When the storms came: This rain garden near the Neuse River had
to be rebuilt after a hurri-cane, but is in fine shape today.
Staff
photo
KINSTON — Stormwater runoffs free from unwanted nutrients, petroleum and other pollutants may soon be the norm in urban landscapes. Non-traditional materials and innovative water-quality projects will harness that runoff, if Scott Stevens, Kinston’s public services director, has anything to say about it.
Partnering with the Neuse Education Team (NET) since 1998, Stevens, who earned his civil engineering degree from N.C. State in 1990, has helped determine if non-traditional paving materials and other innovative best management practices (BMPs) can deter noxious stormwater runoff in Kinston along the Neuse River in Eastern North Carolina.
When the storms came: This rain garden near the Neuse River had
to be rebuilt after a hurri-cane, but is in fine shape today.
Staff
photo
Kinston, in Lenoir County, is one of 15 local governments in the Neuse River Basin required to develop and implement a stormwater management strategy as part of the Neuse River Nutrient Sensitive Waters Management Strategy, also known as the Neuse Rules.
New Lenoir County businesses that could add more than 3.6 pounds per acre of N from their roofs must pay a one-time city fee. If a business dispenses 3.6 pounds of N per acre per year, they must either pay a one-time penalty fee to the state and an annual fee to the city, or build other alternatives such as grass buffers or ditches to decrease N runoff. The one-time fee is $330 per pound of N dispensed per acre per year.
In 1999, Stevens, working with a team of five N.C. State engineering seniors, designed and built the pervious parking lot to educate citizens and developers. Funds from a university extension grant available to N.C. State faculty paid for the project’s materials, while the city provided construction labor to install the alternative paving in a 25-space parking lot adjacent to Kinston’s city offices on King Street.
Stevens reviewed the students’ site design plans, supervised the parking lot’s construction, monitored basin construction and arranged for a student project presentation to Kinston’s city council. He maintained the site for two years, collecting valuable information weekly to demonstrate how turfstone and plastic cellular pavers reduce stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces.
Turfstone is concrete blocks with sand-filled center holes that allow grass to grow and promote water filtration; plastic cellular pavers are interconnected plastic loops in a honeycomb-shaped matrix resembling plastic soda six-pack holders.
Turfstone is sturdy enough to support everyday vehicular use, but grassy pavers are best suited to occasional use. Both are underlain with sand, gravel and specially engineered textiles to reinforce soil and allow grass to grow.
The site and a rain garden along the Neuse River have been stops on several Extension tours, including an elected officials and Coastal Plain Stormwater BMP tours and the Southern Region Water Quality Extension Conference Tour. Stevens presented information during tours and at Extension workshops in Kinston and New Bern on permeable pavement design, at a coastal development workshop in Morehead City and at the Third Annual Neuse Conference in Raleigh.
Stevens notes other projects on the boards for Kinston and Lenoir County: “We diverted rain to a pocket wetland at a boat ramp on U.S. 70 and completed a design for a wetland to treat stormwater leaving our public service complex.”
His other water-quality efforts include a stream restoration project with the NC Transportation Department that he says should save Kinston more than $1.5 million and provide water-quality and quantity benefits. He has helped secure more than $40 million in grants for wastewater projects, not including a recent$125,000 Clean Water Management Trust Fund grant for a constructed wetland due for late-spring completion.
Stevens says, “The BMPs we construct mean that rather than telling our developers that the need to do something, we can show them what to do, so it’s not frightening to them, and they can see what costs it might add to a project to comply with the new rules as they come about.”
“Scott has encouraged a new way of thinking among Kinston’s city employees and citizens,” Hunt says. “He and the Kinston are innovators with respect to stormwater not only in the Neuse, but in all of North Carolina. They have set an example that other communities should look to.”
—Art Latham
