Protecting Rivers & Your Clean Water
American Rivers Releases Guide To Integrate Green Infrastructure Into Stormwater Permits
Jeffrey Odefey, Director, Stormwater Program
January 17, 2013 | Climate Change, Stormwater & Sewage, Urban Rivers, Water Supply
Most of us don’t think about “urban stormwater” or “polluted runoff” until we notice flooding from a recent storm covering our roads and parking lots, as shown here.
But polluted stormwater runoff from our rooftops, roads and shopping centers pollutes our streams and rivers across the country and is the leading pollution source in places like the Puget Sound.
Preserving Urban Rivers in Detroit and Across the Great Lakes
Devin Dotson, Associate Director of Communications
January 16, 2013 | Urban Rivers, Water Supply, Stormwater & Sewage
In the early 1900s, Detroit became one of the largest cities in the United States, and the Detroit River played a major role. The river is 28 miles long and serves as the international border between Canada and the United States, connecting Lake St. Clair and the Upper Great Lakes to Lake Erie, and is one of the busiest waterways in the world. Heavy traffic and the urbanization on its shores led the Detroit River to become very polluted.
Read more »My Contribution To Stormwater Issues
Katie Rousseau, Associate Director of Clean Water Program
January 14, 2013 | Stormwater & Sewage, Urban Rivers
This morning I woke up to the sound of a rather heavy, but steady rain outside my window. This sound made me feel calm and peaceful. This lasted for only a minute before I thought about taking a shower and how the water I will use will contribute to an ongoing problem here in my community. The problem, which many older industrial cities in the Great Lakes are dealing with on a daily basis, is combined sewer overflows.
Read more »What is the National Blueways Initiative?
Jamie Mierau, Director, River Protection
January 9, 2013 | Blue Trails, Urban Rivers, Wild and Scenic Rivers
In May of 2012, Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar announced the new National Blueways System, a key element of America’s Great Outdoors, and designated the Connecticut River Watershed – covering areas of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut – as the nation’s first blueway.
Read more »Greener Landscapes For A Healthier Chesapeake Bay in 2013
Liz G. Deardorff, Director, Clean Water Program Pennsylvania
January 4, 2013 | Water Pollution, Urban Rivers, Stormwater & Sewage
Green infrastructure investments are one of the few spotlights in the State of the Bay report released by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) for the New Year. Promotion and support of green infrastructure solutions for managing stormwater is also identified in the Action Plan for federal resource agencies with jurisdiction in the Bay.
Read more »Much Ado About Flooding - Using Green Infrastructure to Reduce A Growing Problem
Jeffrey Odefey, Director, Stormwater Program
January 3, 2013 | Floods & Floodplains, Urban Rivers, Stormwater & Sewage
To a considerable extent, the repeated crisis of local flooding is a result of the way we’ve historically built our storm sewer systems to move rainfall away from our communities in gutters, tunnels, and ditches. However, as more land is built and paved over with rooftops and parking lots, more rainfall flows into the storm sewer system in ever greater volumes.
Read more »Urban Waters: New Study Highlights the Impacts of Urban Development on Streams
Amy Trice, Lapham Conservation Fellow
December 19, 2012 | Urban Rivers, Stormwater & Sewage
As a child, I had the opportunity to grow up in an idyllic setting in a small southern town on the Flint River. Back then, fishing and swimming with my Grandfather in the Flint, or its nearby tributaries, consumed the summers, along with homemade desserts and ice cream. I had no idea that people lived in places where streams weren’t fishable and swimmable, let alone buried and put into pipes. Oh, to be young and naïve.
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