The City of Waconia is an expanding west metro community within the seven county region of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota. The City while partnering with the Minnesota Department of Transportation on a corridor expansion and frontage road improvement project were challenged with meeting storm water volume and water quality rules imposed by the watershed. The City chose storm water reuse as a management strategy to meet the requirements. Storm water irrigation isn’t a new science, golf courses have utilized this practice for years. What makes this interesting is the City is selling storm water to businesses and irrigating City parcels within the watershed in effort to meet their volume and water quality requirements. Knowledge of chloride impacts to receiving waters including storm water ponds were of concern, however the City has been vigilant in reducing winter chemical applications. Research after the fact through testing, we have found the challenge in excess of previous sampling efforts in other watersheds in the community. A second challenge is the multiple agencies providing winter services to impervious surfaces outside of the City operational control. As a result the City is taking the higher than desired chloride testing results to the next level through efforts of public and staff education, watershed winter chemical application tracking and route optimization through its AVL system. A new State of Minnesota Chloride Management Plan will require and enhance the City efforts to reduce the found chloride levels in the storm water, and assist the city in education efforts to reduce chloride impacts from an outside perspective. This presentation is tied to a Reporter Article being published in October of 2020
Contributor/Source
Craig Eldred
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