Surface water mismanagement
Seattle’s hefty Comprehensive Plan is subtitled “Toward a Sustainable Seattle.” In the vision section of the plan there is a sub-section called Environmental Stewardship which calls for compact development for reasons that sound familiar.
The emphasis on compact development is intended to mitigate air and storm water discharge pollution from automobiles, loss of green space, and increases in impervious surfaces that results from non-compact development (page vi)
But what about the Mayor’s latest efforts to put people back “to work and get our local economy moving?” Those plans will include $16 million for sidewalks and repaving.
The City of Seattle has a serious consistency problem when it comes to sustainability. Surface water is probably the best example. The right hand is working on fixing pot holes and keeping promises of building more sidewalks, while the left hand is writing glowing language about the importance of reducing impervious surface. This is a case where being ambidextrous is a bad thing.
Of course it feels great to pander to demands from neighborhoods for more sidewalks and acknowledge the importance of reducing storm water discharge caused by paved surfaces.
Surface water management is perhaps the most glaring example that the City is still a long way from a real comprehensive plan that moves us toward a sustainable Seattle. We need to ask: What are the actual outcomes of what we do, compared to what we say?
The bottom line must be to limit the creation of more impervious surface, reduce the impervious surfaces we have, and develop safe walkways for pedestrians and lanes for bikes that don’t create more water discharge. Tto do that, we have to know how much impervious surface we have, set a quantifiable goal to reduce it and hold ourselves accountable. Change starts with measurement.
We need to grab the measuring tape before we go for the shovel.
Tags: drainage, economic stimulus, water
