The Pine Barrens Podcast
The Pine Barrens Podcast
Green Stormwater Infrastructure: Making Every Drop Count
yWhat happens when rain has nowhere to go? As climate patterns shift and development spreads across the landscape, our relationship with rainwater has become increasingly complex and problematic. Matthew Laconey, bio-environmental engineer with Rutgers University's Water Resources Program, takes us deep into the world of green stormwater infrastructure and why it matters to every community.
When rainwater hits impervious surfaces like parking lots and rooftops instead of natural areas, it creates a cascade of environmental problems. This runoff carries pollutants directly into streams, causes flooding by overwhelming waterways, and fails to replenish groundwater supplies that feed our aquifers. Green infrastructure works by creating natural buffers that capture, slow, and filter this water before it reaches waterways.
Throughout New Jersey, municipalities must navigate complex stormwater regulations through MS4 permits that establish baseline standards for water management. Laconey explains how climate change has forced regulators to update rainfall design standards, requiring newer developments to handle larger storms than historically necessary. The Rutgers team has implemented hundreds of green infrastructure projects statewide, from municipal installations to simple rain gardens at schools and homes.
For listeners wondering how to make a difference, Laconey offers practical guidance for installing residential rain gardens, emphasizing that "every drop counts" in our collective effort to manage stormwater sustainably. He points out that developments built before 1984 typically lack proper stormwater controls, highlighting the need to address existing infrastructure, not just new construction. By thinking differently about our relationship with rainfall, we can transform environmental challenges into opportunities for cleaner water, reduced flooding, and more resilient communities.
Ready to make a difference in your yard or community? Explore the rain garden manuals and resources available through the Rutgers Water Resources Program website, and join the movement to make water management more sustainable, one drop at a time.
Hi everybody, my name is Jason Howell. On this episode of the Pine Barrens podcast, we're going to be speaking with Matthew Lacone, who is a bio-environmental engineer with Rutgers University, and we're going to be discussing green stormwater infrastructure, which is a fancy way of saying ways to make water go into the ground and not run off into streams. So this will be a very detailed discussion and some of the nuance here I think Matthew does a good job of explaining and in this time where we're seeing increasing rainfall amounts per storm, where we're seeing flooding throughout many parts of the state of New Jersey and major incidents across the country, I think these discussions can be ever the more important to both understand why this is happening and what we can do about it. All right, so, matthew, thank you so much for joining on the Pine Barrens podcast and I have a few questions for you. But first could you just introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what you do and how you got involved?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm Matthew Lacone, so I'm an environmental engineer with the Water Resources Program here at Rutgers. So basically we are a branch of the university, part of the land grant system where basically they established this cooperative extension program. It's basically the way to take the research that's done in the university and extend it to municipalities throughout the state. So our program specifically focuses on. It's called the Water Resources Program. So we focus on um stormwater, mostly stormwater issues throughout the state. Um, you know, things like water quality, uh flooding issues and things like that, and we do a lot of work related to uh green infrastructure, so green structures, uh stuff designed to kind of capture stormwater in a more environmentally friendly way.
Speaker 1:So green infrastructure, so that's a term that gets thrown about. Could you explain what that is for people that may not really understand that phrase?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so the term green infrastructure is pretty, pretty broad, so a lot of things can fall under that umbrella. So sometimes we talk about, you know, know, a lot of what we do is green stormwater infrastructure, um, which has a focus on stormwater. But you know, you can talk a lot of things. Green infrastructure, you know. You know planting urban street trees, things like that, anything that's kind of, uh, infrastructure that's designed to be green, right, so a infrastructure that's, you know, trying to add multiple benefits in terms of environmental benefits as well as public resource benefits, right?
Speaker 1:So trying to add more benefits in an environmentally friendly way. When there's a heavy downpour, it hits an impervious surface right. It's not hitting a forest, it's hitting some kind of a parking lot or roof or concrete, and then it's running off. So why is it important to deal with that water before it gets into a stream?
