On the Grid A Plot of Land, an Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make our World Work
Wires, pipes, roads, and water support the lives we lead, but the average person doesn't know where they go or even how they work. Our systems of infrastructure are not only shrouded in mystery, many are woefully out of date. In On the Grid, Scott Huler takes the time to understand the systems that sustain our way of life, starting from his own quarter of an acre in North Carolina and traveling as far as Ancient Rome.
When we consider infrastructure we don't think much about stormwater,
but we should: it's the oldest infrastructure. The ancient
civilizations in Rome and the Middle East all dug sewers to drain
stormwater; though they quickly carried waste of many kinds, they were
dug as storm drains.
The Cloaca Maxima "the big sewer" originally
drained the swampy area that became the Roman Forum. People started throwing
plenty of nasty stuff in there soon thereafter.
The most important thing you need to know about your stormwater is
your watershed. This site http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm, maintained by the EPA, lets you enter your zip code and move to a page about your watershed, with links to live USGS streamflow data and
dozens of other links, connecting you to scientific information about
your watershed.
My own house lies in the Neuse River watershed: when rain falls or I
wash my patio furniture, the runoff goes into stormwater pipes with
outlets in tiny drainages that feed the creeks that wind up in the
Neuse. This map, maintained by the North Carolina Water Science
Center, gives me clickable points with realtime information about
stream flow, water quality, groundwater levels, and precipitation.
This USGS video explains stream gauge data and its use.
After nearly a century of stormwater "management" that has led to
waterways ruined by stormwater scouring them out during storms and
receding dramatically at other times, the last decade or so has
brought a new era of stormwater management, in which cities try to
keep streams natural and healthy, retaining or detaining stormwater in
created wetlands, daylighting once-buried streams, and in all ways
trying to turn what was viewed as a nuisance into the amenity it can
be. This link provides an introduction into current stormwater
practices.
One of the many ways cities now try to minimize runoff is by using
permeable pavements — pavements that water drains right through. This
video provides some pretty remarkable demonstrations.
The city at the forefront of stormwater management is Portland,
Oregon. Their website provides a ton of useful stuff on how to get
more from and waste less of your stormwater:
http://www.portlandonline.com/BES/index.cfm?c=34598
