Worth Noting - August 2016

People/Awards; Learning Opportunities; Calendar

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PEOPLE/AWARDS

The town of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, hired Bill Squires as Public Works director and Jonathan Babin as assistant Public Works director.

Aaron Koch, a Chicago Water Department official who developed the Chicago Green Stormwater Strategy, has been named the city’s chief resilience officer. He will address emergency preparedness, public safety and community development in collaboration with departments and agencies across the city. Koch will work to ensure the city can respond to and recover from shocks, such as flooding or blizzards.

The city of Bellevue received a $794,293 grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology to improve water quality at Bellevue Downtown Park. The grant funding will go specifically to retrofitting the park with water-quality treatment and flow control for stormwater runoff. The funding comes from Washington’s Stormwater Financial Assistance Program, which funds stormwater facilities and “activities that have been proven effective at reducing environmental degradation from stormwater impacts resulting from existing infrastructure and development.”

Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, received the 2016 Environmental Partnership Award from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Under the leadership of Marshall’s environmental specialist Travis Bailey, the university has made serious strides to improve the region’s water quality through its stormwater program, according to Matt Collier, environmental inspector for WVDEP.

The Delaware Water Infrastructure Advisory Council awarded a Surface Water Matching Planning Grant to Dewey Beach in the amount of $50,000. The proposal submitted by Dewey Beach to the council calls for innovative stormwater management practices and living shoreline techniques to help attenuate erosive wave energy and reduce sediment and nutrient loads into Rehoboth Bay.

A University of Texas-Arlington student team’s design to reduce stormwater runoff that could result from future campus construction projects has won a national Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water Award as part of the agency’s 2015 Campus RainWorks Challenge. The College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs team included landscape architecture graduate students Baishaki Biswas, Sherry Fabricant, Jacob Schwarz and Ahoura Zandiatashbar. Their winning entry in the Master Plan category was called “Eco-Flow: A Water-Sensitive Placemaking Response to Climate Change” and centered on water runoff rates at sites of potential UTA student living, dining, recreation and parking facilities.

A regional coalition of 30 cities and towns in Massachusetts will receive $50,000 in state funding to help them comply with upcoming federal requirements for managing stormwater, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced. The Central Massachusetts Regional Stormwater Coalition will use the money to provide training and technical assistance to communities to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s MS4 (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System) permit.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

American Water Works Association

AWWA is offering a webinar titled “What You Need to Know About Climate Risks to Water Utility Infrastructure and Assets” on Nov. 30. Visit www.awwa.org.

Wisconsin

The University of Wisconsin Department of Engineering-Professional Development is offering “Using WinSLAMM v. 10.2: Meeting Urban Stormwater Management Goals R324” on Oct. 6-7 in Madison. Visit epdweb.engr.wisc.edu.


CALENDAR

  • Aug. 14-18 Geo-Chicago 2016: Sustainability, Energy and the Geoenvironment, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, Chicago, Illinois. Visit www.asce.org.
  • Aug. 22-25 StormCon, Indiana Convention Center, Indianapolis, Indiana. Visit www.stormcon.com.
  • Aug. 22-25 National Association of Flood and Stormwater Management Agencies 2016 Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon. Visit www.nafsma.org.
  • Aug. 28-31 American Public Works Association International Public Works Congress and Exposition, Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Visit www.apwa.net.
  • Sept. 6-9 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers International Drainage Symposium, The Commons Hotel, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Call 612/624-4230 or visit www.asabe.org.
  • Sept. 12-14 National Rural Water Association WaterPro Conference, Orlando, Florida. Visit www.nrwa.org.
  • Sept. 24-28 Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference, New Orleans Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, Louisiana. Visit www.weftec.org.
  • Sept. 28-Oct. 1 American Society of Civil Engineers 2016 Convention, Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon. Call 800/548-2723 or visit www.asce.org.
  • Nov. 13-17 American Water Resources Association 2016 Annual Conference, Florida Hotel and Conference Center, Orlando, Florida. Visit www.awra.org.
  • April 23-26 (2017) American Public Works Association 2017 North American Snow Conference, Iowa Events Center, Des Moines, Iowa. Visit www.apwa.net.
  • April 30-May 3 (2017) American Water Resources Association 2017 Spring Specialty Conference, Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Snowbird, Utah. Visit www.awra.org.


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