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I thought I'd be featuring folks and writing all sorts of witty banter, but I've been in business for a while now and haven't done a thing, so this'll be:
- a digest of some witty banter
- mostly with a list of resources that look interesting or that I've put together
- a great way to stay up on the educational events that I'm doing
Of course, I would NEVER sell your contact info!
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Looking for a particular month? Click below to get there fast. (Each month has different resources and tools.)
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Nov 2010 - Happy Thanksgiving!
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Publications & Resources
Here's some interesting stuff from others:
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A 20/20 look at how a failed ecoroof came to be a success. Case study of the Brewery Blocks. |
Calculating the green in green: What is an urban tree worth? |
New research from the Pacific Northwest Research Station demonstrates that street trees increase home prices in Portland, Ore., that shade trees reduce household energy use in Sacramento, Calif., and that these effects can be measured and expressed in dollars.
View the Science Findings article |
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Green Girl Events
Events listed here are ones that I'll be presenting:
| Date |
Time |
Location |
Topic |
Other Details |
While the following courses are geared towards contractors, they include planning, design, and operations & maintenance considerations, in addition to simply addressing the construction phase. Others that may be interested include commercial contractors; public works staff; landscape architects, designers, and contractors; planners; architects; engineers; natural resource managers; builders; developers.
Want these classes in your community? I am often willing to travel to some far-flung places in Oregon, Washington, and California to teach these classes to your audience. Contact me to discuss! (Prices vary depending on the overhead of the organization/institution offering the courses with me!) |
Dec 2
noon - 1:30 pm |
Free Learning Event: Ecoroof Construction. Explore the two tiny ecoroofs on the Green Girl home office. They're still exposed so you can see how we flashed them, dealt with drainage, what waterproof membrane we used and more. Plus, the friendly folks from Sunmark Envrionmental will be there after delivering the growing medium, so you can put your little paws all over that, too. And, maybe, I'll even have more native plants for you to check out, although, nothing but the sedums are really going to be anything to look at around this time of year.
For directions to my house, go to my Contact page.
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Dec 9
8:30 am - 5 pm |
Rain Garden Workshop for Landscape and Building Professionals. This hands-on course is designed for landscape contractors, designers and building contractors to give them the information they need to successfully incorporate rain gardens into their projects. More info here. Cost: $50
East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District 5211 N Williams Ave, Portland, OR 97217
(driving directions *** biking directions *** Tri-met) |
Jan 26
1 - 4 pm |
Sustainable Site Planning. This course serves as an upper level in-depth study of site planning so that contractors can learn to assess a site and apply best management practices to improve the short and long-term sustainability of new and remodeled sites. Students will get immediate hands-on experience in applying the learning outcomes. This course fulfills the CCB’s requirement for residential contractors for two hours of Sustainable Building Practices, plus one elective hour. Visit mhcc.edu/training for more information. Call 503 491-7235 to reserve your space now. More info here. Cost: $149
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus 10100 NE Prescott, Portland, OR
( driving directions *** biking directions *** Tri-met ) |
Jan 27
10 am - noon |
Best Practices for Sustainable Sites Under Construction. This course serves as an upper level in-depth study of how contractors can apply best management practices to protect natural resources.Sediment prevention and erosion control and limiting disturbance during construction will be emphasized. This course fulfills the CCB’s requirement for residential contractors for two hours of Sustainable Building Practices. Cost: $99
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus 10100 NE Prescott, Portland, OR
(driving directions *** biking directions *** Tri-met ) |
Feb 2
10 am - noon |
Site Strategies for Energy & Fuel Efficiency. This course serves as an upper level in-depth study of best management practices that can reduce demand for energy outside the building through sustainable landscape design, construction and operations and maintenance. This course fulfills the CCB’s requirement for residential contractors for two hours of Sustainable Building Practices. Cost: $99
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus 10100 NE Prescott, Portland, OR
(driving directions *** biking directions *** Tri-met ) |
Feb 16
10 am - 3 pm |
Rain Gardens 201 Technical Field Class. Learn how the sum of the parts (inlets, outlets, check dams, etc.) in a variety of vegetated stormwater facilities (rain gardens, bioswales, infiltration basins, green streets, planters) can be designed, constructed and maintained to improve or impact the watersheds in which we build them. This course fulfills the CCB’s requirement for residential contractors for two hours of Sustainable Building Practices, plus three elective hours. Cost: $249
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus 10100 NE Prescott, Portland, OR
(driving directions *** biking directions *** Tri-met ) |
Other's Events
| Date |
Time |
Location |
Topic |
Other Details |
Dec 10
8:30 am - 9:30 am |
Oregon Community Trees Tour. Learn more about how your urban forest benefits your environment, your health, and your pocketbooks. Join Todd Prager, the City Forester for Tigard and others for an enlightening tour of the Burnham Green Street and the Fanno Creek Park restoration efforts in Tigard.
