As part of the STORMS project, we wanted to understand how and why stormwater management differs between cities. In particular, we focused on Denver, Colorado and Cleveland, Ohio. Denver has separate wastewater and stormwater systems, whereas Cleveland has a combined sewer system, similar to many older eastern U.S. cities. Kelly Turner and her teams surveyed 185 stormwater managers in these cities about priorities for stormwater control measures.
Our findings are that:
1. In Denver, more stormwater managers listed water quality goals as a primary benefit of stormwater management. In contrast, Cleveland managers prioritized water quantity. This fits with the consent decree in Cleveland for reducing combined sewer overflows, which requires less stormwater entering the combined sewer system.
2. The priority that managers gave to co-benefits of stormwater management (aesthetic, habitat, property value) was more related to their values than region. Both regions had the same number of two groups of stormwater managers, which we call “Traditional Technocrats” and “Champions”, who had views that were more strongly pro-environment. The biggest difference between these groups was agreement with the statement “I currently worry that stormwater runoff is degrading freshwater habitats like lakes and streams.” A large majority of Champions strongly agreed, compared to about half of the Traditional Technocrats who “agreed.” In line with these differences, Champions gave higher priority to the co-benefits of stormwater infrastructure compared to the Traditional Technocrats.
In conclusion, our work suggests that federal regulations (top-down) and individual’s values (bottom-up) processes combine to determine what type of stormwater infrastructure is chosen to be implemented.
Further information is available from: Turner, V.K., Gmoser-Daskalakis, K., Costello, D.M., Jefferson, A. and Bhaskar, A.S. (2022), Champions and Traditional Technocrats: The Role of Environmental Value Orientation in Stormwater Management. J Am Water Resour Assoc, 58: 336-354. https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.13015