Clean Water Works
CLEVELAND, OHIO: From the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, an in-depth and fun conversation led by Donna Friedman and Mike Uva on any and all topics related to clean water, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, and the people, projects, and programs serving Lake Erie and our local waterways and communities.
Clean Water Works
2025 Ohio Stormwater Conference
Mike is at the 18th annual Ohio Stormwater Conference, where nearly 1,000 environmental professionals gather to discuss flooding, erosion, and water quality advances—and new challenges.
The conversation begins with sobering news about watershed organizations facing an uncertain future as they scramble to fill funding gaps in their programs. We also talk with the Ohio Public Works Commission and its support of essential projects across the state. The latest Infrastructure Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) shows some improvement, but also notes the cost of neglecting funding for our shared assets.
What stands out at this conference is the personal connection between the professionals and their work. Their personal investment guides their technical expertise and inspires them to make a real-world impact with every project.
Learn more about the Ohio Stormwater Conference at https://ohstormwaterconference.com/
Sign up for the Sewer District's Summer Sprinkling Program at https://customerservice.neorsd.org/s/summer-sprinkling-program
This is Mike Uva and Clean Water Works, a podcast about clean water, and I am here solo. Actually, donna is with the Cleveland Council on World Affairs, currently in Helsinki. I believe they're headed to Spain next Part of a US Embassy Global Ambassadors delegation talking about sustainability and other important topics.
Speaker 3:I'm jealous.
Speaker 1:I am too. But hey, sandusky's not bad, so that's where we are today, it's good weather. The 18th annual Ohio Stormwater Conference in full swing here at Kalahari Resort. I am here with Dr Erica Matheny. Good to see you, Erica.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Good to see you too, Michael. Yeah, this year we have almost 1,000 attendees. I think we were up to 980.
Speaker 1:So we can get 20 more people in the door Gets bigger every year Any especially interesting panels that you've seen already.
Speaker 3:I just left one that was from someone at Holden Arboretum and it was about forest like within the working woods, how they do forest management and that impacts bird species, and so it was really interesting looking at how that relationship is.
Speaker 3:Yesterday we did have a birding tour and so we had one of our staff take people up through. Um, there's gorgeous areas up here in sandusky for birding, yeah, otherwise there's a lot of other really great sessions um hundreds of talks the last few years we've had the opportunity to talk to participants in the now core program yeah, so, um, tinkers creek watershed partners has served as the backbone organization for now core, which is the northern ohio watershed core program.
Speaker 3:Um, it is an americorps program funded through federal americorps and it's been in action for six years. We we just started our sixth year. We're about halfway through April 25th. We received notice that the program was defunded, as were many other AmeriCorps programs nationwide. So unfortunately the 32 members that were in that program were instantly the program ended for them.
Speaker 1:It just ended right.
Speaker 3:Right, it was terminated. They have no additional severance, no additional runway benefits. Everything were gone.
Speaker 1:What were some of the things they were working on?
Speaker 3:So they were in projects at places like Holden Arboretum, cleveland Metro Parks, cuyahoga, soil and Water, summit, soil and Water, the Nature Conservancy. They were doing things like you know. They were doing stormwater managementancy. They were doing things like, um, you know, they were doing stormwater management. They were doing um public outreach and education.
Speaker 3:They were doing stewardship a lot of different really important things that have left gaps in those organizations yeah um, they were capacity building for a lot of small places too, like domebrook watershed partnership, and so that's been, that will continue to be, a hole that's going to be really difficult to fill, and the communities that they were serving too. So if they were in schools providing education, if they were doing community outreach, all of those programs have to be temporarily stopped because there isn't anyone to do the role. So we have members here, the previous members that are here for the conference trying to network and make some connections to hopefully get a next step. So that's at least something positive that they can still participate in this.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, thanks for the update on NowCore and we hope that there are brighter days ahead.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. Yeah, we're definitely thinking about how can we create a new workforce development program out of Tinkers Creek that is funded differently but can still help fill some of those gaps within the community and within the program partners that we worked with before.
Speaker 1:Will Gaverly of the Ohio Public Works Commission. Thanks so much for joining us here at the 2025 Ohio Stormwater Conference.
