Florida Stormwater Pond Provides Amazing Communal and Foraging Habitat for Migratory Birds

Stormwater ponds can provide amazing habitat for wildlife.  Over the years I've heard numerous reasons by well-meaning regulatory staff for not planting wetland trees and plants around stormwater ponds.  Arguing stormwater ponds contain toxins and pollutants, Water Management District staff balked at allowing littoral shelf plantings, fearful of attracting birds.

Florida Stormwater ponds planted with cypress along littoral shelves

Being out in the field as often as I am though, it was easy to see that regardless of plantings or no plantings, migratory birds would show up.

Florida Stormwater ponds create an important ecosystem i the Urban Core

The following series of photographs are of a marvelous stormwater pond in St. Augustine planted with cypress and other aquatic plants.  I was totally amazed at the sheer number and variety of birds utilizing the facility for communal and foraging habitat.  

Brown Pelican fishing the Stormwater Pond

I suggest stormwater ponds are going to be visited by migratory and local birds regardless of littoral shelf plantings.  So if the birds are coming, might as well allow littoral plantings and provide much needed habitat within the urban core.

Anhingas, and Wood Ducks utilize the Urban Core water body

Florida Stormwater Ponds provide habitat for Herons with lots of fish

Florida Stormwater Ponds and Wood Ducks

Anhingas are skilled Stormwater Pond fishers

Roseate Spoonbill rests in Florida Stormwater Pond cypress

Florida Stormwater Pond and Canadian Geese

Seeagulls also visit Florida Stormwater Ponds

Florida Stormwater Ponds provide habitat for Marsh Hens and Coots

Wetland Trees in Stormwater Ponds provide roosts for Herons

Robins fill the trees around Stormwater Ponds

Florida Forebay Wetland Cleans Stormwater and Provides Landscape

Our Stormscrubber wetland has passed its eighteen month install date anniversary and still providing successful stormwater treatment, storage and landscape credit.

We installed the StormScrubber in May 2009 on the site of an upscale cafe in the Springfield Historic restoration district in Jacksonville, Florida.

The prior to the install, the site had serious flooding and stormwater problems.

The StormScrubber Wetland solved the stormater runoff issue and provided landscape beauty and credit all in  one package.

The site presented several significant issues.  There was the potential for system clogging because of the sandy and silty nature of the soils.  A permeable paver system using historic bricks was installed to direct the stormwater into the wetland system.

The wetland was planted with Florida native species that could tolerate both inundation and drought.

The wetland system incorporates a special self pruning system to keep roots from filling up the infiltration-void storage chamber.


To date the StormScrubber has preformed as expected, cleaning runoff, storing the rainwater underground and using the collected stormwater to irrigate the landscape feature plant species.

The new paradigm in site design is the combination of landscape units with rainwater storage.  Call us today for more information on how Green and Sustainable BMPs can help maximize your project's design efficiency.

StormScrubber 2009

StormScrubber 2010

Living Walls Remove NItrogen and Phosphorous, Provide Beauty & O2

RJ and I built and installed these two living walls for a downtown Jacksonville, Florida restaurant - Indochine.

Based upon Atlantis technology ACF's Green and Sustainability team has developed systems that can remove nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus from stormwater.  Integrating plants into available structural Atlantis components and incorporating geosynthetic fabrics, sorptive media, organic carbon sources and other components.

Volumetric Green for the Urban Core!

Cleaning Stormwater, Providing Habitat and Creating a Sense of Place!

Email us by clicking here.  We will be glad to help you out on your Sustainable or Green projects!

Living Walls Remove NItrogen and Phosphorous

Living Walls are a great way to; Clean site runoff and site roof runoff, create vertical green habitat for lizards, frogs and other green - height dependent species, and are beautiful.  The hydroponic systems can incorporate sorptive media - a variety of medias are available - some attracting N, others P - these systems are built around the Atlantis 52mm cell panel.  CallRJ or I today!