Starts at the City of Tigard Library 13500 SW Hall Blvd, Tigard, OR (driving directions *** biking directions *** Tri-met ) |
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Learning Corner: Ecoroofs
Is this too much to read in the time you have? See below for the signage I'm putting in my yard on my ecoroofs to learn more.
I'm in the process of getting two little ecoroofs installed on the Green Girl home office (Get info on who, why, where, & what and see photos of installation of the tiny, complicated one here), so that's the focus of our learning corner this month. Many people believe that sustainable stormwater simply means that we should keep all our water on-site. If that means infiltrating 100% of our stormwater, then that's just as sustainable as harvesting it in a cistern, right? Umm... since this is the learning corner, I think you already know that I'm going to say, "Wrong".
In order to decide what's right for your region, you need to know the water balance of your hydrologic cycle. That means, on an average annual basis, you must determine how much of the average annual rainfall is in either the evaporation, infiltration or run-off process in the hydrologic cycle.
Each bioregion has it's own historic patterns of rainfall and subsequent rainfall "management" by the plants and animals that inhabit that bioregion. At Sprout's 2009 Phytoremediation conference, I heard Gerould Wilhelm of Conservation Design Forum from the Midwest talk about the predeveloped (i.e. "before") water balance for his bioregion. On an average annual basis, they receive 37" of rainfall a year, but his water balance was such that all 37" went back up into the air as evaporation every year, making it possible to wade across the Illinois River, just outside of Chicago. (Take a look at it today!) He mentioned a study from 1888 that observed a change in regional climate and fingered agricultural lands, which is just another form of developed land, as the culprits. Agricultural activites strip the native vegetation, push out native animal species, and constantly irrigate and turn the land. As a result, infiltration took over in the developed (i.e. "after") water balance model, evaporation dropped to a very small portion, and the regional climate responded.
Here in the Pacific NW, evaporation plays a key role in creating sustainable communities! In our historic, native landscapes, it was 40% of our annual water balance. (Infiltration was almost the rest of it - even in our clay soils -- with run-off being almost too small to assign a percentage to!) With paved surfaces, stripped landscapes, and compacted soils everywhere in urbanized areas (not just Portland but anywhere people have roads and houses), we are not seeing 40% of our average rainfall go back up into the air.
Evaporation is important because:
- Evapoation regulates our regional climate, which in turn regulates climate change at a larger scale.
- Evaporation cools the air and will protect air quality and community health as well as reduce public health care costs by reducing smog days.
- Evaporation cools the air and therefore the hot surfaces that runoff flows over, protecting the animals in our waterways from hot stormwater runoff. This also makes it easier to meet our regulatory requirements, which saves money on taxes.
- Evaporation cools the air to reduce air conditioning energy consumption. This saves money not just for individual's utility bills but also saves tax dollars (and many, many other natural resources) that would have to go towards building additional energy infrastructure.
- Evaporation stores water in the air, so that it may fall again as rain to generate a widely accessible resource.
- Evaporation is where 40% of the rain went historically and is what all the plants and animals have adapted to over geologic time, so it supports their habitat.
- If we ignore evaporation and infiltrate 100% of our stormwater in a watershed that's adapted to 60%, we could have soil instability in areas that weren't previously a problem. Also, we'll be sending more water to the streams as base flow than they received historically and could overload the soil with more water than it can convey to the streams generating runoff, eroding stream banks and destroying habitat in both cases.
Ecoroofs are one answer. In our region, ecoroofs evaporate at least 40% of the average annual rainfall they receive. If we could infiltrate the rest of the 60% of the runoff, then we'd have sustainable stormwater for all the building roofs that have ecoroofs. (Pavements probably cannot acheive sustainable stormwater, but more research is needed to find out how porous pavements might play a role in evaporation.)
Here's the signage I created to educate my neighbors, geared only towards the stormwater benefits, but they really are concerned and relatively well educated about flooding, stream bank erosion, and landslides, so that's why I appealed to them in this way. Click on it or here to get a pdf that you can actually read.
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| Swale Details |
The rain garden details were peer reviewed by civil engineers and landscape architects in both the private and public sectors, these standard details could be the basis for developing both county/city and site level stormwater management plans.These details are applicable to many different places, but information was developed under a NOOA Sea Grant to be specific to the Western Oregon.
See a description in last month's newsletter on the difference between rain gardens, planters, swales, and green streets.