Speaker 2:You set that up well Right. So the water that's landing on those impervious surfaces can't find its way into the ground. So the biggest problem? Well, there's many, many problems, but maybe the biggest is that because that water can't go into the ground, it's not being able to absorb by the soil. So normally, when it rains in a forest or on grass or something else, that surface is able to absorb some amount of that water.
Speaker 2:That surface is able to absorb some amount of that water and that water will go into the groundwater source or into a you know, let's say the ground, into an above ground water source and writes, you know, recharges our aquifers and gives us better writes our drinking water sources.
Speaker 2:So that's really important.
Speaker 2:And the other problem, the other two problems are you know, our water quality piece and our uh, you know flooding and water quantity piece right.
Speaker 2:So when the water is landing on that impervious surface, now that water has to go somewhere, um, as it's running over those surfaces, it's going to take with it any pollutants, contaminants that are on that surface.
Speaker 2:So if you have things like car oils or whatever fertilizers that are used on lawns, things like that can get washed out and end up into our storm sewer system and then the water that's in our stormwater sewer system will eventually lead to the nearest stream or water body and take care with all those pollutants into that water body which will pollute that stream or water body. Uh, and take care with it, all those pollutants into that water body which would pollute that, uh, that stream or lake or whatever it is. Um, and then, uh, yeah, and because that impervious surface can't absorb water, you end up with a lot of uh, a lot more runoff coming from that, from that surface, uh, so you have more water running into the stream than there would be if that was a grass or a forest space. That water has to get into the stream and that can lead to flooding when too much water ends up in the stream.
Speaker 1:So you're creating a buffer, essentially between the roof, the parking lot and the stream, both to help reduce pollution, reduce flooding and infiltrate that groundwater that could then recharge the aquifer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so that's kind of the point of you know, in terms of stormwater green infrastructure. You know that's the focus trying to intercept that water before it gets there, right. So how can we fit these projects into our built environment that we created to break up that flow before it actually gets to the stream?
Speaker 1:So towns are required to get these permits, MS4 permits. What is an MS4 permit for people that probably have never heard of that phrase before?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the term MS4 refers to municipally separate storm sewer system, so it's abbreviated MS4 to make it easier to say than all that jargon. But basically DEP created these permits. They're coming from EPA, mandates coming down from there that basically requires towns to responsibly manage their stormwater. So there's a broad range of requirements there that come down and go from you know, uh, the town implementing certain ordinances, such as, you know, picking up pet, uh, pet waste, uh things like that, how to handle leaf litter, I think all kinds of different things that are in there. Uh, there's kind of that ordinance piece. There's uh pieces that talk about, um, how to better manage uh, you know how many, how how to keep track of all of your stormwater system infrastructure and how that's being managed. There's things in there about when development happens, how that stormwater has to be managed. So it kind of covers a broad range of things.
Speaker 1:Why is it important for a town to get that permit? What's the benefit to the township?
Speaker 2:Well, the permit's required for every township. It's required to get that permit. Like, what's the benefit to the township? Well, the permit's required for every township, it's required to have that permit. But obviously the goal is that it creates this statewide system to say that every township needs to follow these certain criteria as kind of a minimum standard of how to deal with their stormwater. Right, but obviously by implementing and keeping track of your infrastructure, able to monitor it, detect when there's problems.
Speaker 2:Like one of the requirements is oh, you need to inspect all of your outfall pipes. So an outfall pipe is, you know when your stormwater system is discharging into the stream. So one of those requirements in the permit says oh, you need to inspect those on a regular basis, once every five years. So that, oh, you need to inspect those on a regular basis once every five years for issues of erosion or if there's a I call them illicit discharges. So if someone was discharging, say there was a laundromat or something that was discharging the water directly into the stream or something, rather than going into the wastewater system, the stream or something, rather than going into the wastewater system, um, yeah, that's those systems are in the permits so that you can identify problems before it's become bigger problems, and then other pieces of the permit also kind of go into this planning piece of you know how do we deal with her water quality issues and flooding issues in the town.