Foating Wetlands Remove Nitrogen and Phosphorus from Gainesville, Florida Stormwater Pond

Pictured below is the  Floating Wetland in Tumblin Creek Park, Gainesville, Florida.  The system is fashioned around a 53mm recycled PPE platform - and contains Florida Native Aquatic plants.

The root mass below the platform cleans water with a variety of mechanisms, including - expansive root system surface area for microbes to digest nutrients, and for the plants themselves to uptake the nutrients and sequester in upper leaf biomass.  The biomass is then harvested annually.

University of Florida scientists are studying the platforms to determine the efficiency of the systems and test results are extremely positive.  Call Kevin for more information today!

Cleaning Oil Out of Florida's Waterways

Photo here is of oil sheen coming into marsh and wetland areas.  The worker has deployed what is commonly referred to as Pom Pom Booms.  The Pom Pom Booms primarily act as containment buffers.  At some point int he future we may be seeing oil up in Florida's fresh water systems, including springs.  We will be exploring how floating wetland systems can possibly absorb and clean oil contained water and keep you up to date on the results.  We use floating wetlands to clean stormwater - how about for cleaning Oil Spills?

Atlantis Gro-Wall!

A beautiful way to clean stormwater, create wildlife habitat in the urban core and provide a sense of place for humans, the Atlantis Gro-Wall is the best living wall system available today!  Call Kevin or RJ for more information! 904-294-2656

Launching 3 Floating Wetlands at UF - Floating Wetlands and Clean Water

Launching 3 ACF Floating Wetlands in Gainesville March 2010

Click the above link for the video!

Seattle's New Streetside Stormwater Designs

Great article here - click here -  on using roadside swales & wetlands for stormwater treatment. 

Also be sure to check out the design guidelines found on the second page of the article.  Excellent resource! 

Importance of Capturing the First Flush of Stormwater - Florida's Stormwater

Here is a picture of the stormwater ditch running alongside Dean Road in Jacksonville, Florida last week after a short rainfall event - probably less than one half inch total.  Notice the obvious oil and grease sheen across the surface of the water.  The distance from the particular spot the photo was taken to the St. Johns River tributaries is very short - less than a mile.

Capturing the first flush of stormwater running off any road or street is crucial.  Modular Wetlands and streetside landscaping are excellent ways to employ plants in preventing pollution.

Most of us don't realize how much the first flush carries into our stormsystems.  Intercepting the pollution at the source is important.

Nutrients in Stormwater - Article from the Miami Herald

Many views exist on nutrients in stormwater - the causes, the solutions, the impacts and more.  I believe it is always good to read and understand different perspectives.   The Miami Herald Article here contains many thoughts - and depending upon how the reader makes his or her livelihood and their respective eco-political views - they may or may not agree.

Miami Herald Article - NEW EPA WATER RULES WORTH EVERY PENNY

However, we here in Florida will be faced with a new statewide Unified Stormwater Rule this year and/or EPA's version of the same.

As Floridians, we should take the time to understand the factors contributing to how our rivers and lakes and waterbodies became the focus of environmental attention, and become proactive in keeping our natural resources in a healthy state - leave our planet a better place than when we arrived.

Environmental responsibility and clean water - lets all do our part - beginning wiht uinderstanding the issues...

Kevin

Curbs and Stormwater - Options for Swale Treatment

During a meeting in Orange Park, FLorida this morning a senior PE expressed her dismay at Landscape Architectural review by cities and municipalities and the requirement for curbs.

Acknowledging safety issues, those involved in the discussion all agreed ways of routing stormwater directly into swales for quality and quantity treatment was an important part of sustainable stormwater BMP design.

Having read the recent article on how Philadelphia is proposing to use stormwater for urban landscape irrigation (great article) - I mentioned the program and passed along the link to the resource.

