# Stormwater Stakeholder Advisory Committee - September 8, 2023 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · September 8, 2023 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6540 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6540?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2023-09-08 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: February 15, 2026 - **Length**: 17,557 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Stormwater Stakeholder Advisory Committee met on September 8, 2023, at 9:00 a.m. in the Phoenix Building – 3rd Floor Conference Room, with Amy Sohner presiding. The meeting included 6 agenda items, covering a mix of administrative business and project updates. The committee took 1 vote during the meeting, approving the minutes from the June 2, 2023 meeting. No public comments were heard. The informational agenda items included updates on the West Hickman Watershed Management Plan and its next steps following approval, a presentation on the Alumni Drive Stream Restoration and Bioswale Project, and an update on the Southland Park Stormwater Improvements Project and the Southland Area Storm Drainage Study. The committee also discussed potential topics for the next meeting and heard announcements. ## Attendance The following 42 members were present at the Committee meeting on September 8, 2023: Eileen Burk, Jennifer Carey, Jim Conner, Ken Cooke, Steve Evans, Don Hill, Kevin Lewis, Greg Lubeck, Tom Martin, Kathy Plomin, Amy Sohner, Russ Turpin, Jerry Weisenfluh, Jack Wilson, Denice Bullock, Sarah Donaldson, Jason Drew, Ashley Dunsmoor, Jared Gabbard, Layton Garlington, Brooke Gray, Mac Hall, Gabe Hensley, Becky Irwin, Frank Mabson, Jennifer Myatt, Lindsie Nicholas, Angelo Poe, Mark Sanders, Abby Terry, Richard Walker, Carmen Agouridis, Stephanie Blain, Ben Currens, Jerry Davis, Andrea Drayer, Allie Johnson, Ken Johnson, Malissa McAlister, John Pike, John Steinmetz, and Steve Vogel. No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took the following action during the September 8, 2023 meeting: - **Approval of June 2, 2023 Meeting Minutes** [timestamp: 00:00]: A motion was made by Russ Turpin and seconded by Eileen Burk to approve the minutes from the June 2, 2023 meeting. The motion passed unanimously. This was not a recorded roll call vote, so individual member votes are not listed. ## Budget and Financial Actions The committee reviewed grant funding associated with the Alumni Drive Stream Restoration and Bioswale Project, with two separate funding sources presented for consideration. - **LFUCG Stormwater Incentive Grant:** A grant of **$300,000** from the LFUCG Stormwater Incentive Grant program was identified in connection with the Alumni Drive Stream Restoration and Bioswale Project. No resolution number was associated with this item in the meeting record. - **UK Sustainability Council Grant:** An additional **$50,000** grant from the UK Sustainability Council was also tied to the Alumni Drive Stream Restoration and Bioswale Project, bringing the combined grant funding for the project to **$350,000**. No resolution number was associated with this item in the meeting record. No other budget or financial actions were recorded for this committee meeting. Resolution identifiers were not available for either grant item in the provided meeting data. ## Approval of 6/2/2023 Minutes [timestamp: 00:00] The committee opened the September 8, 2023 meeting by taking up the approval of minutes from the June 2, 2023 meeting. Key speakers during this agenda item included Amy Sohner, Russ Turpin, and Eileen Burk. The committee discussed the minutes from the prior meeting and ultimately voted to approve them. No additional details regarding specific concerns, amendments, or debate on the content of the minutes are reflected in the available record. - **Outcome:** The June 2, 2023 minutes were approved. - **Key Speakers:** Amy Sohner, Russ Turpin, Eileen Burk ## West Hickman Watershed Management Plan Approved, Next Steps [timestamp: 01:04] Stephanie Blaine and John Pike from Palmer Engineering presented an update on the West Hickman Watershed Management Plan, which has received approval, along with a discussion of next steps for its implementation. The presentation was informational in nature, with Blaine and Pike serving as the primary speakers. No voting action was taken as a result of this agenda item. *Note: Detailed discussion points, specific concerns raised, and the full scope of next steps described during the presentation are not available in the extracted meeting data for this item.* ## Alumni Drive Stream Restoration and Bioswale Project [timestamp: 44:02] Carmen Agouridis from the University of Kentucky presented the Alumni Drive Stream Restoration and Bioswale Project to the Committee. The presentation focused on the educational and environmental benefits associated with the project. No additional details regarding the specific content of the presentation, concerns raised by Committee members, or further discussion points are available from the meeting record. The item was informational in nature, and no vote or formal action was taken. ## Southland Park Stormwater Improvements Project and Southland Area Storm Drainage [timestamp: 1:16:20] The committee received an informational presentation on two related topics: the Southland Park Stormwater Improvements Project and the Southland Area Storm Drainage Study. The presentation was delivered by Mark Sanders, John Steinmetz, and Mac Hall. The session provided updates on the current status of both the stormwater improvements project specific to Southland Park and the broader drainage study covering the wider Southland area. As an informational item, no formal vote or action was taken by the committee — the purpose was to keep members apprised of progress and findings related to stormwater and drainage infrastructure in the Southland area. No additional detail on specific project costs, timelines, concerns raised, or study findings is available from the provided materials. ## Potential Topics for Next Meeting [timestamp: 1:50:23] The committee concluded its meeting by discussing potential topics to be taken up at a future session. Key speakers during this portion of the discussion included Lindsie Nicholas, Ken Cooke, and Russ Turpin. Two primary topics were identified as candidates for future meeting agendas: - **Soil work related to water quality** — A presentation on soil work and its connection to water quality outcomes was proposed for consideration. - **Overview of stormwater projects since the Consent Decree** — The committee discussed the possibility of receiving a broader overview of stormwater projects that have been undertaken since the Consent Decree, which would provide context for the committee's ongoing work in this area. No formal decisions were made during this portion of the meeting; the discussion was informational in nature. ## Announcements [timestamp: 1:52:37] Lindsie Nicholas addressed the committee with various announcements regarding upcoming events and deadlines. The announcements were informational in nature, and no action or vote was required from the committee. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the minutes from the June 2, 2023 meeting --- ## Full transcript Welcome, everybody. Thank you for coming out on this cooler morning. I'm pretty excited that I'm not sweating by 8 o'clock in the morning. So that's always a plus. I would welcome all of you to be here. I'm really excited to have this meeting again. The first item on the agenda is to approve the minutes from the last meeting. So I will take a motion or discussion about any changes that need to happen. And if you're making a motion, say your name so that we can record it properly. Russ. My name's Russ Turpin. I make a motion to approve the last meeting minutes. Fantastic. Is there a second? Second. Eileen Burke, second. Thank you very much, Eileen. Any more discussion? Any changes? Ken, you're silent. I'm impressed. That's really great. OK, all in favor of approving the minutes? Aye. Any opposed? All right, fantastic. All right, well, now I'm really excited to hear more about the West Hickman Watershed Management Plan. Personally, or professionally, Bluegrass Green Source has done more work in West Hickman recently. And I think it's because of the great work that the nonprofit is doing and then the concentration on West Hickman. So I'm really excited to hear the plan. We're going to have the next steps. And then from Stephanie Blaine and John Pike from Palmer Engineering. So you have the floor. Good morning. My name is Stephanie Blaine. I work with Palmer Engineering and served as the project manager for the West Hickman Watershed Management Plan. So this is something that we've been working on, as in Palmer Engineering has been involved for about four years. But the city of Lexington started forming it a long time before that. So I'm sure most of you all are aware of the location of it. It's sort of located in the southern portion of Fayette County. It does extend down into Jesmond County. LFUCG paid for this Watershed Management Plan creation using their own funds. So we tried to reach out some to Jesmond County, but most of the project was focused in the Fayette County portion. I do want to introduce John Pike. He works with me at Palmer Engineering. He is one of my lead developers. He's one of my lead designers on our water quality projects and was heavily involved in this Watershed Management Plan creation. So he'll probably try to keep me on track and tell me all the things that I've forgotten. John got so excited about this. He's now involved in the Hickman Creek Conservancy, which I think is great when we have personal connections to projects we're working on and then stay involved with them after our professional portion of it are complete. So sort of the project history. I just talked about this a little bit. But in 2017, LFUCG worked to create the West Hickman Watershed Council. So that was a group of interested parties that were located in the watershed. Business owners, residents, people with specific concerns in the West Hickman Watershed. Out of that, they were able to have enough interest to form the Hickman Creek Conservancy, which is a nonprofit that most recently has done a lot of work in West Hickman. But it's also available to do work in East Hickman. So it's both the sub-watersheds are included in their work. LFUCG and Kentucky Division of Water partnered to collect all of the stream sampling data. I'm guessing there are folks in this room that sampled out at West Hickman. So we used the watershed-focused monitoring data to develop our pollutant loads and to do all of our calculations. So we didn't collect any new water quality data that wasn't already available. I do want to recognize that Kentucky Division of Water did help because I think, as most of you all are probably aware, the watershed-focused efforts completed by LFUCG is only a part of the year during the spring, summer, and early fall portions. So the Division of Water came in and collected samples at many of the same sampling sites, not all the outfall locations, only the stream sampling sites from October through April. So that occurred in 2019 and early in 2020. We were selected to write the watershed management plan in fall 2019. So that's when my involvement with the project began. And as with a lot of things in 2020, COVID happened and sort of changed sort of the trajectory of our project a little bit. We had hoped to be able to move a little bit quicker than we were, but there were a lot of delays. We didn't receive the bulk of the sampling until September of 2020. We were originally supposed to receive that in May of 2020 and didn't get all of the macroinvertebrate data until well into 2021. So there was a lot of slowdowns there. Once we had that data, we spent most of 2021 calculating loads, identifying potential projects in the watershed, and then estimating what load reductions we could potentially see from some of those projects to try to get the pollutants down to the projected benchmarks. So as of February 1, 2022, we submitted the full draft. I think there's 152 proposed projects in the West Hickman watershed. So all the proposed projects were included. The full draft was submitted to the Division of Water in February 2022. There was a little bit of a delay in getting the project approved or the plan approved by the EPA. There was some turnover at the Division of Water. It was a large plan with a lot of projects. And it wasn't tied to a 319 grant. Most of their watershed management