Speaker 6:We've really been enjoying ourselves. This is our first time here, I believe, at least in the tenure that I've been with Ohio Public Works. What does the Ohio Public Works Commission do? Well, we're a funding partner that the citizens of the state of Ohio have voted to allow us to take care of. Actually, skip, just renewed, which is our state capital improvement program, passed at 68%. Thank you, ohio. We truly appreciate that. That's great.
Speaker 6:With Skip we're able to fund roads, bridges, culverts, but most importantly to the stormwater conference. Here we're able to do all kinds of water-based projects like your sewer, your stormwater, drinking water, things along those lines. We also manage the LTIP, which is your local transportation improvement program, and that derives from the same tax that everybody pays for, the gas tax that funds ODOT. Okay, 1% of that comes to us and because it is part of that transportation tax, it is focused specifically on roads, bridges and culverts. We also manage part of the Clean Ohio Fund that deals with the conservation end of things. We also manage part of the Clean Ohio Fund that deals with the conservation end of things. So we help people acquire land that is preserved into perpetuity for parks, for biodiversity, reservoirs, things along those lines. So we have quite a bit of diverse funding that we do so you have a pool of money that you distribute for different projects.
Speaker 6:Actually, one of the coolest things about that pool of money is that we don't actually select the projects. We have 19 different districts and the individuals that actually vote on these projects are from these various districts, so there's a lot of local control, and each year people submit applications to apply for either our infrastructure side of the house or they apply to our Clean Ohio side of the house Okay, and then it is sent up to us for final review. Everybody competes, and how they score in the methodology is basically who gets awarded the funds on that. Now we do have money that we actually administer ourselves. One of them is our emergency program, and that is special funds that are set aside to handle road slips, things along those lines that are just out of the blue and need immediate response Crisis situations.
Speaker 1:Roger that sir.
Speaker 6:Yes, let's say that there was a heavy-duty rain that went on and the road, the hillside, has given way and has caused a danger to a water treatment plant. There's something that we can do to help restore the sand or soil around the piping or again restore a road that has slipped away.
Speaker 1:I get the sense that a key to your work is collaboration.
Speaker 6:Very much so. There are so many different agencies that we work with.
Speaker 1:We partner regularly with ODOT for joint road projects and such so if people want to find out more about Ohio Public Works Commission and all the good work you do, where can we direct them the easiest?
Speaker 6:thing to do is check out our website, which is publicworksohiogov, and there's a district map that we have that shows each county. By selecting that, you can find your program representative and we can talk to you directly about your district and help explain the methodology and how you can best qualify for our programs. I don't think people understand the importance of getting these water projects funded and the impact that funding like we can provide actually has. I am talking to Michael.
Speaker 1:Cook and Josh Herschel from Advanced Drainer Systems. How are you guys doing? Good, great to be back what's of interest at the conference. That's tying in with your preoccupations at the moment.
Speaker 4:Well, it's stormwater. Mike and I have been, you know, in this industry, gosh, since we were cutting our teeth over 20 years ago. You know, for the last decade plus, you know, the two of us have worked together here at ADS trying to protect our nation's water. We help communities, engineers, contractors, design systems that protect, maintain clean stormwater.
Speaker 7:Most people don't think about when it rains where's that water going. But everybody here, you know, works in that every day, detaining that water, cleaning that water before it's released to the Cuyahoga River, before it's released to Lake Erie, before it's released to, you know, the Rocky River, whatnot.
Speaker 1:You get a sense people in this industry have a real connection to the work just through their personal interests.
Speaker 7:Yeah, personal interests. I mean, there's so many good environmental and ecology type people here that enjoy the outdoors, right, and that's what makes this type of thing rewarding.
Speaker 4:I find myself throughout the year kayaking on Tinkers Creek, on the Cuyahoga River, you know from there's navigable waters on the Cuyahoga River you can put in below Lake Rockwell, north of Kent, you know, and run all the way through Kent, all the way to the Sheridan in Cuyahoga Falls. Downstream of the Sheridan you get into the Gorge Dam but just downstream of the Gorge Dam you can run, you know, theoretically all the way to Lake Erie.