I am always looking at the design of new plant-based stormwater technologies and whenever I happen across the successful integration of landscape and stormwater I take pictures and share here on the blog.

The photos here are of the stormwater treatment system in the UNF visitors parking lot adjacent the nature center. Stormwater flows from the parking lot, interestingly adjacent to an ADA ramp into a curb lined swale within the interior of the parking lot. The stormwater both infiltrates into the ground under the swale and flows down-gradient into a central landscape island doubling as a pond.

Curb cuts along the gradient allow stormwater to enter the swale from the asphalted parking lot.

One idea for carrying the design to the next level would be the installation of a non-woven geosynthetic wrapped underground volume storage system under the swale. OF course, groundwater levels dictate the quantity of underground storage, however I have seen systems with H-20 loading capabilities (Atlantis Drain Cell) that are only 2" in thickness - ranging up to several feet (stackable).

Stormwater, Landscape and Parking combined - the new paradigm in site design.

Kevin

Tussocks - Floating Wetlands - Cleaning Waterbodies

Sometimes answers to complicated problems can be very simple. RJ & I were attending another Stormwater/Clean Water Trade show recently. New mechanical devices designed to treat stormwater adorned almost every booth. There were Jellyfish and Hippos (literally) and ground up rubber tires and pumps and valves and everything mechanical and everything expensive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpHHUg59q90

RJ turned to me after I commented on how the need for clean water was driving all kind of mechanical inventions and noted... 'but God has made the best process for removing pollutants - Plants!'

I couldn't agree more. Sometimes we are fixated on long equations and electrically driven motors with pumps and gadgets for removing those pollutants made with the same motors, pumps and gadgets - from our stormwater.

Maybe the simple, cost effective answer lies in Plants. I think RJ has a point.



Check out the video of the floating tussocks RJ and I built for a pond on a golf course in St. Augustine, Florida. The severe cold (low 20's) we had lately bit the canna back a little, but they are growing rapidly, drinking up the fertilizer runoff as quickly as it finds the way off the fairway into the waterbodies.

Simple technology. Use Florida native species - allow the cleansing and removal process to work, harvest the biomass and reuse as compost/mulch somewhere else on site. Cleans the water and saves Florida's cypress trees from being ground into landscape mulch.

Simple. Cost-effective. Why aren't we as a State using these tussocks?

The 0h Decade...and Stormwater

An Interesting Perspective and Commentary on Stormwater and the New Year (Decade)..

Below is an excerpt from the Sacremento Bee..

We must develop new, innovative sources of water supply, including massive groundwater recharge, the complete reuse of treated wastewater, local rainwater harvesting and environmentally and economically sound desalination of both seawater and brackish water. We must price water properly to encourage efficient use and appropriate allocation. And we must reform and enforce water rights allocations.

To read the entire article click the LINK...

Kevin

Slow it, Spread it, Sink it (it = stormwater), LID and Green Streets - Click Here

Slow, it, Spread it, Sink it. Stormwater needs to go back into the ground, as most did before development occurred.

Click on the Title here for an attached newsletter from San Mateo, an example of a municipality utilizing green design practice to keep pollutants and nutrients out of the adjoining estuary.

Slow it, Spread it, Sink it.

San Mateo has a great LID Design Manual full of ideas and design drawings. Due to the manual's size, I've divided up the chapters and in some instances the pages and included all into a folder. Click on the link and open each chapter as needed.

Excellent design examples can be found throughout the entire manual. Let me know if you find the information useful - you can email me - ksonger@acfenvironmental.com

Cellular Confinement Systems for Pervious Roadways, Parks, Streets, Parking Lots and Sustainability

Cellular Confinement Systems were refined by the U.S. Corps of Engineers and today offer an option of creating structural, pervious Green Roads, Parking Lots, Fire Access Lanes and more.

The Cellular Confinement System Design Guideline Brochure found at the link to the right (pdf file) provides information on how these systems can be used.