plans that they get approval are tied to that. And they have a technical advisor. This one was a little bit unique in that instance. So I think that maybe slowed things up a little bit because they didn't have a specific person that was assigned to reviewing that. But we went back and forth about a couple of comments. And then we finally were able to get the plan approved by the EPA in June of this year. So we are good to go and ready to start, hopefully, implementation. So that's where we want to talk a little bit about where we were and then how, hopefully, people in this room could start help implementing some of the projects that we have outlined in the plan. So as I mentioned, the plan was completely funded by LFUCG. So it wasn't part of a 319 grant. But we did follow all of the grant requirements in terms of how the process would need it to go and to get the plan approved by the EPA so that the projects in the plan can be applied for 319 grants in the future. So all the projects may be eligible for the LFUCG Water Quality Incentive Grants and then also the 319 grant funding. I don't know if anyone in here would be interested in applying for those. They've changed up the application process a little bit. You used to have to submit by December, initial packet, and then they'd shortlist the application process for the next year. Initial packet, and then they'd shortlist, basically, and they'd invite you to submit a full proposal. They've changed that up a little bit now where we just have to submit, basically, like a letter of interest and then a full package is due in February. So it's a little bit different than previous process. I think they changed that a year or two ago if you haven't applied for one recently. So as part of this, we looked at what our proposed goals were. So in watershed planning, we identified overarching goals for the entire watershed. So we had four main goals that we based our entire plan around. So the first one was to improve water quality for aquatic life and recreational uses. The second one was to improve stream and riparian zone habitat to support a healthy aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem. The third was to increase environmental awareness in the community and provide educational resources about improving the watershed to area residents. And fourth was to improve aesthetic appeal of the stream corridors and waterways to encourage engagement with nature. So these were our overarching goals that we then identified a set of objectives. So I won't read all these, but once we get down to the objective level, we're looking at measurable items. So each one of these objectives will hopefully help us achieve one of those four goals. So to get in there specific, looking at specific levels of reductions of different pollutants, looking at expanding riparian zones by a certain amount. And this is something that we worked closely with both the West Hickman Watershed Council. We had a series of public meetings concerning that. Also with the Division of Environmental Services, Demetria wasn't able to be here today, but she and my team met multiple times to try to figure out things that might be achievable and that were specific. So here are the first four. I believe, if I remember correctly, there are 13 total. So then we're moving into this second set of proposed objectives. Some of them we looked at based off of talking about native plants through the watershed of a minimum of one acre of additional area per year. Looking at some of them are based on timelines, doing a minimum of one project every five years. So there were several different metrics that we used. Forgot nine. So I'll put these up here. Some of the objectives were in relation to community engagement and even community recreation. So that plays into a lot of what we hope the Hickman Creek Conservancy and then other groups in the watershed can help promote some of those events and can be available for the additional funding with the approval of this plan. So this chart just shows basically our 13 objectives and our three goals and how they align. That was something that we wanted to make sure that each one of our objectives helped us achieve specifically one of our goals. So to get down to the fun part, I know there's some people, other folks in here that have done the data analysis part of the watershed management plan before. We had a lot of data in this watershed, a lot of data. Normally, the other ones I've worked on, I'm just used to having stream sites. But then to have all the outfall data that's collected during the watershed focus plan was a great opportunity for us to be able to do that. A great resource, but it was also overwhelming to try to look at how all those numbers interacted together. So the first challenge was combining the LFUCG data and the KDOW data. If you've ever gotten data from KDOW before, they keep it in an access database and they export it in a manner that was very different than all of our other data. So that in itself took some manipulation to try to get that so that all of our data was in comparable formats. We calculated average yearly pollutant loads. Then we calculated the benchmarks on the average loads. We estimated the pollutant loads that were needed for reduction. And then finally, we got into identifying the projects and the BMPs needed to meet those reductions in each sub-watershed. So this was a little bit of a unique watershed in terms of watershed planning. There's not a whole lot of other plans that have been approved in Kentucky that are in such urban areas. So a lot of the other projects that I've worked on are talking about cattle exclusion fencing and secondary water sources and those more agricultural and livestock BMPs. And so really, we have none of those here. So trying to meet those load reductions was a challenge. And in areas where we were seeing loads and there's not anything obvious, trying to think, OK, what else could this possibly be? So I'll go through the data just a little bit. So we were looking at prioritizing watersheds. We looked at the amount of load reductions that were needed to meet benchmark conditions. This is very similar to a lot of the data that Third Rock has done in the past. This is a little bit different in the fact that we combined both the watershed-focused monitoring data that was collected by LFPCG and all the data from Kentucky Division of Water. So if you see maps that are in the watershed-focused monitoring presentations, these will be a little bit different because we're meshing those together. Some of those were a little bit interesting because most of the watershed, well, really all the watershed-focused monitoring that LFPCG does is during the summer months. So we combined it in with the data that was collected by Division of Water during the winter months. So as you can see, the E. coli was high in most of the watershed, which is sort of what we expected. Some of this was an interesting watershed because when the data was collected, there were still multiple RMP projects, the remedial measures projects, that are part of the consent decree that were not completed. So there was known issues with the sanitary sewer system that Lexington had already committed to remedying and being able to try to come up with estimating what kind of load reductions, both bacteria-wise and nutrient-wise, that we may be able to expect from those. So some of our areas were clearly identified as higher loading, and there was known SSOs in those areas. But then there were some other areas that we had to look at coming up with some other new BMPs to include in this plan. Here's a similar graph for the nutrients. As you can see, it was primarily in the lower portions of the watershed. One thing that we ran into on this was that the benchmark conditions for nutrients were lower than what the discharge limits for the treatment plant are. And so we showed some increased levels of required reductions, even though the plant is nothing we collected, I guess we didn't collect, but nothing that was collected exceeded the permit limits. It just doesn't all the way align with the benchmarks that Lexington uses for nitrogen and phosphorus. So that was sort of a challenge down in that lower portion of the watershed where the treatment plant is located. So that's sort of the areas that we wanted to make sure that it was clear that this was not a regulatory discharge issue in terms of releasing flows that weren't in compliance with a permit. Based off the benchmark condition, the TSS was actually the lowest pollutant of concern. We had a couple areas, you can see, that were identified that had some hot spots for higher levels of TSS. So once we had all this data, we came in and we prioritized the watersheds. Won't get into all the nitty gritty details. I have to thank John for this. He sort of came in and I said, come up with a metric. And something that Demetria really challenged us with is she really wanted a metric that could be easily explained on how we came up with a watershed prioritization. So it's a little bit complicated, but if you want the details, they're all in the report. But a lot of factors were assigned specific numeric values, and then those values were averaged. So that we had, it was more than just a, well, I feel like this one is, or this one was a numeric calculation. So the highest priority areas are, we named our sub-watersheds by numbers, so that's what these numbers are. I didn't explain that. WH-16, which is the Lansdowne and Zandel area. WH-10, which is Stony Brook and Brigadon. WH-22, Idle Hour. And then WH-8, the Wilson Downing Road area. So where are we now? I mentioned before, we have 152 proposed BMPs. So there are a lot of options. There's a lot of work that we think could help benefit this watershed. And we have created a map that's hosted on the Hickman Creek Conservancy website. So this map, there is a photo of, or a, well, I don't know what I'm doing. Ooh, that's fancy. That is shown down here. And basically, each one of the little dots you see there is an approximate project location. And I'll come back to this, well. It's approximate project location, and you can click on each one of those dots, and it gives you more information about what's proposed on that project. So it includes ones that Lexington is already committed to doing through the Remedial Measures Program. It includes specific ones where we're looking at, we really could do something else with this detention basin. We could increase infiltration. We could plant some native plants. So some of them are very site-specific, but then others of them are more general on there, and just looking at general areas. The full plan is available on the LFPCG website. Is it on Melissa's, is it up on the Division 1? I don't know if it's up yet there. I haven't checked. Okay. It's okay. It's on Lexington's website. So if you wanna see it, you can go there. And then just to note that participation is voluntary. So this is not a regulatory document where someone's gonna come in, and the EPA is not intended to come in and say, okay, you have these objectives. You said once every five years you wanna do a stream restoration project. You don't meet that. This is more of a guidance document, and we're really just setting goals to try to work towards rather than compliance issues. So proposed project breakdown. These are the main categories and the symbols that are shown on the map. So we range from having basin retrofits. That's one of the things in this area that I'm sure most of you know that Lexington has all of their basins mapped. And so we went through, I guess, the list of those and looked at ones that were in areas of specific high loading. We actually calculated the drainage area to each one of those basins and looked at if we do some modification to those, instead of having concrete-lined ditches in the bottom, do we have something that's more natural that could promote infiltration? Will that potentially have an impact on the watershed? We looked at some of the projects that are just tree planting. So, you know, low-cost things that can be done by individual homeowners, even. And then there's higher ones, stream restorations that have a higher capital cost. So the list of all those projects are included on the map. We did have one for dam removal, which I think Lexington currently has already initiated the process and has selected a consultant to work on removing the dam at Veterans Park and doing some bank stabilization associated with that. So I was excited to see that, you know, the first, you know, a large project