The Green Infrastructure Manual developed by Muller Engineering Company (Muller) for the City of Colorado Springs was recognized as a finalist for the Colorado Association of Stormwater and Floodplain Manager (CASFM) Engineering Excellence Award.
Muller worked with the City to identify Green Infrastructure practices that function well in the climate and conditions of the City and to prepare a manual to guide the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of these practices. By presenting the practice as meaningful, achievable, attractive, and easily understood, the City anticipated landowners, developers, and project owners will embrace the adoption of Green Infrastructure. As part of development, Muller evaluated 15 example sites and prepared conceptual plans to demonstrate that significant runoff infiltration could be implemented on the sites, pointing to the potential to use Green Infrastructure to reduce urban runoff impacts.
The approach employed by the City of Colorado Springs Stormwater Enterprise to promote volume reduction in the City provides a great model for other communities. The targeted, comprehensive guidance manual has wide application to help development and redevelopment designers integrate volume reduction into their sites. The simplified method for estimating volume reduction facilitates the analysis work and can be verified in the field. The process the Stormwater Enterprise undertook to establish quantitative requirements for volume reduction may be considered by other communities to promote widespread application of stormwater volume reduction to benefit their streams and watersheds.