Speaker 4:I've kayaked many of those waters and just found a passion for them, you know, with my family, my friends and the work that we do, knowing you know that we worked on a project, you know, in this watershed and we're protecting the water and when you're on that river, you see the outflows coming into the river and that makes a huge difference when you see, pipes coming in and creeks coming in and when you're well aware of the area, you know what mall or movie theater or municipal stormwater management is upstream and you can say you know what that water's clear running out of that pipe or out of that creek because of things that we're doing.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I'll speak to fly fishing.
Speaker 7:I think a lot of people in this region don't realize how big it really is. As far as the Lake Erie tributaries I'm talking, you know, rocky river, vermilion river, chagrin, chagrin, cuyahoga, all the way out to conneaut, the steelhead run, you know when we're talking fishing for steelhead, you know that runs basically from october to april and uh, the amount of people that do that here in northeast ohio is pretty significant. Me personally, you know I'm on the Rocky River. It is very much a runoff tributary. I mean, when we have a storm event that river runs pretty high at a significant flow rate and as it tapers down it becomes a much smaller river, a different river and a river you can stand in fish in. You see the quality of the water in that river, that river, after a storm event, to you know, say a couple days to a week later and then you start to notice things like water quality and runoff and volume, and what is the quality of the stream bank and and and you know, is that a great habitat for fish is it?
Speaker 4:a great habitat for smallmouth, or is it a great habitat for the for the seal?
Speaker 7:head. I think what I love most about fly fishing in general is you know you're putting on the waders, you're walking in the water, you know you're not standing on the shore, you really immerse yourself in nature, you immerse yourself in the water and if I don't catch anything, it's not a bad day because I just spent a day in a river, yeah, and it's a lot of fun in that respect.
Speaker 4:So you know, today the Ohio Stormwater Association awarded their project of the year to the folks that were involved at the John Glenn Airport in Columbus for the red lot expansion. So Corda Engineering and Beaver Excavating who designed or installed it, and you know the Columbus Airport. You know we might put them a decade ahead of where we're going to be at with the Cleveland airport. There's a lot of discussions today revolving around the master planning and how big the terminals are going to be, where they're going to be, what it's going to impact and what type of change we're going to see in Cleveland which is very similar to what's happening in Columbus. At the Columbus airport. We can learn a lot from what they did on stormwater management, water quality, wildlife attractant mitigation all of those things happening at the Columbus Airport. They're going to be building an entirely new terminal and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport may look very different in 10 to 15 years.
Speaker 7:You think about an airport and all the pavement and all the tires and de-icing chemicals in the winter. I mean there's a lot of stuff you need to treat in terms of an airport and a lot of water to store. So being a part of big infrastructure projects like that, people don't realize the amount of work that goes into the water quality and the water treatment before it hits the river Emily.
Speaker 1:what brings you to the Ohio Stormwater Conference?
Speaker 5:Well, this is my third conference and I work for Carollo Engineers out of Walnut Creek, california, and I'm on our funding team. I have a particular love for stormwater and love coming to the Ohio Stormwater Conference, and there's a lot of changes happening in the funding space. What we've discussed here at the conference in legal hot topic sessions or legal roundtables are just the first 100 days of this administration and executive orders and how those are reflective of future policy. While they might not be policy now you know, really we can see executive orders as almost like plans, like what a CEO of a private company would tell their employees to do. Right, it's directional. It's just good to keep in mind as more executive orders come out and more changes occur, as well as just the congressional processes that actual policy adjustments and changes have to go through in order for them to be approved, and how all that ties into the changes, whether it be funding or policy that's affecting stormwater.
Speaker 1:How do you anticipate your engineering firm adapting to those changes?
Speaker 5:We will have to adjust.
Speaker 5:Federal funding may not be something that we can prioritize for projects, but the great thing is we do have many states who prioritize funding for stormwater water, wastewater projects, any infrastructure-related items, through their state budgetary processes, so the states themselves can put budgetary dollars to those programs.
Speaker 5:So we may see an influx of that With that too.
Speaker 5:There's always advocating for the funding levels.
Speaker 5:We have to keep speaking up for our projects and advocating for them the best we can to show people in elected positions that these are projects that these communities have to have implemented so they can have clean water or effective flood control, any sort of treatment, so that they live in healthy, thriving communities, because that's what we all want. Also, what comes into grant writing is what you are discussing with the community, because if you can show these funding agencies that you are communicating and talking with your community and they have your support, if you're just going into a community and doing a project, they might not want to fund you unless you're talking to your community. So there's been a lot of really good sessions around how other entities, other utilities, go about education and communication for their projects or for social and environmental issues and getting the community involved early and even throughout projects. It's kind of like a fun little puzzle, like what is the most critical information and wording it in a way that's clear and easy to read for people that may not know anything about our project.