SWAMP details by Green Girl LDS are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Essentially, this means you may use the details in any way you like, including for commercial use, as long as you're willing to share any derivative works that you create. You're supposed to give us credit, too, but that's not really necessary for the details we're supplying. |
Newsletter Crystal Ball |
There will be no newsletter in December, because you'll all be too busy to read one. See you in January when we'll talk about Stormwater Planters. |
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Oct 2010
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Publications & Resources
| Here's a goodie I worked: |
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Here's a goodie from other folks (that I didn't work on) that rock:
Avoiding Impacts to Nesting Birds During Construction & Revegetation Projects |
I recently attend an all day workshop on how construction and maintenance activities affect birds in Oregon. The take home message is that even common birds are becoming less common. We could use less insecticides and plant more native gardens with complex structures, but the take home message of this very useful guide on disturbance activities is that most birds in Willamette Valley (and I'm guessing a lot of Oregon) nest between Apr 15 and Jul 31, so if you don't want to think about it, don't prune or do invasive removal or clean your chimeny (buildings and structures provide habitat, too!) during this period. If you do want to think about it, there is LOTS of great guidance here that's worth having a look, even if you're just the average homeowner. Kudos to the City for bringing this kind of thoughtfulness to their capital improvement projects! |
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Green Girl Events
Events listed here are ones that I'll be presenting:
| Date |
Time |
Location |
Topic |
Other Details |
Wed
Oct 27 |
noon - 1pm |
Lucky Lab Hawthorne
915 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, OR
(503) 236-3555
driving directions
biking directions
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Sustainable Principles for Land Development |
This is my free (to anyone - just ask!) brown bag on the ecology of air, water, and land with an overview of a smattering of best management practices. Presented to the ASCE Oregon Chapter for their monthly meeting. |
Wed
Nov 3 |
10 am - noon |
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus
10100 NE Prescott
Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Best Practices for Sustainable Sites Under Construction |
This is a CCB approved class for continuing education credits for residential contractors, but would be of interest to many other folks.
Cost: $99
Download the flyer here. |
Wed
Nov 17 |
10 am - noon |
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus
10100 NE Prescott
Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Site Strategies for Energy and Fuel Efficiencys |
This is a CCB approved class for continuing education credits for residential contractors, but would be of interest to many other folks.
Cost: $99
Download the flyer here. |
Other's Events
| Date |
Time |
Location |
Topic |
Other Details |
Wed
Oct 27 |
4:30 - 6 pm |
UO Portland Center
70 NW Couch Street, Portland MAP IT! |
Salmon in the City 2010: Ecology + Urban Design |
a free public event highlighting recent innovations in ecologically sustainable design as well as the latest research on urban stormwater runoff and the fate of salmon. Wednesday, October 27, 4:30-7:00, at UO Portland White Stag Block. Includes wine tasting with Willamette Valley Vineyards. Presented by Salmon-Safe, University of Oregon, Metro, and Oregon DEQ. More information www.salmonsafe.org or 503-232-3750. |
Wed
Nov 11 |
6:30 pm |
South Waterfront Umpqua Bank in the John Ross Building
3606 SW Bond Ave.
Portland, OR |
Bird Safe Portland Presentation |
Portland is situated along the Pacific Flyway, a broad migration front that brings 209 species of both migrant and resident birds into our airspace. Though many of them are likely to stick to the forested uplands that flank the Willamette Valley, others are drawn into our urban landscape where they face an insidious hazard that is everywhere in the built environment: window glass.
Check out the design guidelines for bird safe buildings at the bottom of this page. |
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Learning Corner: Rain Gardens
There's a lot of confusion out there in terminology, so let's go over that super quick. A rain garden, to me, is any vegetated stormwater facility that:
- has side slopes (not vertical walls or curbs like most of the green streets you might see in Portland. Those are planters)
- ponds water to pass at least the water quality storm through a column of soil. (The water quality storm is the smallest 24-hour design storm that will scour pollutants from an impervious surface, or a portion of any storm larger)
Planters pond water, but have vertical side slopes created by walls or curbs. Swales are conveyance systems and provide much less water quality because stormwater runoff is simply passing over the structure of the plants rather than spending time in the soil where microbes eat hydrocarbons and plants take up pollutants via roots, etc. To improve their performance, people add check dams (there's a picture below) to pond water, turning it essentially into a series of smaller... you guessed it, rain garedens!
Here are some tidbits about vegetated stormwater facilities in general that apply to rain gardens that we talked about in the Rain Gardens 201 technical field classes that I facilitated in Portland this year (and will be doing again next year, hopefully in other cities throughout Oregon and Washington).
These trees will probably die because the new stormwater flows create a moisture regime that's a "shock to the system"
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This new green street was located under the canopy of existing and rather old trees. Experience has shown that when we significantly change the moisture regime of the soil that trees rely on, the trees die. This is because the tree established under one set of conditions and is now being stressed by another set of conditions.
Trees are the best, best management practice for stormwater and just about every other sustainability goal. Click here to get more info about the benefits of saving trees and how to do it. |
Runoff shortcutting the plants and the facility |
OK. This is really a planter (i.e. vertical side slopes, not 3:1 side slopes), but the discussion still applies!
Runoff entering the facility at the top of facility on the left is shortcutting through the middle and not spreading out over the facility. Distributing runoff throughout the entire bottom of the facility is important because polluted runoff receives the best treatment when it has the opportunity to infiltrate into the soil. This facility is probably not providing much filtration/water quality treatment because the plants aren't dense enough to force the water to flow through their structure, it's simply flowing between the plants. In dry weather, you can see rills where the mulch has disappeared and downcutting is happening in the soil.
