Watershed Achievements Report
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wq-cwp8-18
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<strong>Watershed</strong> Minnesota River <strong>Achievements</strong> Basin <strong>Report</strong> 2008<br />
<strong>Watershed</strong> <strong>Achievements</strong> <strong>Report</strong> Statewide 2015<br />
Lower Minnesota River <strong>Watershed</strong><br />
Quantifying Nutrient Removal by Street<br />
Sweeping<br />
Street sweeping has traditionally been regarding as<br />
a “housekeeping” task in stormwater management,<br />
with early studies indicating that sweeping had little<br />
impact on reducing stormwater nutrients. This study<br />
revisited the issue, and was unique in several aspects:<br />
(1) we included streets with tree canopy covers (over the<br />
streets) ranging from 0 to 20%; (2) measured nutrients<br />
in the sweepings removed, including nutrients in<br />
coarse organics (leaves, etc.), as well as fines; (3) swept<br />
through the entire snow-free season, including autumn<br />
leaf fall. Results show that the coarse organic fraction<br />
of sweepings included 42% of the P and 75% of the<br />
N in the sweepings. Nutrient removal increased with<br />
increasing canopy percentages, and with increasing<br />
sweeping frequency. During the spring and fall, the cost<br />
per pound of P removed dropped below $100/lb, an<br />
order of magnitude lower than for stormwater ponds. We<br />
developed a spreadsheet planning calculator designed<br />
to help public works and streets departments decide<br />
whether enhanced sweeping would work for their cities,<br />
supported by a User Support Manual, and convened<br />
two translational workshops, training ~ 80 professionals<br />
representing many of the municipalities in the Twin Cities<br />
region.<br />
Goals<br />
• Plan and conduct the Prior Lake Street Sweeping<br />
Experiment<br />
• Analyze results and develop a street sweeping planning<br />
tool for cities<br />
• Conduct translational workshops, disseminate findings<br />
in multiple venues<br />
Results that count<br />
• The project showed that enhanced street sweeping can<br />
remove substantial amounts of nutrients, especially in<br />
the form of coarse organics, and that the removal of<br />
nutrients for a given route can be modeled from tree<br />
canopy cover over streets and sweeping frequency<br />
within each month of the year.<br />
• We embedded the modeling approach into a street<br />
sweeping planning calculator that enables public works<br />
and streets departments to estimate removal of solids,<br />
N, and P for each sweeping route, the cost, and the<br />
cost/lb of pollutant removed. The Excel-based planning<br />
calculator and User Support Manual are posted on a<br />
website.<br />
• Translation of research results to practice occurred<br />
through several mechanisms: translational workshops,<br />
publication of key findings in Stormwater Magazine<br />
and a Stormwater Updates newsletter; and<br />
presentation in numerous forums, including a Low<br />
Impact Development Conference and a state-wide<br />
water resources conference, at several public works<br />
departments, watershed management districts, guest<br />
lectures, and others.<br />
Lessons learned<br />
As to “lessons learned”, this has been one of the most<br />
rapidly translated projects that either the Principal<br />
Investigator (PI) or co-PI has worked on, and an<br />
experience that we hope to repeat. This occurred for two<br />
reasons: (1) our research filled a void in knowledge that,<br />
once filled, had enormous practical application; and (2)<br />
we developed an accessible modeling tool that is simple<br />
enough to use that it is leading to rapid adoption by<br />
cities.<br />
With regard to MPCA, we greatly appreciated Greg<br />
Johnson’s (our project manager) effort to enable us to<br />
present our findings of two 319 projects to MPCA offices<br />
statewide, and have suggested that MPCA might in<br />
the future hold “319 workshops” for projects to share<br />
findings.<br />
Financial information<br />
Funding type: Section 319<br />
Grant amount: $285,754<br />
In-kind: $150,045<br />
Matching funds: $96,622<br />
Contact information<br />
Kevin McKoskey<br />
University of Minnesota<br />
450 McNamara Alumni Center<br />
200 Oak Street<br />
Minneapolis, MN 55455<br />
612-624-5066<br />
MPCA Project Manager: Greg Johnson<br />
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency www.pca.state.mn.us 73