Speaker 1:Derek Vogel is project manager in stormwater design here at the regional sewer district. There's an infrastructure report card that comes out. Is it every year from ASCE?
Speaker 2:It's every four years.
Speaker 1:Every four years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a national report card and there's state specific ones. I think almost every state puts out their state specific one and that informs the national report card every four years how are we doing in ohio?
Speaker 1:what's our grade? Do we pass?
Speaker 2:so I can't even tell you the grade. It's released officially on june 18th and so in our report or in our presentation, we gave the 2021 grades where were we in 2021, nationally and in ohio in 2021 I think we had like a C overall nationally.
Speaker 1:Which was up from a D.
Speaker 2:It was yeah, we're slowly getting better. And then this year the National Report Card was released on March 25th. We got a C, so it's our highest grade of all time.
Speaker 1:Steady improvement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. The stormwater chapter the first time it was included was in 2021 and I think we had a d or a d minus and it's moved up to a d nationally to what do you attribute the improvement in our grade? The overarching message from the state report card and the national report card was that the federal funding that came in through the iija and ira um acts. I guess uh bridge that gap.
Speaker 2:For that, additional funding needed, but it's not sustaining and we need to come up with some other sustaining funding in order to bridge that gap for the future.
Speaker 1:Are there bright lights on the horizon as far as funding goes?
Speaker 2:Not a lot of bright lights, unfortunately. Yes, asce is doing a great job of trying to show they call it a bridging the gap study and they tried to put an estimate together for how much it would cost every american every year. Uh, if that funding, that federal funding, wasn't extended into the future, I think it came down to like something like seven thousand dollars a year per person. Um, just infrastructure costs, it would almost be like the cost that Americans incur based on poor infrastructure, so like.
Speaker 1:That's what bad infrastructure costs each individual. What's new in the world of?
Speaker 2:stormwater. There's all kinds of good stuff going on. I think there's a lot of great case studies and a lot of great lessons learned from case studies. I just came from one that was talking about green infrastructure and what's exciting is that some of these practices have been installed now for over a decade and people are going back to take a look at and seeing how they fared, and there's just so much that can be learned about things that did really well and site-specific challenges that happened throughout that 10, 20 years, and all just fantastic knowledge, I guess, to share.
Speaker 8:I am Mark D'Alessio with Verdantis, and I'm a senior project manager.
Speaker 1:What's Verdantis do.
Speaker 8:Verdantis does a lot. We're primarily focused on water and energy and land services and a big component of what we do involves restoration, design, stormwater management planning and design collection system management, planning and design. We kind of exist in a pretty green space. We're aiming to make our environment better through our projects and make people's lives better in the process as well.
Speaker 1:Are you a frequent attendee at the Ohio Stormwater Conference?
Speaker 8:No, I think this is my 10th year. And it's yeah, kind of reflecting on that, Like I was in the Pittsburgh region for a while after school and I moved back to Youngstown, Ohio after that and started coming to this conference and after 10 years I feel like I've got some good friends here. It's kind of fun to come back and see people and I just got done speaking and look out and I can say I see friends in the audience that I didn't have 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:So what did you present on? What was your topic?
Speaker 8:Today I was presenting on some age infrastructure that needed replaced in a township in Ohio where there's a stormwater utility district that had been formed to generate revenues dedicated revenues for these stormwater issues. In this particular case, it was a corrugated metal pipe that had collapsed and was causing flooding in a residential neighborhood, but acutely, with. Two residential homeowners were suffering the worst as the pipe was coming through their yards, disrupted their daily lives and they both have little kids that want to run in their yard. And the when it would rain right, especially heavy rains to have two, two culverts side by side, one of which was completely collapsed and blocked. You know the water was on the roadway and then in their front yards. Basements were all impacted in this area and there's some urgency there. It's all flood mitigation, right, that's.
Speaker 1:That's one of the big reasons why we're here well, thank you so much for uh stopping by to talk with us I appreciate you having me on thank you so much mike.
