Spring Runoff Reality Check: Is Your Stormwater System Ready?

Episode Transcript

Mollie (Host)
Welcome back to {Brief}ly Speaking, the SEH podcast where we talk about the topics that matter most in the AEC industry. I'm Mollie Sabo, your host. As temperatures start to rise, snow begins to melt, and spring rains become more frequent, a lot of communities are getting a fresh look at how their stormwater systems are performing. Catch basins reappear, ditches start to flow again, and suddenly those minor drainage issues aren't so minor. And that is why stormwater valuations matter. They help communities understand what's working, what isn't, and where risks are hiding before spring runoff and heavy rainfall turn those small issues into costly ones. Joining me today is Emily Jennings, a professional engineer who works with communities to understand how stormwater really moves through roads, ditches, culverts, and everything in between. She specializes in stormwater planning, analysis, design, and regulatory compliance, helping communities spot problems early and design practical solutions that actually hold up when the water starts to flow. So with that, Emily, welcome to {Brief}ly Speaking.

Emily (Guest)
Thank you, happy to be here.

Mollie (Host)
We are gonna start kind of with the basics here. So walk me through what a stormwater evaluation consists of and maybe some of your processes when conducting those.

Emily (Guest)
Sure. So usually a stormwater evaluation starts because a problem has been identified or is suspected. You know, if you think of, put yourself in a situation where maybe you have a house in kind of more of an urban setting and you're looking out the window and it's raining and you're watching the water fall on the roadway and kind of flow off the roadway. But sometimes you start to notice that... maybe the water's not flowing off the roadway. It's actually sort of kind of ponding up in the roadway. That usually indicates, you know, water's not moving the way that we want it to. And sometimes there's some easy fixes to that. You know, maybe we have a catch basin or a culvert that has some buildup of debris or sediment and needs to be cleaned out. But in those situations, you know, quick, easy fix and we're good to go. But other times it's not obvious to us why this is happening, why we're seeing ponding or flooding conditions. And in that case, we need to do a little bit more of a study, figure out what's going on and how do we fix it. Our first step in conducting these studies is to understand what do our clients want to get out of the study? What are they looking to address? And then based on that, we kind of cater our data collection to match their needs. And oftentimes we're collecting data because we want to prepare some type of hydrological model. these models help us assess the existing conditions, kind of recreate what we're seeing, you know, when we're watching the rainfall. And then we actually use those models to further assess what kind of solutions we can come up to solve the issue. And what we're looking for is, you know, is truly that we want a solution, not just a temporary fix. But anytime we prepare these studies or evaluations, it's a lot of data gathering and technical analysis. So we always prepare some type of technical report or memorandum that summarizes everything we did. And a really important part of those reports or memos is to include planning level costs. We need to tell people, this is the solution that we found and this is how much money it's going to cost.

Mollie (Host)
I really like the overview that you gave there of kind of the entire process. and all the different factors that you as the engineer are considering when coming to this problem. So you talked about some of the modeling that you guys do, and I've seen those. I think they're super cool and how you can visualize just the flooding process. How do those, or how does this whole process help communities understand the risk that they're facing of flooding or aging infrastructure, regulatory exposure in a more clear way?

Emily (Guest)
Yeah, so these tools are and studies are really nice because they give us that comprehensive understanding that bird's eye view of everything that's happening, the cause and effect. And not only can we evaluate how we fix it, we can also evaluate what we call a do nothing scenario. So what happens if we do nothing? And we can also use climate adjusted rainfall events to predict what that will look like now and into the future. And with the software and technologies that we have access to, we're really able to dissect the data and we can produce really easily understood figures, graphics, kind of quantities, basically take very technical information and make it easily shareable with the general public.

Mollie (Host)
And I think that's so important, that clarity of the if we do nothing scenario versus the options that you have, right? I think that is huge for communities to be able to see and understand just what the potential risks like we were talking about are or solutions. So we touched briefly on regulations. But how important is it from your side of things to understand local or state stormwater regulations during one of these evaluations? And where do communities often get tripped up?

Emily (Guest)
Yeah, so sometimes a project's needs and a project's regulations have competing interests. So anytime we're doing development or redevelopment, or I should say oftentimes we're doing development or redevelopment, there are stormwater regulations that are associated with that, and those are typically based on water quality. Water quality analysis is usually looking at very frequent storm events, and those are smaller storm events. They happen more often. And when we're looking at flooding or, you know, prolonged inundation, that's usually associated with more infrequent and larger rainfall events. So these are two opposites, and they don't always play nicely together for managing, you know, a project's needs. So again, preparing these studies is really good because it gives us time to plan. You know, we're aware of the regulation and we're aware of the project needs and we can sort of put everything together to satisfy the requirements and, you know, move forward with some type of solution. This planning also allows us to help address the budgetary needs.