that was on our list was already being pushed forward. So this is a close-up of what the map looks like. So in our plan, all of the BMPs that were recommended for implementation, they each have... Maybe... They each have a BMP number. So, like, this BMP is 20-07. The first number indicates what sub-watershed it's in, and then they're just numerically ordered after that. The type is listed, so this is a riparian vegetation BMP type, and then the approximate longitude latitude. And then we have some... A description of what sort of our initial ideas were. These are pretty broad to try to allow for... Allow for people to be able to come in and sort of initiate these specific situations that we think could...that they think could best make work. Our goal was to try not to be limit what could be done, but to allow for, you know, innovation and creativity as these projects are actually implemented into the watershed. So then below that, it has the impairment and pollutants that are addressed for each one of the projects. So this is one that was, like, identified for trash removal through our public meeting process. There was identified areas where there's large collections of trash, so very similar, and that one's in W07. And then when you list on there, it'll tell you, like, the sanitary projects, all of the RMP projects that were... Some of these are now approaching construction or under construction, but what the project's names are, and then it will actually show you where those projects are located and what the last estimated cost were. I think these costs were all done pre-COVID, so subject to change. The reason why that didn't add up to 152 is some of the projects don't have a GPS coordinate associated with them. They're more of, like, a broad educational BMP, so that's just... If you notice it didn't add up to 152, that's why. Thanks, John. John's in charge of our map. So I'll let... As I mentioned, John is now helping, you know, obviously on the consulting side, but is now involved in the Hittman Creek Conservancy, so did want to make sure everyone here was aware of some of the things the Hittman Creek Conservancy can help with as a partner in this project. Yep, Stephanie's right. I just couldn't bear... I live in West Dickman, so I just couldn't bear to set the project aside, so I joined the Hittman Creek Conservancy to continue participating and hopefully start implementing some of these projects. So Hittman Creek Conservancy has meetings every third Thursday of the month at 5.30, typically in the Tate's Creek Public Library, and everybody here is welcome to come to any of those meetings. We would love support and technical advisement if you're interested. So Hittman Creek is hoping to be a liaison to explain and promote to the community what the ideas in this plan are and how and what resources the people in the community have to engage with this plan and implement some of those projects. So we are a non-profit who can help to garner some of the funding available to us at our meetings and at separate events that we do, such as trash pickups and at Creek Critters with... We call it Creek Critters, but it's kind of like an acro-invertebrate survey without us following the rules. Ask for volunteers to help us with some trash pickup events targeting some of those trash areas we identified on the map. And we also have equipment storage tools with loppers and saws and trash bags and buckets and pickers all in my garage currently that we can provide to anyone who's in West East Sickman who's doing an activity like this. And we've also lately been trying really hard to partner with organizations since all the Water Quality Network in Lexington is a web and we're trying to help each other and promote each other, so we were partnering with Bluegrass Child Unlimited a lot, especially in the Veterans Park area. We're trying to reach out to Apron Associations and West Sickman, and of course there's a lot of people here who represent organizations that we've been working with and have been reaching out to. So to communicate with Higman Creek Conservancy, we have our website that we update every month with the meeting dates and any other miscellaneous activities we're putting on this upcoming couple of months. We're participating in the Nature Hop event and Lexington's Tree Week. Friends of Jacobson Park, if anyone has heard about that, it's a new group that's been created by Katie Lindeman, who's involved with Palmer Engineering, so that's how we met and she's been really active and really excited about Jacobson Park. They're doing a planting event later this month. September 23rd. September 23rd. I don't have it remembered because I know it's on the Higman Creek website for me to check whenever I need it. So if anyone's interested in that, you can contact Katie Lindeman or you can contact us. Higman Creek Conservancy email. I've just been inviting the people who have come to previous meetings, so if you're interested in hearing information from us, you can email me or email Higman Creek in our email list. And also that map that she mentioned, I'll point to it. If you go to the website on this, at the top bar, one of them says Wex Higman Creek or WH Planting. If you go to that one and click on that link and scroll down the map, you can see that. And the intent is to hopefully keep that map updated so as specific projects are constructed to note that so that we can keep a record of sort of what's been done in the watershed. So if you know of things that the Higman Creek Conservancy or LFDG may not know of if there's a neighborhood tree planting event or something like that, that those are kind of things that we want to try to keep track of so that we can see what kind of work is being done to try to help meet our objectives and then be able to assess are these objectives working the way that we had hoped they would? Or do we need to make adjustments? As part of the document, we have to suggest a time to reevaluate the plan. And one of the big things in this watershed was the impact that the Remedial Measures Program is going to have on it. And it's sort of a very hard thing to estimate. So we had suggested that once all those projects are done that we look at a two to three year period after that to sort of allow things to stabilize a little bit and then maybe try to do a reassessment at that point just because there are so many projects there that could be impacting our water quality. So I know that the folks over at DWQ are working hard on getting those done. I actually have some involved I'm on that basin team too. So it's all sort of integrated for me. I'm working on the sewer in that area as well. So something that's near and dear to my heart. I guess that's about all that I had prepared to say. If there are any questions or comments. Mr. Cook. I'm keenly interested in that map project. I think that's legion in terms of how you presented it. What software platform are you using for that? It's an ArcGIS. ArcGIS. And where is that data housed? Is that on an MRI server or is that on a Palmer server? It's on a Palmer server right now. We had sort of, as part of our sort of just, because of John and my interest in the watershed, Palmer's allowing us just sort of as a donation and partner in the project to host that on our website right now. It can be moved eventually if that becomes the case. The updating of that map is being done through Hittman Creek Conservancy. So John's working on that through that nonprofit organization. But it was something that we included in our initial contract to create that map. It sort of came out of the fact that we were in COVID. We couldn't have public meetings. So we were trying to figure out a way that we could communicate the level of data. We tried to hold Zoom public meetings and just weren't getting a whole lot of involvement. So we were trying to have a way that people could access the data when it was convenient for them, when they wanted to just look at what was in their specific neighborhood. So that was sort of an idea that we came up with to try to promote the project during a time where we couldn't have typical public communications. The symbology that you created for each of the project types and the format and the data format, I think that's applicable to the other watershed plans that are being done. It concerns me that it's on a private corporation's website. How long does your contract go? I believe that it's actually on one of our employees' accounts. It's on our whole server, I think. Right now, we need to probably figure out something. Right now, it's something that Palmer is committed to hosting until there is another place to do it, holding it. It's not something that we're getting paid. It's not really part of our contract. It's just something that we created that I, as a project manager, feel is an important tool and have committed to holding on until there is another place that it can be served. Multiple people have access to edit it, and that can be shared and communicated to any woman as is needed. I'm pointing at the HTC president. Are you still president? I'm talking and asking if he has access to that agency. I can email him the password. It's something that ideally, if we're looking at modifying, updating other watershed management plans or creating other ones, it would be great. Lexington has a lot of mapping, and it's probably something that definitely could be hosted by Lexington. It's just we haven't gotten who and who would be in charge of it. Right now, we have a vested interest, so we're doing it. It's mine and John's volunteers. I was going to also comment that I thought the interactive map was great and especially the interactive map. I think the city got a really good return on investment. Thank you. You all bring exceptional value with this project going well above and beyond. Has there been any conversations in terms of having these proposed volunteers, but proposed V&Ps on this project? We're trying to meet required reductions. Has there been communications with LODC? Has there been any indication that LODC would continue to support V&Ps that are either identified or would substantially help us? Initially, we were looking at the Veterans Park Dam project. It was a low-hanging fruit because it was a visible project and a known issue and something that had already been preliminarily studied. Our initial intent was to submit for 319 funding to do that project. We were able to get cleaner water money through the feds to be able to design that project without a 319 grant. I think there is commitment talking to DES that they do hope to in the future submit additional 319 grants to start implementing maybe a few of the larger projects and then hopeful that neighborhood associations at New Creek Conservancy might look at doing some of the smaller ones that have now been identified. Now the plan is approved. Palmer Engineering, HCC and DES specifically with Demetra have been in plans to host a public meeting related to this specifically. I think it will be part of one of the upcoming Pickering Creek Conservancy meetings. I think Demetra has been really wrapped up with the dam project so we've been holding on her to be ready. We will have one more final public meeting where we present very similar to this presentation, probably a little bit less technical and more about the specific projects and have some mapping for people, you know, residents want to come and look at what's specifically in their area and aren't comfortable using the online map. Has there been any conversations about if that's identified in the plan projects on the implementation side if that would get any preferential scoring on the scope of incentive grants? I'm not sure if that went down. I don't know that it's been talked about unless you all talked about it and not with Frank and I, but I did just check that out at the beginning of the presentation. No, I was going to say, I know that something like Demetra and I had mentioned talking, we had not gone to the step of getting with Lindsay and Frank about that yet, but hopefully it would help a project scoring, even if it's not technically in the metric to say this has been identified as something that's needed. Lexington, and I don't, well, maybe I shouldn't say that. There was another when the funding came through for Veterans Park, there was another project that was submitted for 319 funding this last cycle through LFECG so in a different watershed, which I'm sure you probably know. Yes. I have an elementary question about connecting the dots on a watershed-focused plan. Other than the obvious