Stormwater Management Facilties & Wildlife and Habitat

Planning Stormwater Management and Waterbody Buffers for Wildlife Value

Local watershed features form the backbone of an area’s landscape and often quite important to wildlife (e.g., streams, bayous, wetlands, rivers, and sinkholes - natural or man-altered drainage features).  Local governments and developers of large properties should examine stormwater, transportation and recreational infrastructure networks and proposed projects for wildlife integration and enhancement opportunities. These infrastructure facilities are often large budget items wherein multi-use wildlife enhancements or design features can be planned and constructed as a part of other infrastructure projects.  A community should work to identify and develop cross-connections and multi-use opportunities when planning transportation, stormwater management and community recreation facilities.  Public money can be saved and safety and efficiencies gained when these public facilities are integrated with community design that capture and conserve or enhance green infrastructure benefits.

A role for  local government is to plan for and encourage conservation-oriented low impact development design:

• Direct more dense clustering of development to the more developable environmentally suitable areas and set-asides wildlife habitats and environmentally sensitive portions.
• Link density bonuses for tightly clustered development when environmentally logical.
• Provide for logical environmental links to adjacent parcels to extend the habitat, wildlife and natural functionality benefits (think connectivity).
• Integrate stormwater management early in site planning activities.
• Using natural hydrologic functions as the integrating planning framework.
• Preserve waterbody and riverine green edges (a combined natural upland buffer and in-water littoral edge).
• Work with landowners and developers to not subdivide lots and properties to the waters edge, instead maintain a common community shoreline corridor with wildlife habitat features.
• Emphasize simple, nonstructural, low-tech, and low cost methods that incorporate natural landscape features and functions.
• Create a multifunctional multi-use landscape.
• Provide for permanent set-aside of undeveloped areas via conservation easements or other legal instruments.
• Develop and implement reoccurring events to cross-train the jurisdiction’s professional planning, engineering and related development review staff and administrators regarding linkage and integration of green infrastructure with other necessary infrastructures.

By planning a stepwise layering of open spaces a community can include certain stormwater management facilities or elements in an overall habitat and wildlife framework.  For example, when reviewing proposed subdivision, planned unit development, DRIs or other large developments planners can identify opportunities for stepwise layering of open space, stormwater facilities and buffers to create planned separation of human and wildlife communities (e.g., this may be of particular importance in the planning of large new developments that come up against large protected natural areas).

Road and Highway Related Stormwater Facilities

Stormwater management facilities occupy sizable acreages and are a major part of any new road or transportation project. Too often these facilities are under-valued and poorly designed relative to providing any positive wildlife value.

A certain dilemma exists in that stormwater management facilities are created to capture, sequester and treat pollutants that when concentrated may not present the desirable healthy habitat for wildlife. Nevertheless, by design or not, stormwater facilities are regularly use by wildlife.  In fact, at times stormwater facilitates and the habitat they represent act as wildlife attractors. This attractor role is noticeable during drought when they may still hold water or when due to their rather rigorous fencing, these facilities keep local feral predators at bay, offering areas of relative safe haven to wildlife.  The challenge to planners, engineers, and surveyors today is to design structures that will control stormwater and also improve water quality and provide wetland and wildlife habitat.

Opportunities exist to incorporate wildlife friendly design features for stormwater facilities that can maximize habitat value and assure capture and treatment of runoff from affected landscapes or bridges. In addition, in developed suburban and urban areas, local and regional greenway development for bike and foot trails can be incorporated with wildlife features into the required road or highway stormwater facilities. In Tallahassee for example, under the adopted Blueprint 2000 program and the extension of the major cross-town corridor of Blair Stone Road a positive and forward thinking multiuse approach has been taken to integrating road, stormwater management and greenway facilities.

Integrate your transportation and stormwater facility planning with your greenway and wildlife friendly community planning

• This means training your development and site review and P&Z folks (as well as your citizens) to look for possible cross parcel connection options prior to development approvals and road or highway development.

• This likely means drafting and adopting guiding policy for development reviews to encourage wildlife and greenway interconnections that link throughout and across communities.

• Avoid stormwater stalags (square/rectangular, steep-sided stormwater retention sites with high, often barbed wire fences) –They tend to block and barricade community connectivity as well as wildlife connectivity. This might mean working with FDOT or other City or County transportation planning and design people early-on to ensure adequate land is acquired to build larger community multi-use stormwater facilities.

• Look at your community from above and across property and jurisdictional boundaries and scope out possible interconnections.

• Factor in existing habitat hydrological flows and fluctuations (seasonal or yearly variations).

• Use native species for vegetated areas, landscaping, and stream or wetland buffer areas wherever possible. Native species can provide year-round attractive scenery, important habitat, pollutant buffering, and structural stability for soils. Native trees and shrubs will not need as much care and maintenance as ornamentals or non-natives.

• Wherever feasible, site plans should specify buffer zones along existing site drainage features such as upland swales, ditches, intermittent and ephemeral streams, ponds, wetlands, sinkholes, lakes, rivers, etc. Establishing buffer zones along existing drainage features enhances wildlife potential, preserves the drainage system and promotes greater site stability, less erosion, higher aesthetic potential, increased habitat value, and more economical site development.