Options for improving this facility include:
- Add check dams (see photo and further discussion below)
- Add more individual plants (aka plugs)
- Hydroseed with low-grow native seeds to cover entire bottom of facility with vegetation. This will hold the soil, eliminate the need for mulching, and provide much better water quality treatment but runoff must be diverted with sand bags until seed is established. Establishment will only occur when the soil temperature is high enough to sprout the seeds, so make sure you're doing this at the right time of the year for the seed you're using.
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OK. This is a planter, too. We'll talk in more detail about those next month!
Check dams (see arrow) spread out the flows out and greatly improve the ability of the facility to treat runoff through infiltration in the amended planting soil. This facility appears to be working pretty well. During a small storm, the first (picture) and third cells, which both have inlets, had water in them and the middle cell didn't have much, indicating that the check dam shown here was holding the water back behind it.
The most obvious indication that the facility was working though, was that water was flowing through the bottom of the catch basin via the perforated pipe at the bottom but the rim wasn't overflowing. |
 Check dams improve water quality treatment
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Rim not overflowing, filtered water from perforated pipe can be seen flowing in the bottom
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Clogged facility from clay re-sorting in the rain
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Fencing all areas of infiltration is critical to protecting it from foot and vehicular traffic that can occur during construction.
This facility, though, is clogged during construction because the clay soils have re-sorted themselves to the surface during a rain event. An up close look at the soils shows this:
A close up of what re-sorted clay looks like
If construction continues without addressing this, the facility will never infiltrate, because it was clogged at the native soil layer before any engineered planting soil was ever even added to bring it up to grade. Rake the surface a few inches deep to loosen soil before proceeding. Raking will also be needed if the rain garden is dug by hand since foot traffic in the facility area is probably unavoidable.
Henry Stevens from the City of Portland's Sustainable Stormwater division told me that instead of raking these, they ask the contractor to leave as much of the soil in place during construction and then overexcavate to the desired native soil elevation right before placing the engineered planting soil.
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| Rain Garden Details |
| The rain garden details were peer reviewed by civil engineers and landscape architects in both the private and public sectors, these standard details could be the basis for developing both county/city and site level stormwater management plans.These details are applicable to many different places, but information was developed under a NOOA Sea Grant to be specific to the Western Oregon.
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SWAMP details by Green Girl LDS are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Essentially, this means you may use the details in any way you like, including for commercial use, as long as you're willing to share any derivative works that you create. You're supposed to give us credit, too, but that's not really necessary for the details we're supplying. |
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Newsletter Crystal Ball |
Items coming up in next month's newsletter in mid-Nov include:
- Detailed description and construction photos of the tiny ecoroof going in over my porch and another larger tiny ecoroof going in over my kitchen nook.
- Stormwater planter details from my OSU SWAMP contract, open source and in the same formats as the rain garden details I released this month and the porous pavement details I released last month.
See you then! Until then, Happy Planet Saving! |
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Sept 2010
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Publications & Resources
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Green Girl Events
Events listed here are ones that I'll be presenting:
| Date |
Time |
Location |
Topic |
Other Details |
| Sept 22 |
10 am - 3pm |
meet at:
Multnomah Arts Center (front porch)
7688 Southwest Capitol Highway Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Rain Gardens 201 Field Class
(on foot) |
Go to my web page for LOTS more details and to register.
$75 for professionals, $40 for students and unemployed volunteers |
| Wed, Oct 6 |
10 am - 3pm |
meet at: Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus
10100 NE Prescott
Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions
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Rain Gardens 201 Field Class
(by carpool) |
There are new continuing education requirements for residential contractors and this class has been approved by the CCB. We'll be visiting more residential installations than the other classes I've held and will be in Gresham.
Cost: $275
Download the flyer here. |
| Wed, Oct 20 |
1 - 4pm |
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus
10100 NE Prescott
Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Sustainable Site Planning |
This is a CCB approved class for continuing education credits for residential contractors, but would be of interest to many other folks. It addresses practices for limiting disturbance and controlling erosion.
Cost: $149
Download the flyer here. |
| Wed, Nov 3 |
10 am - noon |
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus
10100 NE Prescott
Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Best Practices for Sustainable Sites Under Construction |
This is a CCB approved class for continuing education credits for residential contractors, but would be of interest to many other folks.
Cost: $99
Download the flyer here. |
| Wed, Nov 17 |
10 am - noon |
Mt. Hood Community College-Maywood Park Campus
10100 NE Prescott
Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Site Strategies for Energy and Fuel Efficiency |
This is a CCB approved class for continuing education credits for residential contractors, but would be of interest to many other folks.