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Mollie (Host)
What are some of the common regulatory agencies that you guys deal with in these?

Emily (Guest)
Yeah, so for the state of Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency or MPCA, they've got a strong role in stormwater regulation. And that kind of trickles down to the local municipalities, particularly those that are designated as MS4s or municipal separate storm sewer system permittees. We also in the state of Minnesota have several watershed districts and watershed organizations. So we've got a lot of stakeholders who care about stormwater.

Mollie (Host)
I want to go back to something you touched on. I think it was in your first response here, and that's data, which is honestly the big thing that we're looking at here and kind of what we're all leading up to with these evaluations. What role does data play in a strong stormwater evaluation? And How do you balance that detailed analysis with those practical recommendations you were talking about?

Emily (Guest)
So data is very important. It's one of our biggest upfront tasks. And the reason why it's so important is we really rely on good data for the reliability of a study, of the production of a model. But honestly, data collection can be overwhelming because there's so much of it. We've got a lot of experience with these studies, and I think what that helps us do is really figure out where to focus our data collection. there are things that are more critical than others, and sometimes data can't easily be obtained for a variety of reasons. And again, with our experience, we have a lot of resources and assumptions that help us get to a complete and usable data set, using kind of all the different tools out there. And this approach, it basically ensures that we're not exceeding necessary costs. We're maximizing the value, we're maintaining that fiscal responsibility, but we're still getting the most effective solutions.

Mollie (Host)
So you're not just sending clients a big chunk of data and saying, here you go. You're really giving them options and solutions depending on their budgets.

Emily (Guest)
Right. I think that's a good takeaway. We can meet a variety of different budgets. You know, some people just have, you know, tighter budget. And what we do is we maximize that with the really the critical pieces. And then we use good assumptions and engineering judgment to kind of fill in the gaps. And sometimes if we don't have budget constraints, you know, then we get the, you know, the opportunity to collect all the data that we want. which is really nice too. But I would say both, wherever you are on the spectrum of that, like we can still find a way to get you a reliable model that has effective solutions.

Mollie (Host)
Well, and I would assume with most types of planning, there are options of; these are your highest risk and probably the projects you should be working on ASAP. But then there's also kind of that long term control projects. Talk to me about the long-term planning and how this can help with some of your those thoughts.

Emily (Guest)
So for the long term planning, you know, we view these stormwater evaluations as an investment into the future, right? You get this opportunity to like kind of peek into what's to come. And these again, you know, these stormwater evaluations, great planning tools for that long term resilience to protect existing and future infrastructure. And they really help us identify areas that are most at risk. So just for example, say we have an unstable area and we know it's a problem and we're kind of keeping tabs on it, but nothing's being done. A large rainfall event comes through and that unstable area turns into a washout, which maybe takes out an entire roadway. So that situation is now emergency response, and emergency response is very expensive. So you need to rush to find a contractor who's rushing to procure materials and that is going to cost a client a premium. This emergency response scenarios also have an additional cost to the public. Oftentimes they're faced with detours, interruption of services, just kind of general disruption and that, you know, that is very frustrating and challenging for the community members. So the idea is that these studies and tools, really in addition to ongoing inspection and maintenance and just general asset management, they help us minimize the likelihood of these emergency response scenarios, right, as much as possible. And that in itself helps control the long-term costs.

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Mollie (Host)
So Emily, you hit on kind of that long-term planning. We've talked about how we found solutions for the right now, but What about when evaluations don't necessarily lead to action? How do you get out of that planning to execution phase?

Emily (Guest)
Yeah, so unfortunately, you know, while we have found some tools and resources and like I said, some grant funds to execute these from water planning evaluations, there is a lack of funding for implementation. It's a common issue. You know, there are limited resources out there and the funding sources that are available are highly competitive. And another thing to consider is that, you know, in terms of human health and safety, stormwater will take a lower priority to things like our drinking water or our sanitary sewer. So it's important for us to really kind of set these projects up thoughtfully and help execute them so they can actually get in the ground and be implemented. So wherever possible, we're very intentional about our efforts to pair these improvements with other planned capital improvement projects. If we know in two years from now a roadway is going to be reconstructed and the utility work is happening, maybe they're going to redo the sanitary sewer. we know that road is going to be open, that is a very opportune time for us to address the flooding that might be occurring near that area. So tackling that and kind of lining that up at the same time as those other capital improvement projects offers huge cost savings to our clients and it just really maximizes efficiency.

