Low Impact Development and Storm E-Z Comes to Boone

May 7-8, 2014 - Boone, NC
Watauga County Agricultural Conference Center
252 Poplar Grove Rd.
Boone, NC 28607 

Register here: 

http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/stormwater/training/storm_ez.html

Low Impact Development (LID) strives to mimic a site's natural hydrology by disconnecting built-upon areas and incorporating design techniques that infiltrate, filter and evaporate runoff. LID can make efficient use of the landscape by using open space that is intended for preservation as a means to manage and treat stormwater. When designed and maintained appropriately, LID can reduce "hard" infrastructure costs, increase lot yields and enhance water quality protection.

 The state, in cooperation with many private and public sector partners, has developed a technical definition for LID. The state has also updated many chapters of the Best Management Practices (BMP) Manual to allow designers more options for infiltrating, filtering and evaporating stormwater runoff. These chapters include infiltration, disconnected built-upon area, rainwater harvesting and green roofs.

The Storm-EZ Permitting Tool has been developed by Withers & Ravenel in partnership with NCDENR, NCSU-BAE, the NC Coastal Federation, and the NC LID State Technical Review Team. Storm-EZ is an Excel spreadsheet-based stormwater permitting tool with computations based on the SCS Discrete Curve Number Method and current research findings on hydraulic and hydrologic performance of BMPs. Designers enter pre-development and post-development land use data and design data for stormwater practices. Then, Storm-EZ reports whether the project meets stormwater regulations and also quantifies where the project falls in the conventional-to-low impact spectrum.

When Storm-EZ is finalized, it will replace the general state stormwater permit application form, the separate BMP Supplement Forms (currently one per device is required), and the Operation and Maintenance agreements.

This workshop will include separate presentations on each of the new BMP Manual Chapters. After that, the new Storm-EZ tool will be debuted and participants will learn how to use Storm-EZ to analyze site plans and estimate the conventional versus low impact fates of runoff to determine if a site meets the state's new LID defnition. 

The training will be from 7:30am to 5:00pm on Day 1 (registration at 7:30 am with class starting at 8:00am), and 8am to 5:pm on Day 2.