Cost: $99
Download the flyer here. |
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Learning Corner: Porous Pavement Case Study at St. Andrew's Lutheran Church
I recently attended the ASCE Portland chapter's Sustainable Stormwater Symposium and was stunned to hear how many presenters discounted the use of porous pavements in clay/poorly drained soils. This is an effective approach to reduce runoff volumes in poorly drained soils and cost effective, too, compared to our other highly engineered non-infiltration volume reducing best management practices (BMPs) like rainwater harvesting and ecoroofs.
And on-site water quality treatment only simply isn't good enough! Additional runoff volumes and flow durations scour stream banks impacting water quality and habitat value downstream. Clay has the added advantage over well drained soils of increased retention time in the soil, providing a high level of water quality treatment.
Compared to other highly engineered infiltration BMPs, porous pavements have a very large infiltration area, usually equal to the area of pavement. This is significantly different from other infiltration BMPs in that we're not taking a whole bunch of runoff from one area and trying to cram it into a tiny little footprint.
One of my clients, St. Andrew's Lutheran Church is adding a little bit of building and lots of parking to their existing site plan. They've asked to me to help them investigate the applicability of porous pavement at their site. Here's some info that I generated for this project and an outreach effort for OSU Extension (SWAMP)! |
| Modeling |
| St. Andrews porous asphalt model.pdf |
This explains why we're considering porous pavement, what the benefits are to the project and the community, the results of infiltration testing performed by church volunteers and overseen by me, as well as how to model porous pavement with screen shots of the model I built in HydroCAD. |
| More modeling info |
A quick summary of modeling porous pavement offered by HydroCAD. |
| Additional Info |
| Porous pavement.pdf |
This is what else you need to know about the suitability of porous pavement.
This is a result of the SWAMPs outreach effort. It was written by Derek Godwin of OSU Extension and me and reviewed by a number of knowledgeable stakeholders.
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| Infiltration testing.pdf |
I refer to the Reduction Factor method in the St Andrews porous asphalt model.pdf above. Look on page 6 for more info on that. It's a handy post-hole perc test that can be done by volunteers and accounts for infiltration out the sides of the hole.
This is a result of the SWAMPs outreach effort. It was written by Derek Godwin of OSU Extension and me and reviewed by a number of knowledgeable stakeholders. |
| Porous asphalt specification |
UNH Stormwater Center has provided this porous asphalt spec for public consumption. |
| Porous Pavement Details |
The porous pavement details were peer reviewed by civil engineers and landscape architects in both the private and public sectors, these standard details could be the basis for developing both county/city and site level stormwater management plans.These details are applicable to many different places, but information was developed under a NOOA Sea Grant to be specific to the Western Oregon.
Standard Detail # |
Detail Title
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Detail formats available for download |
Additional sustainability & design considerations for modifying details |
Provides on-site water quality treatment? |
Provides regional water quality treatment?* |
Provides runoff reduction/ peak flow attenuation? |
For use in clay soils? |
Is this a UIC***
(Under-ground Injection Control)?
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| LID 5.01 |
Pervious Concrete Pavement |
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Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
| LID 5.02 |
Porous Asphalt Pavement |
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Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
| LID 5.03 |
Manufactured Permeable Pavers |
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Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
| LID 5.04 |
Salvaged and Poured Concrete Permeable Pavers |
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Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
| LID 5.05 |
Vehicular Permeable Paver Edges |
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Y |
N |
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* Any facility that only treats runoff and does not reduce runoff volumes, duration, and peak flows impacts regional water quality. The water leaving the site may be treated, but additional runoff volumes erode downstream stream banks to reintroduce sediments and potential pollutants to the stream. A "Maybe" in this column means that volume reduction will occur but may not be in sufficient quantities to prevent stream bank scouring. Click here to learn more about hydromodification from the EPA.
**Clay surface soils are acceptable, but some faster draining subsoils must be available for disposal.
*** A "Y" in this column means that no matter what, the facility is a UIC and must be rule authorized by the Oregon DEQ. An "N" in this column means that by itself, properly designed, this facility is not automatically a UIC. There are several things about the detail that could require review and/or rule authorization by the Oregon DEQ. See the table below.
| Rule authorization or review by DEQ may be required: |
To avoid rule authorization by DEQ: |
| The facility serves as pretreatment for another UIC such as a drywell or soakage trench. |
Cannot be avoided. This facility will be considered a part of the UIC that must be rule authorized. |
| The approved disposal point injects stormwater underground in any kind of facility. |
Make sure the approved disposal point is to either a public storm pipe or directly to surface waters. |
| The constructed facility is deeper than it is wide. |
Make sure the dimensions of your facility are wider than they are deep. This includes the dimensions of any newly constructed parts of the facility such as the engineered planting soil. |
| See UIC Regulations in individual fact sheets for other conditions that may cause review. |
See UIC Regulations in individual fact sheets for other design guidance on avoiding inadvertently creating UICs during design. |
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SWAMP details by Green Girl LDS are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Essentially, this means you may use the details in any way you like, including for commercial use, as long as you're willing to share any derivative works that you create. You're supposed to give us credit, too, but that's not really necessary for the details we're supplying. |
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June 2010
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Publications & Resources
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Green Girl Events
Events listed here are ones that I'll be presenting:
| Date |
Time |
Location |
Topic |
Other Details |
| Jun 3 |
10 am - 3pm |
meet at:
Portland Bicycle Tours
345 NW Everett St.
Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Rain Gardens 201 Field Class
(by bike) |
Go to my web page for LOTS more details and to register.