Speaker 1:So so those permits in effect serve to both keep the upstream areas more free of pollutants and then the cumulative impacts that would occur downstream in our bays and estuaries, where there are a lot of efforts, including by Rutgers, to try to restore shellfish populations and clean up, say, barnegat Bay, great Bay, shellfish populations and clean up, say, barnagot bay, great bay, um. So that's all part of that, that same effort to keep the overall environment more free of pollutants than they otherwise would be if you allowed illicit discharges, if you know there is a storm water going straight into a stream instead of being filtered by some of these infrastructure buffers. So have you seen any changes? Is New Jersey experiencing any, let's say, climactic changes that would facilitate greater need for these systems With climate change, the expectation is that there'll be increased rainfall in the state of New Jersey.
Speaker 2:Throughout the world there's different situations, but in Jersey we're expecting more rainfall in general. So those are very valid concerns of how is that increased rainfall going to impact how we're able to handle our stormwater issues and how will flooding be affected. So the DP recently basically revised. So basically, how do I explain this? So basically say you wanted to build a new development. One of the requirements as part of your stormwater permit is that you need to manage runoff from the two ten and a hundred year storms. So these storms are they're basically probability based storms. So when we say a two year storm, basically we're saying there's a 50% chance in any given year that we'll have a storm of that amount. So usually it's around like three inches of rain. Where, when you have a hundred year storm, we're saying that on average that a storm that big would happen once every hundred years. On average, a storm that big would happen once every 100 years. On average, you could have 200 year storms back to back in two consecutive years, but the odds are supposed to be not that likely.
Speaker 2:So um but 100-year storm would be more like 8 inches of rain rate. So we kind of have that range of things. So when you're building a site, one of the stormwater requirements is you need to make sure that before you built it and after you built it you're meeting that criteria, so you're not making you know, you're not discharging more water at a faster pace than you were before you did the development. So those requirements have evolved over time. But one of the recent things that DEP did was actually increase what those rainfall values had to be based on some research that was done, looking at the most recent rainfall data that we have, as well as looking at the climate prediction models of what expected future rainfall is going to be. Um. So they um revised those numbers. So now there's a higher value that towns have to design. You know engineers have to design to that higher standard based on these potential climate factors. Um, so you have to, you know, design our infrastructure to handle that larger rainfall.
Speaker 1:Do towns seem to be appreciating that fact that we will be getting these heavier downpours and more frequently?
Speaker 2:What do you mean appreciate?
Speaker 1:Well, if you're working with municipalities, do they seem to understand that that's going to be happening, or is that something that still hasn't quite sunk in as far as their appreciation of the, the reality that we'll be facing, as far as dealing with with rainfall and water in, uh, the next decades?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, I mean, I think most, most, uh, municipalities are aware of, like this, this is a concern and a lot they understand. The magnitude of the concern may be, um, obviously, you know the recent large hurricanes that we've gotten, uh, people are. When those things happen, people will become more aware of like, oh, this is something you really have to think about. You know, how can we try to prevent the damage from these storms from being quite as bad? So I think, from that perspective, people are understanding and appreciating that, oh yeah, these are real concerns that we need to think about and how can we best, you know, how can we change our existing infrastructure to try to mitigate the effects of these larger storms?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean like you say, with some of the hurricanes recently. I mean yeah, I mean like you say with some of the hurricanes recently. I mean in North Carolina where homes were built really right along the rivers in the flood claims. You know, it's really tragic to see what happens when there isn't regulation preventing homes and businesses being built literally within the historic riverbanks. Essentially, but with those small percentages of likelihood, there are people that may have been 70, 80 years old, that's never seen a storm of that magnitude, but now we may be seeing that more frequently. So it just makes for me it makes the work that you're doing just seem that much more important that we design our societies a little bit. You know more uh thoughtful way around water. Um, has there been a lot of interest in installing, uh green stormwater infrastructure? Have you seen people engaged and motivated to do these kind of projects?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know we as a program have been promoting it for many years. You know my boss, chris Brupta, has been across the state, you know, championing the benefits of green infrastructure for a while now. So I think from that effort a lot of people realized you know the importance of this. You know DEP now requires that. You know these kinds of projects and new development need to be considered first. So I think a lot of people, you know the awareness has really come up about it a lot over the past you know 10 years and people are really, you know, realizing this is a good answer to trying to help deal with some of these issues.
