MANAGER PROFILE
The cistern shown is part of the Lake McCarrons storm water reuse project. and is located in Upper Villa Park in Roseville, Minnesota.
implement flood control projects spanning multiple cities or counties. As you know, water does not follow political boundaries. The state of Minnesota created these watershed districts because it wanted local units of government focused on water management, specifically watersheds, water reuse, and water resources. What is unique about districts is that they have regulatory authority, taxing authority, and some broader authorities to pursue projects that span different political boundaries. Fast forward to the 1990s, and one of our major lakes in the St. Paul area, Como Lake, was becoming impaired, and the residents wanted more to be done at the local level to deal with flooding, erosion, and water quality on a local level. They petitioned the state to create CRWD, and we were formed 20 years ago in 1998. Our mission is to protect, manage, protect, and improve the water resources of the district. We do that through five major areas. We have a watershed regulatory program that requires permits on developments. We do extensive monitoring of and research on storm water and its best management practices. We implement our own projects for flood control and water quality improvements. Recognizing that we cannot do it all on our own, we have an active watershed education and outreach program. We also provide financial and technical assistance for individuals, businesses, and organizations that are not regulated, but that choose to pursue storm water best practices on their own. Finally, we also own and operate a 6 -mile-long storm sewer interceptor tunnel system that receives drainage from four of our five cities. Tyler Young: What are the storm water management challenges in your watershed district? Mark Doneux: The biggest challenge we face is impervious surfaces. Research shows that when a watershed becomes more than 10 percent impervious, water resources are affected. Our watershed is made up of over 40 percent impervious surfaces. Many of our streams have been put into pipes, and many of our wetlands have been filled. While impervious surfaces are one of our challenges, people are too. We have about a quarter of a million people in our watershed. One in 20 Minnesotans lives in our watershed, and their activities can have negative consequences for our water resources. Beyond that, we have MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
more traditional challenges with storm water management, such as working in an urban environment and retrofitting the system. In addition, we have degraded soils, and in a few areas, we have shallow bedrock. Tyler Young: What are the main elements of your storm water program, and how do underground treatment systems factor into the program overall? Mark Doneux: One of our main programs we have is a regulatory program. It is the foundation for many of things that we do. In addition, CRWD provides financial and technical assistance to entities that may want to go above the bare minimum of work. Within the regulatory program, we will see a lot more underground treatments, and a fairly common occurrence is perforated piping under a parking lot to meet rate and volume control standards. In fact, an analysis was done along the Green Line light rail transit system, and about 68 percent of the projects under our permits were using a combination of all underground or partially underground systems. Tyler Young: Can you provide some examples of other storm water projects you are pursuing? Mark Doneux: One project in particular blends two elements—technology and storm water reuse. We have a lake that is meeting water quality standards, Lake McCarrons. The goal was to prevent degradation by collecting and reusing storm water and allowing it to soak back into the ground. We first built a cistern
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