Mollie (Host)
So is that part of your conversations with the client or community then as you go through and you find this data, you find kind of the problem areas. Do you compare it to their community plans that they already have and that kind of like lights up the areas that could be combined?

Emily (Guest)
Yeah, so we kind of overlay the stormwater issues with the capital improvement projects, with the critical infrastructure, with the critical communities. We take all those pieces together to try to target where can we concentrate our efforts and actually execute this.

Mollie (Host)
So if I'm a community listening and I have an area that I know floods frequently and I'm looking to do a stormwater evaluation, do I have to do a broad one system wide or can it focus more on just that specific area? What do you recommend?

Emily (Guest)
I think it depends. You know, we've done like watershed level wide, we've done citywide, and then we've really scaled that down to smaller sub watersheds. You certainly don't have to do it all at once. A lot of people like to phase and step into them. It can definitely, totally be catered to the goals. So, maybe it's a project every year for five years and at the end of that five years you have a complete, citywide study or something like that.

Mollie (Host)
Yeah, I really like that it's kind of a build your own type of system to match just their priorities, their plans or their budget. Can these stormwater evaluations support broader goals like resiliency, sustainability, asset management planning? Those are all big buzzwords in today's planning environment. How do these help move that forward?

Emily (Guest)
Sure, yeah. So like I mentioned, these studies really offer us a unique opportunity to plan for and invest in the future. And so we get to see what happens to an existing system if maybe there's new development or redevelopment or climate adjustment effects. And we can evaluate what all this does to the aging infrastructure. And this information really helps the community to be prepared. And that in itself will increase the overall resiliency and it helps them approach problems with sustainability in mind, really having informed decisions to move forward.

Mollie (Host)
Now that communities who are listening or anybody, they've kind of learned about the process a little bit, learned about the outputs of it and how it can be used. If they're thinking, I think I need to get this going for my community, what's the best place for them to start? What's the first step?

Emily (Guest)
Yeah, so I think the first step we want to know is what are the goals? What are people trying to get out of the study? And then next is to set aside some planning dollars to initiate the study. Funding can come from things like stormwater utility fees, capital improvements, and they might also possibly be a fit for grant dollars. So it's something that we could help people pursue finding some grant funding to initiate these studies. My next recommendation is to gather the internal experts. the people who see this stuff all the time, that's your public works staff, your maintenance staff, your street department, get as much information, photos, previous plans, previous studies, anything together, because all of that background information really kind of, you know, propels these studies forward.

Mollie (Host)
I always think it's so helpful to know what conversations to have internally and then what to bring to the table so that you can really start these conversations and just hit the ground running. Nobody wants to waste time. So I think that's perfect advice. This is one of my favorite questions I always like to ask people. So do you have any examples of where your work, a stormwater evaluation, helped a community avoid major impacts or helped with investments?

Emily (Guest)
Yeah, so we've worked on a lot of these types of studies with many different communities. And actually, we have been very successful in helping communities secure grant dollars for these studies. So that in itself is just an awesome start to being able to tackle these financially. But looking at the long-term investments, a specific example I have is we worked with a large metropolitan community who is facing some issues. with future development, there's a lot of pressure for future development, but also a lot of aging infrastructure. So we completed a stormwater evaluation and we were able to determine that, the area where this development was going to occur, the existing infrastructure just wasn't going to be able to handle it. And had we not identified this, the possibility would be that this kind of large investment in this, new development area was going to lead to problems not only kind of right there in that nice new space, but also downstream, in some existing infrastructure areas as well. We were able to work with the community to come up with some solutions, which essentially looked like a mixture of green infrastructure and some additional utilities. And that just helped take off some additional stress on the existing system and kind of set this up for success.

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Mollie (Host)
That's awesome. I love the idea of you're not only looking at the older infrastructure, but what's to come and what's planned for a community. Because sometimes it is easy to just get sidetracked and look at the bright, shiny new and not want to think about the potential domino effect and how that's going to play into the system that's at large. So Emily, if listeners want to get in touch with you, if they want help evaluating or improving their stormwater systems, what's the best way they can do that?

Emily (Guest)
I would ask the people to email me. They can reach me at ejennings@sehinc.com.

Mollie (Host)
Thank you so much for sharing all of your insights on this. And for communities listening who feel like they are always reacting to stormwater problems instead of staying ahead of them, this conversation really just shows that stormwater evaluations aren't just a technical exercise. It's not just checking A box. They're really decision-making tools that can help you now and long into the future. Thank you so much for tuning in to {Brief}ly Speaking. Be sure to follow the podcast for more focused conversations on what matters most in the AEC industry.