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| Jul 8 |
10 am - 3pm |
meet at:
Multnomah Arts Center (front porch)
7688 Southwest Capitol Highway Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Rain Gardens 201 Field Class
(on foot) |
Jul 19
NEW
DATE! |
10 am - 3pm |
meet at:
Multnomah Arts Center (front porch)
7688 Southwest Capitol Highway Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Rain Gardens 201 Field Class
(on foot) |
| Aug 5 |
10 am - 3pm |
meet at:
Portland Bicycle Tours
345 NW Everett St.
Portland, OR
driving directions
biking directions |
Rain Gardens 201 Field Class
(by bike) |
| Jul 13 |
9 - 10:30 am |
PCC Sylvania
12000 SW 49th Ave
Portland, OR 97219-7132
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Sustainable Land Development for Educators |
PCC Summer Sustainability Institute
This is my standard "Sustainable Principles for Land Development" presentation but dressed up for educators and complete with some project based activities to meet Oregon curriculum goals. |
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Learning Corner |
This is a tale of two bioswales both designed with the same intent and the same planting plan at the Mill Casino in Coos Bay. The original idea of the designer was to created densely vegetated swales for water quality treatment. These two rain gardens look and function differently because of the differing operations and maintenance regime between the two facilities.
 This rain garden is located at the entrance of the RV Park and we're guessing that's why the Mill Casino has chosen to mow this regularly and apply herbicides. The water coming out of this grassy swale looks clean, but we visited this site long after the water quality storm had already scoured pollutants from the drainage area and passed them through this system; therefore, the runoff entering the facility after that would be pretty clean - thus the whole idea behind defining the size of the "water quality storm". I didn't see a lot of sediment buildup here although the system does pond a little bit from some low centerline grades. Since sediment is where many pollutants attach themselves and since grass lays down when water flows over it, it's possible that this facility isn't retaining many pollutants. In fact, it's likely, since nitrogen and phosphorus are very mobile in these vegetated facilities, that it's adding pollution to the bay in the form of the herbicides being sprayed around the bottoms of the few plants they left at the top of the facility.
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 This rain garden is located in the back of the RV Park, where very few people will actually see it. The maintenance crew isn't mowing it or maintaining the plants much at all, which is as it should be. They added some check dams for some reason, though, which will make the original swale design function more like a rain garden and theoretically provide higher water quality treatment via additional sedimentation and infiltration. Unfortunately, they're not keeping the soil covered, so this ponded water is cloudy (aka "turbid") and reducing the capacity for cleansing. The good thing is that they're not applying herbicides directly to the plants around the facility. The bad news is, they're still applying pesticides to all the weeds in the parking lot upstream of this facility.
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SIMPLE AND COST EFFECTIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE THE FUNCTIONING OF BOTH THESE FACILITIES: Put more vegetation in the bottom of the facility where the water quality storm regulary flows and employ integrated pest management practices for all the areas in and draining to the rain gardens. Add check dams to the swale at the entrance to improve infiltration capacity and stop mowing it. |
| Green Girl News |
Here are all the things that I've been up to:
- I was invited by the Community and Continuing Education person at Mt. Hood Community College to put together some syllabi for residential contractors fullfilling their new continuing education credit requirements. I proposed four classes titled:
- Sustainable Site Planning (3 hours)
- Best Practices for Sustainable Sites under Construction (2 hours)
- Site Strategies for Energy and Fuel Efficiency (2 hours), and
- Rain Gardens 201 Field Class (5 hours) to be held in Gresham.
- I've been talking to other cities to take my Rain Gardens 201 technical field class on the road. Steve Fancher at Gresham is the first taker. If you know of other cities that might be interested in helping me locate their facilities and pursue grants to lower the cost, please get in touch with me.
- I'm finalizing a fiscal sponsorship agreement with the Oregon Environmental Council so I'll be able to accept tax deductible donations for my side project called exactly what it is: Sustainable Land Development Resources for Design and Deliverables. Someday, this will be a free, comprehensive online resource for designers and project managers that step them through how to successfully incorporate a particular best management practice into their design and deliverables.
- I'm being videoed next week by Jen Seamans of the Southwest Watershed Resource Center to talk to homeowners in the southwest about what they can do to steward stormwater in a watershed graced by many miles of remaining streams not yet piped by development and challenged by high water tables, clay soils, and steep slopes.
