FLOW briefing paper

Storm Water Management

Background

Water is the foundation of all life. In Ohio, we are fortunate to have readily available sources of fresh water from our plentiful rivers. These rivers provide us with clean sources of fresh drinking water, beautiful sites for outdoor recreation such as canoeing and fishing, and natural habitats for over 1,400 species of aquatic wildlife.

Yet non-point source pollution, which enters our waterways at numerous places and is difficult to manage, is currently endangering our waterways. When they are polluted, the waterways lose their innumerable natural benefits, resulting in increased costs of drinking water, unusable recreation sites, and damaged watershed ecosystems. Today, storm water runoff is the most dangerous form of non-point source pollution for our waterways. During rainfall, storm water carries nutrients, pesticides, soil, and pollutants over impervious surfaces into our waterways and impairs their delicate natural balance. This problem is further complicated by overdevelopment that enlarges impervious surface area.

Still, there is good news due to increased awareness of waterway impairment and increased interest in protecting them. These efforts are primarily through a regional watershed approach. A watershed, defined by the highest points of elevation, is an area of land that drains all of it’s water into a particular body of water; all land is part of a watershed. The watershed approach is beneficial because it focuses on all land that contributes to particular watershed damage, thereby targeting development, utilities facilities, and homeowner practices in order to improve the quality of local waterways.

Recommendations

Ohio needs to support the Ohio DNR’s Watershed Coordinator program and to work with watershed coordinators to implement specific local recommendations in order to:

• Support the acquisition of conservation easements in stream corridors, to protect stream buffers, and to allow more groundwater recharge
• Promote Low-Impact Development that leaves more green space than conventional development. This allows storm water to infiltrate into the ground, therefore cleaning and regulating the flow of water into our waterways
• Provide support and incentives for implementation of best management practices
• Provide support and incentives for homeowner practices such as downspout disconnect, rain barrels, and rain gardens.

A committed regional watershed approach can benefit not only our environment, but also everyone living in our watersheds. It will provide us with higher quality water for public drinking water, irrigation water for agriculture, cooling water to produce electricity, recreation sites for canoeing and fishing, and clean water for natural wildlife habitats.

Without a strong regional effort to improve the quality of our local waterways, we will forfeit the abundant natural benefits of our waterways, benefits that are so fundamental for all life.


Contact

Heather Dean
FLOW
3528 N. High Street, Ste. F
Columbus, OH 43214
hdean@olentangywatershed.org
www.olentangywatershed.org, 613-267-3386