I was fortunate to spend the day recently with Hadas Levin of PRS, a cellular systems manufacturer.

Importantly, cellular confine systems can be used to produce pervious surfaces using the native soil - crushed and recycled asphalt - recycled concrete - fill from the site. In other words, there is usually no need to haul away excavated material - even though the excavated material may have a lower quality.

Furthermore, the system may be used to build tall, vertical living walls with a very small footprint.

Check out the attached design guideline for additional sustainable ideas!

Functioning and Beautiful Wetland Created in an Upland - UF's Teaching Wetland by Dr. Mark Clark

If you haven't had the opportunity to visit the teaching wetland/stormwater pond at UF then be sure to walk the boardwalk through the system next time you are on the UF campus.

The SEEP Wetland is a creation of Dr. Mark Clark's and is truly a work of science and art. Many of you have heard my comments on just how hard it is to create a wetland in an upland area without existing hydrology. Florida's rainfall totals may hit the 50"+ mark every year. However the storms creating 50" of rainfall usually occur with unpredictable timing - sometimes we have several months of intense drought. Without native groundwater, surfacewater or other water supply, created wetlands tend to "dry up" and die...But not at the UF SEEP!

Mark designed the system with three major components, including a shallow forebay catching every little bit of precipitation. And the design is working, growing, cleaning stormwater, providing habitat for wildlife and a sense of place for people.

Perfect for bring back volumetric green to the Urban Core.

Stormwater Brings Beauty - Cypress & Stormwater Treatment

The above Stormwater Pond was constructed and planted in 1996 and is celebrating 13 years of existence. The cypress were about three years old when planted so they are approximately 16 years old now. Cypress was chosen due to a low leaf litter rate (it is one of my favorite trees), its ability to withstand drought and floods, & because Florida's wildlife utilizes the tree for food and shelter.

When we looked at the site initially there were no wetlands or native water sources available - no surface water or groundwater to hydrate a constructed wetland. During design the team integrated a system that allows enough water to be conserved in the pond to allow for wetland plant establishment and provide an anaerobic environment capable of allowing denitrification.

The site here is downtown Tallahassee near the corner of Park Avenue and Magnolia Drive - the City of Tallahassee allowed the developer more site development density in exchange for a created wildlife habitat - the new paradigm in site development - combination of landscape and stormwater.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however I'd say this small cypress wetland provides wonderful landscape beauty along with habitat where habitat is needed and especially clean water! With the new Florida Unified Stormwater Rule coming up soon, maybe more and more of these created wetlands will be built, serving to remove pollutants and nutrients, clean stormwater, provide habitat and a sense of place in the Urban Core.

Atlantis Green City Video Clip - Great Green and Sustainable BMP and Site-Building Design Video

Though the above video is longer, the information contained within on Green Cities and what I call volumetric and vertical green - make it well worth the time taken to view the information.

You can call 800-448-3636 for additional information on all of Atlantis' products.

Living Walls by Atlantis Corp of Australia - Vertical Green

Here is an interesting video of Atlantis Water Management System's Living Wall Concept. The design is solid, especially as the frame is made from 95% Post-Consumer recycled material - good LEED Compliant stats.

There are a few options I'd recommend - such as setting the living wall frame off from the stucco wall by at least 4 - 6 inches and seal any penetrations for anchors with a good low VOC sealant. Add a moisture/water barrier such as a HDPE sheet to the back of the vegetated frame.

Irrigation concept is good too, however I'd certainly add the irrigation water capture and recycling option - or connect directly to the gutter downspout.

The extra width will serve to provide stability - especially on free standing walls.

Any ideas how they could be used to treat stormwater? Remember - the more vertical green we restore to the Urban Core - the more we treat stormwater, provide wildlife habitat and create a sense of place. In addition - living walls are the missing links from horizontal green up to green and vegetated roofs. Call ACF Environmental if you are interested in the Living Wall by Atlantis concepts...

Kevin