improvement of water quality, which is what we all want, what are the incentives to meeting the objectives? What's that carrot out there for to participate in this? All of us are interested in water quality over here, but does it help from a regulatory standpoint, does it help with anything? Does it help us with from a government perspective or from an average citizen perspective? Why do we need this? Why do we do this? Other than the obvious. To me, the most challenging is for the average citizen to convince people to care. I know a lot of people spend a lot of time and effort trying to educate the public of why water quality is important and why we should make that a priority. All those things are similar. For the average homeowner, the thing that could make a difference for commercial areas, like part of Nicholasville Road, the entire summit is in this area. We have some about pervious pavers and those sort of things that could help lower a stormwater quality management fee by going above and beyond the minimum regulations in the stormwater manual by implementing some of these measures within there. We've talked to folks over I forget what the name of this center is but where the, I was going to say Bed Bath and Beyond is, but it's not even there anymore. The Crossroads, is that the name of it? We've talked to the owners of that and they were really interested in trying to implement some of these measures specifically related to reducing their impervious area to help with their stormwater quality management fees that are associated. On the individual homeowners, residents, which a large portion of this watershed is, it's talking about safe water for their kids for their kids to play in. All the same things that we're promoting in general. As far as LFUCG, it helps, it can help meet some of our MS4 requirements in terms of public education and outreach. I know Abby always emails me and saying what are your projects you've been doing when she's doing her reports for that reporting. We do have as far as some of the areas that did have high E. coli loadings did not align with the known SSOs. We've included several projects related to both investigating and repairing damaged laterals. That's something that the city could potentially use to obtain additional federal funding towards where they are doing some investigations on either not the main trunk lines that are part of the RMP program, but that are collector lines or going up to individual up to the clean outs where they have issues. Because we did see some of that in areas that didn't have identified RMP projects in them. I'm going to chime in. Yes. An addendum, what Stephanie just said. Having been, I'm with Hickman Creek Conservancy, and having been in several of these public information meetings, the people that come often, the majority of them, are more concerned about water quantity than quality. They have a flooding issue in their backyard or on their street. Fortunately, these safety and peace that we can use to improve quality can impact that flooding, and so it's a big incentive for those people if they think they can get some relief from a flooding issue by increasing infiltration, slowing down the volume of water that comes in a big event, that kind of thing. Right now, that's probably our primary hope with a lot of those people, is to say, we can't specifically address your flooding issue, but if we do some things that improve quality of the water, it's going to impact the quantity that you're seeing. So, from a practical standpoint, that's probably where we're at right now. Like Stephanie said, it's tough to get a lot of people to show up and care and really get information about improving water quality. They pretty much take it for granted that you flip the tab and good water's going to come out of that. So, I think, I just wanted to add that little note to what... Thanks, Kelly. I think we've about exceeded our time, but this is really important to us, and we'd love to have more conversations about it. So, please, contact Stephanie or Hickman Creek or come to one of the Hickman Creek meetings, and we'd love to talk to you. Thank you. Well, I've been very impressed with Hickman Creek Conservancy. In the short while you all have been around, it seems like you've done a lot of really, really great work and got a lot of engagement from the community, which is hard, as we just talked about. Another thing that will help with getting people involved is creating the next generation of watershed professionals. So, I would like to welcome Dr. Argaritas to come up from the UK and talk to us about it. Just a reminder, sorry, there are mics in front of everybody. But when you ask questions, if you could hit the voice button so we could hear it in the recording. My bad, I'm saying that before, but that'll just help us be able to hear each other in the recording. Hi. Well, good morning, everyone. As we mentioned, I'm Carmen Argaritas. I am the Senior Associate Dean here at the Martin Gatton College of Agriculture and Food Environments, University of Kentucky. I have not been as involved as where I was with some of the extension work for the past couple of years, but I am going to present a lot of the stuff I was doing quite a bit, and looking around the room at the folks that are here, I see a lot of our partners in a lot of these efforts as well. So, I know there's going to be details that they can also help fill in in place as this. So, within the university and in our college, a big part of what we do, and you've kind of alluded a lot to this educational mission, but we also have this research and outreach mission as well. And so, I'm taking this opportunity to talk about not just one of the recent projects that we've had funded through the Stormwater Incentive Grant Program, but I also want to kind of showcase some other things that are happening around campus so that if you are on there, you know, maybe for the football game or whatever it may be, if you're walking around, you can kind of see a little bit of that history and what we're doing. So, one of the things within our college and with the university, what we do is we're very much an experiential type learning system. So, we like a lot of that hands-on learning component, and a big part is we think students, outreach to people, public, K-12, adult learners, whatever it may be, learn a little bit better if they can actually touch it, they can do it, they can participate in it. So, we have a lot of farms, research farms around the state, some North Farm local, or South Farm, a lot of you might be familiar with. They can get out to Robinson Forest in Eastern Kentucky, but on campus, we didn't have as much, right? So, there was fewer opportunities for people to actually be able to walk out of the classroom, walk to a spot on campus and be able to do something with it. So, some of these projects that we're going to kind of show you through have kind of changed that and evolved that to where we have a lot more spaces where our students can actually go out and do work in that area, and I'll show you some of these. So, when I would teach my stream restoration class, for instance, we have a lot of opportunities now where we can actually go out into the field and do those sort of things. The same thing with our extension. There's also as an added bonus, and Kevin will tell you here, because of our MS4 permit, it also helps us meet some of the requirements of that as well, about engaging our citizens that we have on campus. So, Lindsay has a PDF copy of all these, but I put some QR codes in here because we have a few story maps that might also give a little bit of extra information along the way, and then there's just some different links, and then I have a lot of clickable links through some of these as well that folks can get a little bit as we go. But the first one I'm going to kind of walk through is the more recent project that we had done, and Russ was part of this project as well, and Kevin was on our unnamed trip to Hickman Creek that we have, and so this one involved a lot of different partners. Stantec helped us with the design. We had Ridgewater involved in construction, EcoGrow as well, Bell Engineering, and then a variety of different folks along the way. And again, this was funded by one of the LFUCG, Stormwater Incentive Grants program, but we also kicked in obviously with our match, so UK's, we have students have a sustainability council, so the students really felt this was a worthwhile project and kicked $50,000 in from their funding from that. And then also some other various cost shares that came in with it. So let me do a little bit of orienting you, and I'm really psyched about this button, so I'm really interested in doing this. Alright, so the Arboretum, I'm guessing a lot of folks in this room have probably walked through the Arboretum, so that's going to kind of orient you there. If you can see in here, we have our softball stadium, our soccer and baseball is in this way. So the project that we're looking at, and this is kind of an aerial of more recent, is where these reds are highlighted. So one part is going to be a bit of this bioswell, and the other part is going to be where the stream restoration was done. In a couple slides I'm going to kind of show you how the water flows through here because it's a little bit interesting. So when we started to propose this, we wanted to do two of those parts because of how that water comes. So if you will notice on this stream here, we have the confluence that comes together. So one part of that confluence comes from a spring system that's up near the neighborhood back behind the softball. The other part was when Alumni Drive was reconfigured when it was redone because there was the next project, and Ken's very involved and knows about this one where they had more of the infiltration basin work done. They realigned Alumni Drive, and part of the reason the road was split the way it was here was it decreases traffic speeds that come through that area. And also trying to fit in some of those basins, that's where we ended up. So what happens is water comes from this area where the athletic fields are, comes down, passes over one part of Alumni, then it will go down through where we put the bioswell before it passes back over Alumni to come down through this stream. So that's part of the reason that we had that put in place there. So as part of this project, we also looked at how do we enhance some of the hyporheic area, and then also looking at some of the riparian part with it. And I'll talk a little bit about kind of what we were trying to do with this besides not just addressing water quality, and we knew we were getting a very high volume of folks that come through here. I think we get somewhere in the order of at least 18,000 vehicles per day come through this area. We also wanted to use this as an education opportunity, not just from being across from the Arboretum, but being on campuses as another location where our students and faculty and staff and so forth can go to. So the first part of the project that was done was putting in the bioswell in place. So again, it's in that little bit of that traffic island, and so in there, the idea with that was I think to add some treatment and also slow down a little bit of part of that water. So this is a little bit of that part where it's during that construction phase. So the idea would be, as you would expect, the water would infiltrate through that amended media that's in there, and then it would, when it passes out through before it goes back across, it would have some either reduction because of infiltration and or some treatment. And just a little bit of a shot of that is kind of going through. If you go out there now, you're going to see a lot more flowers around it, and this is still kind of evolving through there. The other part was at the south part of that island, we put some trees in place. So we have our arborist, Stacey Borden, who does a very fantastic job of finding opportunities to put trees in where he can. And so we did add some more trees in there that over time will grow, but also such a way that's not going to impede when somebody comes out of the arboretum, they're not going to be able to see traffic as they go through there. So that was the first phase that was done, and then the next part was kind of moving over to where the stream was at. So this is a shot of what it looked like before. It was an area that had a lot of concern for us in part because it was very difficult to maintain it with grounds. Part of this area got really, really