Managing municipal storm water is not only required by amendments to the Clean Water Act, but can be an asset to your community’s sustainability efforts.  Clean streams are important for:

  • safe recreation
  • affordable drinking water
  • financial savings in future storm water infrastructure costs by infiltrating storm water on-site
  • preparing for increased storm water from new development and increasingly intense storm events

The goal of municipal storm water programs is to reduce the impact on surface water from storm sewer systems.  Franklin Soil and Water provides free or low-cost resources for  local government partners to meet this goal:

  • brochures, articles, educational materials and display materials that can be borrowed, copied or adopted for your use
  • the Central Ohio Storm Water Round-table, a quarterly gathering of storm water professionals from townships and municipalities where successful strategies are shared
  • The Urban Review newsletter
  • the Central Ohio Stormwater and Erosion Control Expo

Franklin Soil and Water also has working agreements with many Franklin County communities to provide direct services to meet their storm water needs.  Soil and water conservation districts continue to receive state matching funds for local government partnerships, bringing you more value for your money.   As political subdivisions of the state, we are enabled to provide a variety of natural resource services to communities including:

  • runoff pollution educational programs for the pre-K through 12 audience that are aligned with state academic content standards
  • outreach and education to the adult audience including landowners and businesses
  • workshops and cost-share program management for residential rain garden installation
  • workshops, online educational programming and cost-share program management for residential rain barrel distribution
  •  conservation easement purchase, planning and management
  • conservation plan development
  • grant writing and management
  • watershed planning and implementation
  • NPDES permit storm water program writing and annual reporting
  • site evaluation and inspections
  • illicit discharge detection through dry-weather screening
  • GIS mapping, monitoring and research

We encourage all communities to look for opportunities in your storm water program to benefit other community sustainability activities.  If you need feedback, ideas or assistance we are here to help.