Sustainable Stormwater Management System
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Government
Atlanta Installing Sustainable Storm Water System Near Turner Field
In hard-pressed neighborhoods south of Turner Field, Atlanta is quietly installing a sustainable storm water management system.
A storage vault for storm water runoff was installed beneath the media parking lot at Turner Field as part of the sustainable storm water management planned for Peoplestown. Credit: Donita Pendered
The planned system is based on a premise similar to the one that resulted in the water feature at the Old Fourth Ward Park, along the Atlanta BeltLine. As with the park pond fed by Clear Creek, the idea is to detain and filter runoff rather than direct it into the city's sewage system.
In Peoplestown, one of three neighborhoods in progress, the city's plan envisions a storm water management system that will use permeable pavers, bio-swales, detention ponds and storage vaults to capture from 10 million to 30 million gallons of storm water.
The project precedes the Atlanta Braves announcement that it was moving to Cobb County, and Mayor Kasim Reed's subsequent proposal to sell the field and related properties to a developer.
The sustainable storm water management system that's to be installed in Peoplestown, Mechanicsville and Summerhill, seems likely to put the area at the forefront of a national effort to improve sustainability when it comes to storm water runoff.
For more than a decade, landscape architects and engineers across the country have tried to figure out ways to treat storm water runoff without flowing it into overworked sewage treatment plants.
The storm water pond at Historic Fourth Ward Park detains runoff in a sustainable storm water management program similar to the one Atlanta's installing near Turner Field, in Peoplestown. File/Credit: Donita Pendered
The issue is complicated by the fact that runoff can be hazardous. It contains more than water, given that runoff flows across lawns that have been fertilized, parking lots and streets spotted with various petrochemicals, not to mention animal waste.
Atlanta embraced this sustainable approach at the Historic Fourth Ward Park and saved an estimated $15 million, compared to the cost of installing a traditional sewage system to accommodate rain events in the Clear Creek basin.
For a total cost of about $50 million, the city built a 17-acre gem of a park along the BeltLine. The water feature has become an aesthetic amenity, though the purpose of Atlanta's investment of $13 million in constructing the pond and related features was to ease storm water issues.
Margaret Tanner, a deputy commissioner in Atlanta's Office of Watershed Protection, presented the latest portion of the Peoplestown program at the July 15 meeting of the Atlanta City Council's Utilities Committee.
Storm water needs to be treated because it picks up hazards, such as fluids that leak from vehicles in this parking area at Turner Field. Credit: Donita Pendered
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- Stormwater