boggy and wet. There was opportunity there, I think, to really address some of that water quality. Again, we have our athletic fields and so forth back in there. This is also an area where there's stormwater management as part of some of our basin. But we also looked at this as a huge education opportunity, not just for the general public who may come by, because as we see in some other photos, there's a walking, running trail that goes right by this, but also the cars that go by, folks from the arboretum that may come over, or again, we use this quite a bit in classes. So we'll kind of run through some photos here. So, as you can imagine, it starts out and it doesn't look great. This is, again, a stream area that has not been probably loved as much as it should. But then as we go through a bit with the construction, and again, just to orient you, arboretum, and then going this way would be leaving campus. So the first bit of it, you can kind of see the original stream was to excavate out part of that valley. So it was about I think a 30 or so width in there that got excavated out and armored in. So it gets replaced with some limestone materials, some wood chips, soil in there to try to recreate a hyporheic system where there's a lot more flow. So water can have more storage and more transient time within there. You can see a little bit of where the bioswale is still in there. The other thing I liked about this, and I applaud the construction on this, was there's a lot of recycling of materials in here. So we at UK, when they chip, if we have to do work where they chip trees or whatever, then that, those chips get used as landscaping, but a lot of those also got used in this in place. We had wood that gets incorporated as snags in here. That's also part of that. And if I remember correctly, Russ, I think the rock came from Kentucky, America when you all were doing some projects over there. So there was a lot of that recycling of materials involved as well within this. And the other part that I thought was kind of interesting, and this was something that we really wanted as part of that design, was, again, using that in education to show different types of restoration for students. So when we bring them out to the class, we see people doing things a little bit differently. We specifically ask, don't do one style throughout the whole thing. Let's look at maybe some different styles and how they might connect. So at the top up here, this is where the confluence came in place. It was a little bit steeper in there. And what it does is it does through this area here, does what we could think of more as maybe that regenerative or self-forming type of style. So this would be similar to what's behind the Montessori Middle School of Kentucky. So if you've ever been back there on that project, it's much more of that style where they kind of have that valley formed and let the stream kind of form itself as it goes through. And then the next section here mirrors more of a single thread of what was done near the section of Alumni Drive on UK that goes in between University and Nick Road. So that section of restoration project in there. So it's more of that single threaded type channel with some of the limestone walls in there. And then the last one, we asked for a bit more of a kind of braided type of system to mimic a little bit closer to like the Hatchery Creek project over near Jamestown to kind of be something that's more of those offshoot wetlands. And then in there, what we've done is there are paths where students can actually cross the creek and in a way help divide it up. So in one area, not only are we trying to do something to address water quality and quantity, but we're also trying to do something that's going to let us maximize educational opportunities with students. So you can take them out instead of having to drive a whole bunch of places across the state. You can go into one spot and talk through maybe some of the different philosophies about why folks did what they did. And just kind of give you a little bit more of an orientation of what that looks like. And we really appreciate the flowers. The flowers are always something we get numerous compliments about. But you can kind of see along the way just how that kind of blends in there a bit. And it's whole harder to see in here, but there are also a number of snags along the way that kind of got put in place for wildlife to get down. The other thing I would just kind of point out is this is not a really deep stream at all. And that was also... knowing that we were going to have folks coming from the Arboretum and probably kids coming over to play. So this section of stream is not super deep by any means. And for us that was also a bonus in the classroom because the section of stream that we'll look at in a little bit closer to between University and Nick Road near the closer to the football stadium that one does have some really deep pools in it so when we're doing classes out there it's really hard to get students to be able to get in there and wade in the middle of class to do that. But what was really remarkable to me too is just going off an RVP is how big that's changed in a three-year time. So we went from a 77 on the RVP score to 184 in a three-year time from this project and that I thought was I was pretty excited about that. But besides having classes out there this project was also part of a PhD study for one of our students out of our earth and environmental science department. And so the link here will actually take you to her dissertation so if you're if you're interested in looking at that. And she did a variety of different things but one of the projects she looked at was actually using tracers to kind of get a feel for how water was moving through the system. And what she was looked at tried to look at each of the different sections of the different kind of restoration styles. And I would point out that the one for the regenerative and that single threaded that's where they really did that hyper react rest the enhancement with the wood chips and so forth but not so much in the braided system. And you can start to see that come out and some of the data that she has. So those two upper sections would see a lot more addition to transient storage but some more absorption that she would see within that tracer as opposed when we get to that ladder section which was a bit more of just the transient storage. So it looks like having those wood chips and things in there are adding some enhancements potentially to what they think for some of the water quality with that. Now I'll connect that back in just a minute. The other thing that we have up there are signs. So these were signs that were developed between all the different partners in the group and there was one at the beginning part of the project or more upstream and also one more towards the downstream end. Because we do get a lot of folks that jog or walk across this area and again being across from the Arboretum. So part of this is just to kind of help folks understand what it is that they're seeing out there and what's in place. So those signs are out there and if you haven't if you get a chance to walk by check it out. It'll tell you a little bit more about not just what's going on in this project but maybe a little bit more about some of the stuff that we're trying to do it on campus. And I'll put these two up here because we also did some water quality monitoring on them. So one of our faculty members in the biosystems and engineering department has been working with one of his graduate students on this and he's been looking at some preliminary some looking at some of nitrogen and phosphorus moving through there and some of the stuff that they're seeing is indicating that they're seeing some decreases in both nitrogen and phosphorus preliminarily and they think part of that's really due to some of that transient storage and potentially some of the biotic and abiotic processes happening. So for us that's a good chance to use this to help educate students but also having some of those water quality benefits as well. I'll put the picture in on the right because Dr. Fryer who's out of our earth environmental sciences he actually uses this stream as well in his hydrogeology class and it's part of one of their take-home finals. So they use this not just again in research and instruction but it's actually getting used in some assessments for some of our students as well. All right let's walk to another project. So I've seen this one called section called by many many different names. Some of us internally noted as the FEMA project but we've also seen it as Vons branch you will see it as a big elm too so I think the the map that will pull up there will pull that. A lot of the same partners on we're on this one and this one's a bit of an older project comparatively but just to kind of help orient you I think most folks know where Kroger fields at and then this would be the roundabout that joins alumni and University. The project area is right in here which is right at the border of UK's property where it comes up to some neighborhoods within there. So this site has been used for over a decade for doing class work in it. Pre-restoration all the way during construction and all the way through and it will continue to be done as such because it's a very easily walkable place for a lot of our programs within our college. But you can see how it was before it was restored. It had a lot of challenges with regards to bank erosion and so right in here was an old old service road so there used to be a service road that connected in there and it was just blocked off. We had instances where large pieces of concrete found their way in and so it was again you know just a stream that had lots of different challenges with it. We had lots of utilities that were through there so before this project could actually be done they spent about a year just moving utilities around to to kind of clear out the space. And what was unique about it and what was great is when I was this construction was going on I was teaching one of my stream restoration classes and this was an opportunity to actually get students out there to see construction when it was happening because that's not something that's always easily great timed when you're doing the classes but we were able to actually work with some of the designers and this is one of our classes that are out there that day actually getting to see what they're doing in place. And it involved a lot as you can tell from this photo excavating out the valley, rebringing that back and rebuilding that stream on top of it. And I thought it turned out really really pretty. It was a nice project. I think it looks really beautiful over time. It's grown up a bit more and you can see a lot more of the flowers come in place with it. As a contrast to the other one it has a lot deeper pools that are in this one so that as far as the classwork that's just the only part that's a little bit challenging is you can go up to your waist easily in some of those. But it's also been very popular with the community and it's not uncommon for me to get lots of questions about like what flower is this or what's growing here. I'm not a horticulturalist so a lot of those I end up forwarding on. But again this site gets used a lot when it comes to part of our educational mission. So this photo is a lot from one of our stream restoration classes out there doing some surveying. We have our natural resource and environmental science program will use this sometimes when they do some of their camps will come out with it. We teach a course called AFE 100 which is issues in agricultural food environment is a course that all freshmen within the College of Agricultural Food Environment must take and so they get a chance to learn about urbanization and stream health and this is a good area that they go into. We had the 4-H teen conference where we get thousands of students on campus through 4-H and so this is an opportunity for some of them to participate as well. And it also gets all used a lot within some of our extension areas and outside in the community. So these are students from Redwood Cooperative and so we get this is not uncommon for to have this site used within our extension program as well for folks to come out there and do it. So again it's kind of hitting a lot of those missions that we have you know for education or outreach and we have had some of our undergraduate students learn a little bit like the research out there as well or how do they measure hydrology