- I presented my Sustainable Principles for Land Development to the Stormwater Solutions participants in Coos Bay last week and then stayed for a presentation on Port Orford's new stormwater ordinance. The most facinating thing about this presentation was how the outreach was conducted. Here's a recent writeup I shared on EPA's NPSINFO listserv:
I recently attended a presentation in Southern Oregon. Port Orford, a small town on the coast, set about adopting a new, LID based stormwater ordinance because they had very little infrastructure to receive runoff and wanted to protect their fishing industry, among other reasons. A city/NGO cooperative outreach effort was undertaken. Most people don’t use the internet much in this town, I suspect, because the economy is based on hard physical labor done in the outdoors, so the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team, (the NGO for outreach), used other methods too:
- They employed a “sense of place” in their outreach, stressing the “Land-Sea Connection”
- A newspaper article with Briana, the outreach coordinator’s, photograph spurred a lot of informal outreach and education. People would stop her in the street and ask to talk to her about the impact of stormwater on their town.
- They held a town hall, but recognized that people don’t like to go to extra meetings, so they had presentations that they brought to numerous civic groups’ regular meetings (the Rotary, watershed councils, etc.).
- They placed a “one-pager” at 5 local businesses that everybody visits.
- They ordered free material from the EPA. Specifically, I remember Briana mentioned bookmarks that they put in their public library next to all the other bookmarks.
They probably did some other things, but I didn’t get those jotted down. The point is, even developers in the town were consulted, and the stormwater ordinance was passed without one negative comment from any community member and passed unanimously by the City Council.
Oregon’s coastal communities are a string of small towns with populations of less than 10,000 with a similar reliance on natural resources, not computers, for their collective livelihoods. While I’m not denying that you can reach many people by the internet each community will be best served by a mix of outreach styles. I heard once there are 14 different ways that people learn something. That means we need 14 different ways of offering information if we want to not only reach, but also convince our audience that we’re offering information on practices that are good for everyone.
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May 2010
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New Website Formatting
The color of my website has been a recent "hot topic". Sue Lambe of Austin, TX just sent me a YouTube video debunking the whole idea that websites with a black background save energy, so now I can revamp the website without guilt AND it'll be easier for everyone to read. Since I do the website myself and website formatting is boring, this will be a slow (and painful) process, but it's coming! |
Publications & Resources
| Here are some goodies I worked on: |
| Oregon Environmental Council LID Brochure: Let the Oregon Environmental Council make the argument for green infrastructure. |
This outreach effort is geared towards developers, agencies, designers, planners and others and gives an overview of low impact development (LID), which is an approach to managing stormwater that mimics natural hydrology.
Here's a link directly to the brochure that I helped with as one of my contracts last year:
LID: Protecting Oregon's waters as we grow.
Here's a link to their resource page: OEC LID Resources. |
| Oregon State University Raingarden Calculator |
It slices! It dices! It calculates the size of your rain garden (or planter or green street or swale) almost magically. Size DOES matter, so click here to size your rain garden online. |
| Here something that I had nothing to do with but thought might interest you: |
| Center for Neighborhood Technology Toolbox |
This is a toolbox of goodies for evaluating energy, carbon footprints, stormwater, transportation & community development.
The most often cited tool that people ask me if I know about is the Green Values Stormwater Calculator, which will generate estimates of runoff reduction (which may not be correct for our region) and the cost of installing an array of different facilities, which I think could be more accurate for our region. |
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Green Girl Events
Events listed here are ones that I'll be presenting:
| May 6 |
10 am - 3pm |
meet at:
Multnomah Arts Center (front porch)
7688 Southwest Capitol Highway Portland, OR
Driving Directions
Biking Directions |
Rain Gardens 201 Field Class |
The first class on Apr 1 by bike was very well received.
Go to my web page for LOTS more details and to register. |
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| May 11 |
5:30 pm |
Group Mackenzie Offices
RiverEast Center
1515 SE Water Avenue, Suite 100
Portland, OR
Driving Directions
Biking Directions |
Sustainability Considerations for Raingardens |
This is the monthly meeting of the ASLA's Portland Chapter, free for members of the ASLA and $20 for non-members. |
| May 26 |
9 am - 10 am |
Mill Casino
3201 Tremont Avenue
North Bend, OR 97459
Driving Directions |
Sustainable Principles for Land Development |
9 am - 1pm, followed by an optional site visit
Cost: $10.00 includes lunch
Speakers: I will explain the principles and practices of low-impact development from the perspective of an experienced green project manager with a background in civil engineering design.
David Holman, Port Orford Planning Commission
Harry Hoogesteger, South Coast Watershed Councils
And more…
To register, visit www.oeconline.org/stormwater |
| I have 4 additional Rain Garden 201 field classes available. |
Other Events
Events listed here are events that I'm helping promote but am not presenting.
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Photos of the Month
I planted this little native bulb in partly shady part of my yard a few months ago and this little yellow flower popped up recently. Should've saved the bag so I could tell you the name of it, but there are lots of beautiful natives to choose from.
