Community and Regional Planning Program
Date of this Version
Fall 11-2014
Abstract
Beginning in 2008, The City of Lincoln, Nebraska set forth efforts to reduce pollutant loads within Antelope Creek below U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) criteria with the goal of eventually having segments of the stream removed from the Clean Water Act 303(d) list of impaired waters. Early efforts focus on channel improvements made as part of the Antelope Valley Project to increase the flood carrying capacity of the Creek. However, additional funding is being provided through an intergovernmental agreement between the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and the City of Lincoln (Grant Number: 56-1283) to allow the City of Lincoln’s Watershed Management Division of the Public Works and Utilities Department to fund a graduate student assistantship to create, implement, and run a non-structural program with the objective of reducing pollutant loads within Antelope Creek. As per the inter-governmental agreement between the City of Lincoln and the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, in order for section 319 Grant funds to be used, this non-structural program is expected to consist of several approaches to improve stormwater quality. Jeffrey Polkowski, the graduate student, research assistant, and author of this paper, was assigned responsibility to run the non-structural program. He decided to use the funds to construct a Best Management Practices (BMP) cost-share program. This professional project involves researching the lessons, methods, and approaches other cities have taken as a potential basis for planning and designing the cost-share program that was made available to all residents within the Antelope Park Sub-Basin of Antelope Creek in Lincoln, Nebraska. During the course of this cost-share program, a total of 98 BMPs were installed within 37 land parcels. Recommendations to improve BMP cost-shares for future sub-basins are to identify residents who will fail to meet project goals through a structured application, include education opportunities for local landscaping professionals, require that residents implement 2 BMPs in order to qualify for the cost-share, and to offer prefabricated rain garden designs to residents who do not want hire a professional or design their own.
Comments
CRPL 898 Professional Project Completed in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree: Master of Community and Regional Planning, Community and Regional Planning Program, College of Architecture, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska. December, 2014. For Edwin Kouma, PE City of Lincoln, Public Works and Utilities Department, Watershed Management Division. Faculty Advisory Committee Chair: Gordon Scholz, AICP