or how should they start doing water quality. And I want to shift a little bit to just some of the storm water stuff because I think you can't really decouple storm water management and stream restoration and so forth with it. So on campus this is actually you'll hear it called catch catchments or a lot of times people might call it farm road rain garden and this was a really a student kind of inspired project. Also was linked with our Tracy Farmer Institute for sustainability environment. So what started out is this it was basically a basin that was put in place this building in the back is our plant science building and so it was put in place to collect storm water from the building from that. What would happen is though water would enter here and there was about zero gray drop before it went out and part of that reason was it would then go through the parking lot under Gluck building before it would get to Nicholasville Road. So there was no there was all controlled backup that they couldn't really have that level of elevation change. This became a very popular place for geese and so what we had was students and one of our graduate level low-impact development courses was tasked with have you were to redesign this side of campus what would you do stormwater management wise and one of their ideas was to say maybe we should change this into a rain garden or something like that. That kind of I think got the attention also for Tracy Farmer Institute and through of also at the time our Dean Scott Smith was very open to the idea to say let's try it well let the students help with the design part of it and try it and so we worked with our biosystems and engineering department and actually were able to work with the students and our landscape architect department and our horticulture department to design this up. So for a while it was not the prettiest side on there but before long we ended up getting that constructed and so it actually came in to where water would come in so the students designed an inlet so that water would come in they could settle out what might be in there. They had two basins that water would divert off to the side before coming down a swale there to enter into a third basin and then we had students involved in all the planting of this and then also what was the opportunity that came up was then there started to be questions of well can we start doing research off of it and so then we started getting undergraduate students interested in learning about doing research so they measured hydrology in here so like what was the inflow of water what was the outflow what does the peak look like we had students that were in soil physics that were interested in wherever changes in soil properties between the areas that were wet and dry we had students in horticulture doing research on plants of that as well and then over time is it kind of grow a little bit more and you can kind of get a feel for what that's like so that's just again the basins when it comes in goes down a swale out here and before it goes out and then our landscape architecture department designed an area where students can sit put in some native plants as well so we had you know more of that kind of aspects within it then we had students generate projects where they could then go present at national conferences off of this as well so this project was started out with students and it's been carried through with them to even where they participate in the maintenance of this project as well so this is some of our one of our freshman courses that was doing that we found that if you bring food and extra credit you get a lot of student volunteers and then the last kind of section I just wanted to kind of highlight and show you all is the other area that we've gotten more interest into with our students was pollinator habitat creation and on our side of campus I think we've got a we've had a little bit more flexibility in doing this so we had for a while a few years back one of our living learning programs so that's where students may be in a residence hall and actually live and participate did a connected course and one of the things they wanted to do was establish some pollinator habitat so we established six pollinator gardens on campus butterfly gardens on campus that we had some students be involved with how do you design them procurement growing of the plants other ones involved in planting other ones also involved in creating structures and signage for what these are so these are ones that you could find around campus and then we also had a PhD student start to wonder well how can you do better on monarch butterfly habitat and this is a link to his dissertation but he did a lot of work looking at what was the orientation and this is what these were just part of his sample set but looking at the orientation of those gardens looking at how milkweed was planted within those looking at predation by European paper wasps there's a variety of things I got out of that but they were able to use this as part of their study and not only having those students create it but again we've had students be involved in some of the maintenance but then grounds also does a tremendous amount of work with this on there then we even have things where there were opportunities created by well how do we keep the geese out of the pond because we have a lot of geese that like the water of the pond and this is the pond where that initial farm road rain garden I showed you eventually drains into and then this goes out to Nicholasville Road and so this was an opportunity for our horticulture club to also grow a lot of plants and so they grew 9,000 plants to put around this Gluck pond with the idea of can we also have trees grow up around it to disrupt flight paths but can you make it so that they can't see potentially as it grows where predators might be and so if you go by it now it's a lot more heavily vegetated up but that really kind of started out this idea where grounds connected with us as well to say can we do something about the geese and then it got involved with our horticulture club who the students grew the plants and then we had other student volunteers out there to bring it in and then I just want to kind of end up with some other links for you all out there a lot of the stuff I was able to show you we have a tremendous amount of publications on our Cooperative Extension Service that are available free of charge for folks just highlighted a few on there we also have a YouTube channel Dr. Amanda Gumbert does a lot of work also maintaining with that as well and a podcast series which hasn't got as we haven't done as much with it as the lately but that QR code will pull you to a lot of those online publications and then if anybody wants to reach out or see any of these things we have our contact information but again I want to thank a lot of the folks in this room I know we're also partners and these projects they're never things that that are done in isolation but the ones that we able to put on our campus have been used very heavily and all of our different mission areas that we've had on campus well thank you very much sir the first one so that was so rush you all eco grow Ridgewater stand tech were involved in that one I think about Bill engineering so Bell did the landscape stand tech I think was part of the design you all were part of the construction part of it oh yeah thank you yeah thanks on the business side it's been pretty tremendous to have I see Bobby carry in that photo so he was one of your students that was at there seeing construction I could tell that just seeing that those kinds of things really sparked students in a way that maybe they couldn't have gotten as much out of just reading from textbooks or seeing videos and things but on the business end you know we hired Bobby and it was just like a seamless integration to have a new hire come on who already had some exposure already understood what we were doing and why so that was a tremendous benefit and as well just the research that's been going on so you know as designers or people doing the implementation we have a better understanding of how does this actually work I mean we might see something you know and there's all kinds of stuff subsurface that's going on you can't even see so that's just some feedback I wanted to give that it's been pretty tremendous to have to have these programs where students are actively kind of hands-on learning and just seeing but that makes transition into you know once they graduate and looking for a job they've already got some experience but it's it's really tremendous on integrating into into further work so thanks for doing that I think I appreciate I think you highlighted something really important and that it's a partnership and it's a it's a two-way street so I think you get a lot of it to some of the questions we get research maybe ideas that get generated at the University and we get asked out and vice versa we've had a lot of research ideas that have been generated by the community that have come to us and said we're wondering about this and then we started to get into the research going oh well there's not a lot of great answers for that maybe we can help figure that back out and so I do want to highlight that and I think you make a great point right it is very much a partnership in a two-way street on these kind of efforts you again thank you all very much and if something comes up let me know those of us that have been around a long time might remember Bell Engineering I believe came and did a presentation about the project on Alumni Drive a few probably a few years ago anyway so now we're gonna switch a little bit to a different area but not too far away Southland Drive we're gonna have Mark Sanders from here at LFUCG talk about some stormwater improvements on Thanks everybody that for those that don't know me I'm Mark Sanders engineering section manager for Division of Water Quality got the design team with me John Steinmetz with Manx Engineering, Matt Call with Third Rock and in the crowd is Steven Vogel with Strand and Associates that he either won or lost Paper Rock Scissors not getting up to present today but I want to talk a little bit about the Southland Park project and give some updates on projects that kind of come from this study so today we'll talk about the scope on how the project kind of come to be the modeling and engineering of it the concepts and iterations that it went through the planting species and selections current conditions and then we'll wrap up with the summary for those that aren't aware that the map on the left where the blue star is is where the Southland Park is located kind of zoom over to the right a little bit of a blow up the Southland Park areas of the blue dot notice the green areas on the map and the red line going through it is Wolf Run so now let's go back to 2015-2016 this is in the heart of the consent decree by both the sanitary group and also the stormwater group stormwater group part of the stipulation of the EPA consent decree was we had to come up with 30 million dollars worth of improvements to meet their demands well these green areas are known drainage or flooding areas that the city's encountered well there's four of these areas here so we thought hey we need a project here's four areas let's put all these areas into one project and start looking at it as a whole so now we'll jump forward and we'll jump back so now we've got a project what's gonna be our scope well the scope we're gonna start looking at it from upstream of Beacon Hill so let's see if I can go back how do you go back okay so Beacon Hill on the map on the right is top left the count to the east if you want to think of it kind of like a box Harrodsburg Road to the right Nicholasville Road to the south Pasadena Drive to the north Rosemont Garden so that's kind of your box your study area that we've that we're looking at within this area we've had to buy or the city's had to purchase a couple properties on furlong clays mill good rich the performance criteria that we use for the study to have it evaluated was the 25 year 24 hour storm event and a secondary goal of the of the study it was if we encountered any sump pumps take them off the sanitary take them off the sanitary line so in 2016 again we're back kind of mid mid 15 16 16 would come up with a study put out an RFP in 2017 we selected banks third rock and strand to do the study first thing they did first thing they did was put out a survey to to kind of see where the issues was you know are we actually getting issues well this