Green Streets will Remove 60 million Gallons of Stormwater from Sewers

By Maria Thi Mai

Beginning in the fall of 2005, Commissioner Sam Adams charged City SW 12th & Montgomery Street Plantersbureaus with creating a programmatic approach to implementing Green Streets as part of all road projects. This resulted in a Phase 1 Report (completed March 2006) which identified opportunities and challenges to implementing solutions.

Sam led City Council efforts to draft a Green Streets Resolution which will be presented to Council early 2007. This resolution officially adopts the Green Streets Policy: promote and incorporate the use of Green Streets to manage stormwater, enhance neighborhood livability and improve the function of the right of way, provide habitat corridors, and promote connectivity between Portland neighborhoods.

Stormwater management matters to all of us because we all live in a watershed…

NE Siskiyou Stormwater Curb ExtensionBefore Portland was developed, forests and open spaces absorbed rainwater. Today, rain falls on buildings, streets, sidewalks, and other hard surfaces and runs off into rivers and streams. If not managed properly, stormwater can carry sediment, oil, metals and other pollutants into our rivers and streams.

Green Streets help the City of Portland comply with pollution preventionSE 21st and Tibbets (at People's Co-op) and resource protection regulations by managing water at its source. Green Streets process stormwater in a way that mimics nature — just as forests and open spaces once did. The soil and vegetation slows stormwater runoff, filters out pollutants and allows it soak into the ground, enhancing watershed health by improving water quality, recharging groundwater and reducing the amount of stormwater entering Portland's rivers and streams. In our urban areas alone these facilities have been shown to retain more than 90% of our total annual rainfall.

These popular designs, recognized nationally by the American Society of L NE Siskiyou Standscape Architects (ASLA) receiving a 2006 Honor Award, not only manage stormwater, but enhance the streetscape through added vegetation and decreased pavement. The multi-objective benefits also result in improved pedestrian environments, cooling of the air and water, greenspace linkages for pedestrians and bicyclists and increased opportunities for habitat.