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Rainwater harvesting for a doggy dish -- this made me laugh, so I thought I would share it. |
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| Apr 2010 |
| Due to a death in the family, I didn't get a newsletter our in April. |
Mar 2010
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Publications & Resources
| This info is from Derek Godwin of OSU Extension Service. |
Text by Robert Emanuel and Derek Godwin, Oregon Sea Grant Extension, Oregon State University (OSU); and Candace Stoughton, East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District, The Oregon Rain Garden Guide
Or purchase a hard copy at OSU's e-Commerce site. Click on OSG then it’s listed under Publications – Social Sciences. This is where folks can go if they would like to place an online order for a hard copy. It’s priced at $4.95 per copy plus s/h. You may want to contact Teresa Huntsinger in case she has a free copy still available. |
| I have hard copies of this handy publication, so let me know if you'd like one. |
Oregon State University Extension Service . "Tree protection on construction and development sites." Jan 2010. |
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Green Girl Events
Events listed here are ones that I'll be presenting.
Other Events
Events listed here are events that I'm helping promote but am not presenting.
Mar 16 - 17
Mar 31 - Apr 1 |
I attended a GREAT technical bioretention class at the WSU Extension in Puyallup just south of Tacoma last month. There's something to be learned for anybody that designs, constructs, or operates vegetated stormwater management facilities. There are still 2 sessions left in March that are worth attending. More info here. |
Jun 2 &
Jun 3 |
10 am - 4 pm
8:30 am - 3 pm
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Tour of J. Frank Schmidt & Son Nursery and Arboretum, Boring OR
Conference at Oregon Garden Resort, Silverton OR
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Seed to City: The Journey of an Urban Tree |
Cost
Early Registration (before May 1) - $99 both days, $60 one day
Early Student Registration - $45 both days, $30 one day
Late Registration (after April 30) - $129 both days, $75 one day
Late Student Registration - $50 - both days, $35 one day
This conference is presented by my friends at Oregon Community Trees and Oregon Department of Forestry. |
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Green Girl Forthcoming Goodies
SWAMP: For the last few months, I've been working for the Oregon State University SEAGrant Extension Service on their SWAMP (StormWater Assessment and Management Protocol) outreach materials for coastal communities with populations under 10,000 people. When we wrap this baby up, there'll be lots of general information applicable to any community in Oregon, including:
- a design calculator for sizing structural facilities (rain gardens, filter strips, porous pavements, etc)
- lots of in-depth fact sheets on those structural faciltiies
- fact sheets on sustainability considerations of the planning, design, construction, and operations & mainteance phases
- AutoCAD details with guidance about why all those little pieces and parts of the different facilities are important and how changing them might impact the ecosystem services provided by the facility
- other stuff listed on their website
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| Metro's Connect the Drops: I'll be out and about clicking photos of low impact development (aka green stormwater management) facilities to help with Metro's Connect the Drops. Soon you'll be able to access general information on over 250 facilities throughout the Portland metro region. |
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Photo(s) of the Month
After living in southwest Portland for over 5 years, I finally visited the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge (19255 SW Pacific Hwy Sherwood, OR 97140) . I was impressed with their... get ready for it... no really... their... benches. There are four different bench designs for four different habitats. To me, the measure of a project's sustainability is whether everything that goes into it does more than one thing. These benches are a wonderfully practical and artistic way to subconsciously educate the public.
 
 
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| Feb 2010 |
Publications & Resources
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Green Girl LDS Forthcoming Goodies
SWAMP: For the last few months, I've been working for the Oregon State University SEAGrant Extension Service on their SWAMP (StormWater Assessment and Management Protocol) outreach materials for coastal communities with populations under 10,000 people. When we wrap this baby up, there'll be lots of general information applicable to any community in Oregon, including:
- a design calculator for sizing structural facilities (rain gardens, filter strips, porous pavements, etc)
- lots of in-depth fact sheets on those structural faciltiies
- fact sheets on sustainability considerations of the planning, design, construction, and operations & mainteance phases
- AutoCAD details with guidance about why all those little pieces and parts of the different facilities are important and how changing them might impact the ecosystem services provided by the facility
- other stuff listed on their website
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| Rain Garden Field Class: I'm developing a rain garden (aka green streets, planters, vegetated infiltration basins, etc) field class to teach designers, contractors, project managers, planners, and anyone else who cares about the importance of detailing in their designs, construction practices, and operations & maintenance plans. For an example of the kind of information you'll learn, you can take a look at web page I put together. If you learn something new while reading it, you should consider joining us because there's a lot more where that came from! Stay tuned! |
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This web site was designed with a black background and white text because a rumor was spread by Blackle that it reduced greenhouse gas emissions, but that turned out to be a big fat lie debunked by actual experimentation AND... people had trouble reading my website, so I changed it to white. It's still hosted by Dreamhost, a carbon neutral company. Please consider the environment when printing this or mailing me things or traveling to see me for a meeting or... ohhhh, just do your best and change your practices when you learn something new.