is a massive study areas I think they sent out about 5,000 questionnaires we received back about 800 I think 200 had reported street flooding and I think about 50 or 60 reported structure flooding so we knew that there was an issue now the red dots and the red squares indicate street and structure flooding so this maps pretty tailing so from from the reported issues now the design team took off and started coming up with some solutions or some proposals you point how do you point at it you get to bubble up hey okay this is WGPL this was a now talk about this on the next slide too this is WGPL this is the Southview area south and drive detention basin this is Allendale and down here is our Southland Park project and you can see this is a Southland Southland parks kind of broken up into two phases this is the detention basin and this is the line the phase two that's that's that's being constructed right now so from the study these projects came came from that the Allendale detention basin the Southview storm sewers Derby and Regency Drive south and detention basin Pasadena Tucson WGPL and the Southland Southland Drive this information so let me give you some updates on where they stand in a few others WGPL number seven was the first one to go through that one's completely I think I'm completed about two years ago now the Southland Park detention basin which is what we're talking about finished up last year the the line improvement projects that are going around the park is being worked on right now and it'll finish up this fall winter after that we are in negotiate or we have negotiated a I guess a number on the Allendale or Allendale is moving we're in negotiations on it after that we're going to do a get some public involvement and put out a RFP on that one and then from that once Allendale we figure out Allendale then we'll start looking at some of the others one it's not on the list but just kind of in the area cuz I know it's a big or we get asked a lot is furlong drive and furlong drive is it's also moving we've got a consultant on board and and it's kind of off and running to I think with that I'll let John talk about the then we're going back to the park phase one hi we were lucky enough during the project to get a 25 year storm pretty much a few months into it when we first started and so that gave us a lot of work to calibrate from and Steve Vogel of strand led up the modeling he and I and some others went out during that storm event took a lot of photographs which really helped us during the model calibration efforts these pictures were provided by residents on Tucson Drive that's the best photographs we had of the South and Park area which helped us calibrate that part of the model we move most of the slides on modeling if any gearheads out there want to talk about modeling Steve's here to answer the questions later on the presentation if needed but this model depicts the this slide depicts the existing conditions modeling and the Southland area the Southland Park area is here and basically the bigger the colors the worse the existing model the flooding events so the park is here and the Tucson flooding is in this area Pasadena Drive and you McCourt flooding was pretty significant one residence on Pasadena Court the structure was flooded fairly frequently downstream down around the Longview area experienced a lot of flooding but our South and Park project the scope was to not worsen any downstream flooding when we made improvements upstream so looking at the difference between the the colored areas here in the Tucson the flooding and the Yuma flooding on the next slide you can see that they were greatly reduced and the you know the biggest color biggest flooding depths are the red but that's the filled up detention basins that were constructed in the park so when we're working with parks and rec you know this this project didn't have to go through any easement acquisition for the phase one project we're working with parks and rec and we assume going in that they'd want to have minimal disruptions to the existing park activities so the first basins we laid up took up open space well first we assume that they didn't want to work at all we thought they'd say stay out of our park we like it the way it is we were a little bit surprised when they said take all the grass you want we don't want to do a whole lot of mowing so that's what we this is kind of an evolution of our grading plan through there so that's that's what I just talked about is number one there that's what we did in the report so you know they said go ahead and take our playground and tennis courts because we they're really old and we need to renovate them anyway so we came up with a grading plan for that take the tennis court and then they said well we just paved the tennis court about three months later so let's say the tennis court and take the playground it was getting old so that's where we kind of ended up we took the playground they rebuilt it we took the basketball court that was by the playground and it's going to be by the new playground because the proximity of the participants was not really compatible to parental happiness and so we ended up modifying the degrading plan again and this is what we came up with you can see the tennis courts are kind of left out of the work the playgrounds down here this would be the new playground the existing tree lined area through the park if you're familiar with it we tried to save it also and then we have proposed basins excuse me basin one two three and four we had four different stormwater storage areas and this is the final grading plan that we came up with that met that correct met those requirements and still performed hydraulically the flood reduction that we needed the project also involves some retaining walls that you're seeing some photographs to get the volume we needed and a relocation of the walking path that came right through the middle of the area we relocated around in between the basins the tennis court was left alone and the playground which used to be in this area was relocated to here and this is the covered shelter that those familiar with the park will be familiar with so overall from the performance requirements we got eight and a half acre feet of storage we diverted flow the current construction of the upstream storm sewer is going to bring flow diverted into the park during flood events and the storage is going to mitigate that extra flow before it increases discharges downstream parks and rec coordinated the relocations of the playground and tennis courts and then max going to talk a little bit more about our green infrastructure elements that were included in the project so the design team wanted this to be two-part water quantity and water quality and for green infrastructure it's great to help improve the water quality and that's where third rock came in here and this is our site plan for the green infrastructure that was going to be utilized in the project so here's the there's a first basin that comes in there's some pipe that brings in some water through this way and then this drains into this basin so both of these basins connect and then go into an existing stream restoration project here and we'll I'll talk about that here in a little bit the biggest problem about using a stream restoration or green infrastructure approach in urban environments is the fact that the water that's coming off of the streets are going through the gray lines are very flashy typically if it's just soil if it's just a grass or vegetation if it's getting high flows at a very high rate of speed into that soil and grass it's probably going to erode so we had to do some hardening of our design approach to make sure that the stream restoration was going to maintain where we want it to be and so the first coming right off of the the culverts here they go into this basin this basin and then going through any kind of gray infrastructure is we have energy dissipation energy dissipation pools and I'll get into the specific designs on that in the next couple of slides it goes through a naturally re-meandered stream here with step pool systems which then goes through some hardened and some small woody debris structures and then finally it goes into the existing stream restoration project so the basin itself however we came up with a design filter media to help water infiltrate into the basin and that will also help the water quality help with some of the detention but also just help the design plant species that were going to be there help have some water there so it's nice and healthy and helps that reintroduction of vegetation to these basins you can see the designed media is right here this kind of like speckled pattern these rectangular patterns that's just the existing subgrade but this is primarily just going to be sand with some compost and some clean topsoil so that helps the water flow and infiltrate into the system and then in the center here you can see the design stream this is the energy dissipation pool that I was talking about along with some pictures from construction and post-construction so flow coming in from the top of the diagram going south in the diagram we had some larger rocks at the toe of the slope along with some rocks at the bank full stage and then in the middle of it we have some heavier rocks and cobble and a weir rock that we placed where the water goes into the remandered stream this is really heavy duty and typically on a stream restoration project you're not going to see this but we did have to deal with the flashiness of the flow and make sure that the stream the project would not fail or this channel would not have any erosion issues after the energy dissipation pool we cut back a little bit on just the rigidity of the rock structures and we had more of a classic design approach to the stream restoration but you can see here in the upper right hand corner that was just after construction coming out of that culvert there into the energy dissipation pool and then this is after some of the temporary veg started to take place afterwards we had some step pool structures like I mentioned and this is one that we use this is a rock a vein and essentially it's called a rock a vein because it kind of makes an a we have a little bit of a curved top part of the structure of rock that drops into a little tiny pool and then drops over another set of this a into a larger pool primarily this is to help control the flow of the water going through the channel the biggest erosive factors in the stream believe it or not is the water and so if you can control how fast that water is flowing you don't have to worry about the stream eroding and so this was just one way and one of the structures that we use to control the hydraulic slope in the stream restoration project of this green infrastructure project you can see in the top right hand corner it being built and that was just after some storm flow so it was nice to see that it was performing and then after some of the temporary veg here started to take place that was from the most downstream end of the project so that's just another picture of the rock a vein and then throughout in between the pools and to the next structures we had these small woody debris structures and this is small 4 to maximum 8 inch size small woody debris that we actually put in the channel in between these structures this helps introduce wood helps introduce macro habitat into the stream but it can also help armor the stream with woody debris and so you can see as it's being put in here in construction in the upper right hand corner in between each of the structures you can see that there's some wood that's been kind of it's it's not too complicated you just put a bunch of wood in there randomly and pound it in with your machine and it just helps create and reinforce but also provides some macro invertebrate habitat after the temporary seating took place it's kind of hard to tell in this picture but it's kind of what we wanted to look like it minus all the grass in the channel and then we wanted to have a native planting plan to put native plants into the bed into the basins but one thing that was really interesting I mentioned this before we are tying into an existing stream restoration project and so to make sure that our planning plan matched up and there wasn't there wasn't a obvious border where our project ended and the net in the previous one started we had our biologists go out in the field and walk through and see what plants were established well in the existing stream restoration project and then we