
neighborhood, and comes all theway down and kind of like
diagonally crisscrosses the treedown to the ground, and part of
(47:21):
me is sad, a little bit sad, butalso like, what a, I don't know,
awesome, I almost said a swearword, but what an awesome tree
to be able to, you know, takethat and just be like, Here I
am. I'm still going. I'm still,I'm still living and doing all
the work that I'm doing here asa tree in the middle of the
(47:42):
city. So I can't say that it's apositive everyday observation,
but it was really like, wow, aneat thing to see.
Erin Garrett (47:50):
A battle scar.
Amy Lefringhouse (47:51):
Yeah. A battle scar.
Erin Garrett (47:52):
Absolutely. That's great. Thanks, Amy. Mhmm.
Alright, Eliana.
What's your everydayobservation?
Eliana Brown (47:59):
Alright. So I couldn't I couldn't pick this
one. I have two. I know this isgonna air in the spring, and so
with storm water, we talk aboutleaves quite a bit. And I I
always encourage people to makesure that they that they don't
have leaves that are going intothe storm or on the street
(48:20):
because that can contribute tostorm water pollution.
But that's what I do in my frontyard. Like, put those into my
compost pile, but my backyardgets to stay with leaves. And so
what I get to enjoy and what Ilook forward to in spring and
summer, summer especially, is alot a lightning bug show,
(48:41):
fireflies everywhere. It istruly spectacular and just such
a joy to get to see that. Myfirst one, stormwater related.
The second one is my my myspringtime joy. My absolute
favorite place in the world isAllerton in the world is
(49:02):
Allerton Park in the springtimewith their bluebells. It is
something spectacular. So thatis Allerton Park in Monticello.
They have a very wooded area,and I'm sure all across Illinois
you can go to whatever is youryour favorite nature preserve.
If they have bluebells andwildflowers, it's something
(49:24):
really to never to miss, alwaysto behold. And as we think about
looking at, say you know I'mgonna talk about green storm
water infrastructure one moretime. As we walk out a hike,
it's a really important thing togo out in nature and see the the
kind of landscapes that you findbeautiful because those are the
(49:45):
kinds of things that can reallyinspire, say, like, what kind of
native plants that you wannaincorporate into your own yard
or what kind of native plantsyou wanna have in in your rain
garden. The allerton parkbluebells inspired the bluebells
that are at the Red Oak RainGarden, and they're just my
ultimate joy.
Erin Garrett (50:03):
I love that. I just planted some bluebells in
my garden this fall so that Ihave the did that at my last
house too, and those are somethat I didn't transplant with me
because listeners may not knowthat I brought a lot of plants
with me to my new house, but Icouldn't bring everything, so I
had to get some more bluebellsto put in. So I'm hoping that
(50:24):
they do well, and they come upand bloom this year.
Eliana Brown (50:26):
But How do you know it's really spring? Like,
and the bluebells start comingup, it's like, oh, we made it.
We made it. Mhmm.
Erin Garrett (50:33):
Definitely. Alright. Well, I'll wrap us up
today, and, you know, we'rerecording in December. So for
us, December is what my husbandcalls the mud season. That's
winter for us.
In Southern Illinois, we get alot of rain, not that much snow,
and so we just had a really bigrain event. Yesterday, we got
(50:54):
about 1.7 inches of rain here atmy office, and it's interesting
driving to work because I knowthe spots where there's going to
be flooding, and so drivinghere, you know, there's a really
low spot where it goes under arailway overpass, and it was
(51:17):
definitely flooded yesterday,and then just watching all of
the ditches and how high all thewater was, and then just
flooding in yards too. So justkind of got that tangible view
of where all of that rain has togo. Right? It has to go
somewhere, and you know, sixhours later when I left, it was
basically all the water and theroad was gone.
(51:39):
So then I was thinking like,where did it all go? It's just
interesting to kind of thinkabout, you know, we have this
this temporary problem. Right?This temporary flooding, and
then it's resolved, but I don'tfully understand where it's all
going. So just kind of made thewheels turn in my brain to kind
of think about it more, but itis a lot more tangible for me
now in kind of the ruralsettings, I'm like, I know what
(52:00):
roads are going to be floodedand what I need to avoid on
those certain days, so I justthought it was kind of relevant
to our discussion today.
Yeah. Yeah. So
Eliana Brown (52:08):
Absolutely. And there's a in rural areas with
the ditches where you can reallysee it, there's some I think
that there's it it helps you toreally visualize what's happens
much more than in more urbanareas when you think it's
underground.
Amy Lefringhouse (52:24):
That makes sense.
Eliana Brown (52:24):
so yes, I appreciate series of ditches.
Erin Garrett (52:27):
And just how much water. Right? How water comes in
in, like, a torrential downpour,which is what we had yesterday.
It was a fun day. Alright.
Thank you so much, Eliana,again, sharing your knowledge
with us and all of ourlisteners. I really appreciate
you taking the time to come onthe pod. It's been a joy.
Eliana Brown (52:44):
Oh, well, thank you so much for the opportunity.
It's been such a pleasurespeaking with you both. This is
a great series.
Erin Garrett (52:50):
Thank you. Well, this has been another episode on
the Everyday Environmentpodcast. Check us out next week
where we talk with KatieO'Reilly about aquatic invasive
species.
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