Speaker 1:And how about students at Rutgers? Have they been engaged and motivated on this topic? Are you seeing a lot of interest from students to get involved?
Speaker 2:We've taken a lot of student interns to a student intern program over the summer, so I usually have somewhere between like five and 10 interns and they help us out with you know, designing some of these projects and learn a lot about you know what we do, you know, so we often view it as a way of you know we're educating and training these future engineers that will help you know design and implement these projects too.
Speaker 1:And if you're just, you know, a regular citizen, maybe you happen to be involved in an environmental commission in your township and you want to. You know you identify a need somewhere where you see a lot of stormwater coming off of a building, off of a municipal parking lot. What would be a good first step to start getting that addressed? So there's a couple couple things.
Speaker 2:So obviously, you know, if you want to identify location, sites that would be good for green infrastructure, right. But you said identifying locations where there is existing runoff, there's available space to put some things, some kind of practice either gravel, green space for rain garden, um, there's all all different kinds of options. But, but I think the first step is really identifying locations that would work for these projects, right, being able to identify them and then understanding what kind of effort would take to design them and then get funding to implement them, right. So those are really kind of the barriers to implementation of projects. It's always funding and the funding effort. So, but in order to you know fund these, you first need to establish where they're going to go and you know how to what the design process would look like for them. So that's really really is step one is really identifying these spots and figuring out a way to fund the effort and go care.
Speaker 1:What's the first contact with your organization? When would that happen? In what stage?
Speaker 2:We do work directly with some municipalities to provide support in engineering and guidance and support of how to go after grants or funding for these projects. Um, so that's a piece for us too.
Speaker 1:Um and to learn, to learn more about this. Would you suggest people go on to your website or uh? Are there other resources you could recommend?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I mean definitely check out our website. We got plenty of information on there. We have our biggest resources that we like to point to. We have a rain guard manual and a green infrastructure guidance manual. So those are two kind of main documents that are on our website that kind of go through all the basics of green infrastructure and you know how we can implement these projects.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so we've talked for about a little bit bigger projects. How about homeowners? Could homeowners implement smaller systems, smaller rain gardens right on their own property and do you see if there's a benefit? Do you think there's a benefit to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. You know, we, we, we go by the philosophy that every every drop counts. So, um, so, any, any project that can be implemented will help reduce the amount of water going to the stream. You know, improve water quality, everything will help, and the only way that we're going to accomplish, uh, managing our stormwater is by implementing in all these different areas. So you know, there's a lot of existing development that um needs to be managed. So homeowners are would would help a lot if every homeowner implemented rain garden. That would make a huge impact. Um, so, uh, so, yeah, so that's part of our rain garden manual is geared towards guidance, towards, like a homeowner. If a homeowner wanted to build, you know, a smaller project on their property, that's like be the resource we'd recommend.
Speaker 1:Um so say, if you have a um, you know, a downspout coming off of your gutter, right? Would you advise, if you have the property of the space, to just go ahead and download the manual and then could you explain, just like your basic, you know, one, two, three, four steps of of actually installing, or for your landscaper to install a rain garden sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:So basically, uh, and the first step is kind of identifying how big you know it should be, um, so usually we try to size them. Uh, usually our rough metric is it's about a quarter of the roof area that you're trying to uh bring into the rain garden. So you kind of measure your roof, try to figure out, you know, based on your gutter system, where those gutters, uh, what water from the roof is getting into that gutter that you're sending towards the rain garden. Right, so you'd identify, you know, that roof area.