mimic that in the lower basin so you can see that the pattern here is a little bit different because each of these patterns represent a planting plan for each of these zones. One thing to point out and Mark is going to get into it a little bit later in this presentation but we had this zone here which is primarily this these white spaces that was zone B and we we designed that to be frequently our plant species that were more flood resistant more damp soils that they were going to be used to and then past that in the upper part to the basin based on the elevation we pulled back and have more drought tolerant species species that are used to less water that way we could help the survivability of the planting plan in this green infrastructure project. Also we decided to use some container grown trees as we have seen before and some of our projects container grown trees while they may cost a little bit more up front have a higher survivability rate and so we decided to opt for that and also it would look as if the project was already on its way as opposed to doing it from tree seeds or bare roots so you can see here in the upper right hand corner those are just some of the container grown trees and they're all native species that we have set out that were implemented into the basin and then this is shortly after construction I believe it was in some of the fall winter months and you can see it's kind of hard to tell but some of those container grown trees without leaves are planted throughout this basin and then this is just some more channel construction photos as the project was going on you can see here where the the two channels meet in that lower basin so you can see the headwalls up there along with some of our project or some of our structures another energy dissipation pool and then another rock a vein and it handled a few floods in this photo or not floods a few storms in this photo so far and so we were pretty happy to see that it was staying where we wanted it to be and then you can see the retaining wall that John was talking about there and the upper picture and then some retaining water there and one of the pool structures that we had in the project some more you can see here this is a really good photo of the filter media that we designed that we're talking about it almost kind of looks sandy like a beach almost and one thing that we saw when we were out there just doing some general oversight and also with LFUCG Mark and Rick who were there on site a whole lot more making sure that the project was going well is that the contractors were actually using their plans that's typically a good thing when you're putting in some construction right that they're actually looking at the plans and you'd be surprised how much that doesn't happen so and with that I'm going to hand it back over to Mark let me go back one slide just whenever they with the contractor was constructing constructing the different features it was it was impressive just just from my eyes to see because it's a whole lot more art than science because you know you're selling a storm pipe you just keep playing but you know the contracts haven't get us almost a specific piece of rock and almost like a Lego to make fit you know then twist it you know next one twist it so it was like I said there's just a figure out how these things work oh yeah but but now here are some pictures just some as we wrap up the mother new park the new trail that was going through current conditions these photos I think were taken last last week week before photo on the top photo on the left is a basin one it's it's a lot more I guess conditions are a lot more way it that though it's a lot more established basins a Mac was saying this is based on I think three so the trees and live stakes are holding really good we got a tremendous survivability rate grass not so much because it's just not getting water right now and that's one thing I wanted to kind of I guess hit on is this is a two-phase project we had to build the basins before we built the stormwater pops so you have the water so the water would have a place to go so that's part of the reason why we're not getting the grass coming in I mean it so hopefully once we get a phase two complete it'll just help with the grass growth growth in a stable get established you can kind of see the bare spots those wide areas that Mac was showing on two and three from this we just had our one-year warranty walk with the contractor I said the trees and live stakes that go along the the stream came out really good the grass you know kind of we're figuring out we've got a I guess our action plan is develop a seed pod where we'll come in in October and implant kind of get just to help the existing seed and then once phase two gets finished that'll help even more so it's kind of a plan going forward and that should happen in October call summary nice is just for phase one so this is just for the detention base and our engineers estimate was not a 906 slow bit came in at 1017 which 10% overage in in today's time not terrible we had only one change order and that change order was just widening of the pathway through the park park wanted a little bit wider and also added a fence around the park or around the basin so total construction on this phase one was 1043 but again being two phases phase two is I think came in at 16 you had the park and you had the design I think everything in total this project came to be a little bit over three million so probably super good super good product now just in summary challenges working within the park one you know we got a lot of eyes that we got a lot of inspectors which is a good thing and we got a lot of really good comments from Ken friends wolf run and other citizens just around the park on you know hey how are you how are you guys doing this how can you can you do this this project last year won the APW a stormwater project of the year native plantings I said it's going to take a little bit of time to to grow in but once it's fully grown in I think everybody's going to be tickled and phase two finishes up like said this fall winter so when the spring rains come at the park will be ready for it and with that like said there like John was saying that this this project had a ton of stakeholders from people in water quality you had the environmental services you had parks parks department you had the council member you had friends will front you had the citizen so a lot of people communicate and went really good and in our design team I think did outstanding banks engineering John Steinmetz is here Kyle Hall Stephen Vogel Zach Parise with strand and Casey Manley Mac Hall rainstorm with third rock and with that he might has any questions he has a question of rainstorm yes yeah I really like how this project progressed particularly the way you handle the public participation I live like 400 feet away from this project so if there was a seed that did not germinate you oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah and just want to echo what Ken said that it this project started as a water quantity project like how do we get water off the street you know get get it into get it into the basins so it started as a water quantity but then as it kind of evolved you know put from public input and in buy-in and support from our deputy director and director and in support from the council member you know everybody said hey this is probably a good thing to do you know it's a you know benefit to the city benefit to the community so it kind of evolved into what it is so you know I think early on we was looking at two old basins from the 1980s just to two bowls and I think Ken yelled at me a few times that on that one but but now it turned into something I think pretty spectacular quantity component of this is this modeled for the 25-year flood so what happens when we get a 75-year flood okay when I asked that question of our modeler he said well we'll see well well they're often designed for the hundred year flood in terms of the hundred year flood in terms of doing that so that'll be interesting to see when we get we'll probably have one of those every five years yeah and one thing you know on that is I kind of like it it's a challenge is working on stormwater projects within an urban environment verse working on a project out in the county where you have open ground and you can just build whatever you want to be able to a lot of times you have constraints and you can only get what you can get just with the volume that you can you're you're given with so that that's what we deal with a lot of times we yeah the phase two is finishing up and then after that we've got the Allendale detention basin that we're going to start looking at and that's kind of in the works right now and I probably come to come to fruition sometime in the spring just in terms of starting to be designed or evaluated and construction is still still a ways off but just the process is it's moving forward Southview oh well yeah just so I don't misspeak where we can find land yeah I think early on we looked at yeah yeah that'll be the top of that'll be the toughest one just because of kind of like with this when you've got to have a place for the water to go to before you started solving bigger pipe to get water off the street so if we can't find the detention basin area or or like right yep yeah yeah just throughout this presentation think about how much the city has really been transformed through stormwater and just beautify and so I would be interested to see since the consent decree has occurred number of projects that are green infrastructure related throughout the city as a whole I think that's a tremendous success story to pull all those things together the city really sounds like a good topic for next meeting miss Champer I just took further the other projects going on in Wolf Run we just received notice that we were awarded a 319 grant to address to the projects that are in the water in the Wolf Run watershed management plan and these are basin retrofits along Regency Road and Derby Drive any other questions if not thank you Oh come back here I'll open it to potential topics for the next meeting about one I think dr. Kent said I just done some soil work in related to water quality in Wolf Run watershed maybe ready to present consult with him before you I've got an idea kind of beating up the Steve's and you know it would be good to see kind of what has to be done since the consent decree I think something a little further down the road to do is of all these projects you know how much money is done into it looking at cost-effectiveness like what kind of projects what styles of BMPs have had higher performance lower performance and maybe as a guide guideline since we've got a body of work in existence I would require some sampling and some monitoring of something that might be years down the road but they'd be interested in evaluating again for stormwater quality incentive grant projects to know which are the higher value where there's a lot of revelations happening in the green infrastructure to do on the maintenance side you the processing this group in on the section but we don't we started a little late so we're just a little over I'll try to get everybody out of here but just a few announcements I won't make Jennifer come up and read off the slides but I'll do my best to pick up through some of these but a lot of these are environmental services but we've got the due date for Art by Nature submissions it's coming up on September 15 you want to say anything about KWRI's annual subpoena? September 15th so registration closes today come on out if you're interested where is it? it would be in Central Bank Center okay Nature Hop is September 17th three weeks coming up October 6th through 15th Art by Nature is the 6th annual well the 17th is the 6th annual Nature Hop and it's a way for the community to enjoy natural areas of Fayette County there's a lot of free activities open to the public and a lot of integration with stormwater quality as well submissions Albuquerque's PAWS is the 24th right after Thanksgiving our next meeting will be on December 1st probably here again and then just a plug for December 8th will be our workshop for the engineering development and construction industry it's our annual workshop where we're able to talk about training, talk about ESC and get into some of the engineering there as well so that's it with that I'll close the meeting thank you all so much for coming we had a really good list of presentations today and I think it was a good discussion thank you