Speaker 2:Take that area divided by about four uh for the simplest math, um, and then that would tell you how big the garden should be, right, so then, uh, so then, on that size, you'd figure out rough dimensions that would work in the space that you have. If it ends up that you don't have enough space for the full area, you can make a smaller one. You just be managing a smaller portion of that roof. So don't be intimidated by a large number. Or if you don't want to implement something quite so big, you can always make it smaller.
Speaker 2:Um, so then you identify that size and then maybe take off your grass, uh, dig down as you recommend, uh, for most people. Uh, six inch we call ponding depth. Um, so that's, you know, basically designed for the system for the garden to fill up with about six inches of water. And then you know that water should be designed to, you know, infiltrate the ground over time within 24 hours. So you dig down, you know you recommend digging down a total of nine inches back, full of three inches of mulch to help you done the weeds and then replants a variety of water tolerant plants and you know we always recommend native native species.
Speaker 2:So that's. There's recommendations in the manual for that too so why?
Speaker 1:why do you recommend native uh plant species?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean native species are just always beneficial. They're beneficial to local pollinators. You avoid issues with some of the invasive species that can be problematic as well. That's the main reasons.
Speaker 1:We don't want people planting a Japanese barberry or a multiflora rose or anything that really doesn't lend itself well to our habitats here, especially in the pine berries, exactly.
Speaker 2:And the other benefit, of course, is that native plants are designed to do well in this area, so they're going to do well with minimal watering and maintenance.
Speaker 1:And how have you found the rain gardens been faring? Have they been, I guess? Has the program been successful? How many of these things have you actually installed? Maybe statewide, or rough estimate?
Speaker 2:I don't remember the number off the top of my head, but I know we've done many, many projects. So we're trying to think in the past 10 years we've probably done like 300 rain garden projects, uh, varying sizes throughout the state.
Speaker 1:So it's been been very successful in us being able to implement a lot of projects throughout throughout the state and I I find it's helpful both for the actual um you, you know improvement physically on the ground that you're making, and then also to help people conceptualize just the whole, just the whole environment of what. Where is this water going? What, where is this water coming from that we drink? Um, our our bays, what's going into our bays. So I find it to be valuable both for the actual physical metric we're improving, you know, X gallons of what otherwise would be stormwater and actually infiltrating into the ground, but also we're getting people outside, having them plant native plants, get familiar with their local habitats and, uh, you know, putting people to work on on something that really benefits everybody exactly, yeah, one of our favorite places to try to implement projects is at schools, because it's just such a great educational opportunity for students done a lot of projects at schools too all right.
Speaker 1:Well, matthew, is there anything that, uh, that we missed, that you wanted to add?
Speaker 2:I guess one more topic that we could talk about a little bit, that I think we like to talk about a lot, is thinking about existing development in terms of stormwater management. So we think a lot about the fact that we can make new regulations very good and stringent, um, but a lot of the stormwater problems are from our existing development. So so you know, that's why I made it a good point about, uh, you know, homeowners. You know there's a lot of old developments that don't have any stormwater management. So, uh, I believe it was 1984.
Speaker 2:1984 was when the stormwater quantity requirements. So anything built after that should have some kind of detention basin or something to manage flooding issues, and anything built after 2004 would have had to be required to have water quality pieces in there. So anything built before those times, those developments, aren't really managing the stormwater correctly. So, um, so just a great reminder to everyone as well. But you know, if we want to address our stormwater problems, especially in a state like New Jersey, we're very built out. You know we have to think about not just new development but also the existing developments.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you so much for uh discussing this and and and helping lend your expertise and getting everybody's knowledge and education up on the subject, and I wish you luck. It's a great endeavor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you very much for having me.