Biohabitats' Projects, Places and People

PROJECTS

Health & Water Quality: Powerful Dialogue To Begin

As Nicole Stern mentioned in her article on Water Quality & Public Health, Baltimore area health researchers, water quality experts, community NGOs and representatives from municipal government will soon come together to share data and expertise. We are very excited to help coordinate this public health roundtable, which is intended to spark dialogue about the intersection of public health and water quality, specifically focused on bacteria. This type of enhanced collaboration among disciplines is expected to result in a more informed and coordinated effort to form policy that will improve the health of the water and people of the Baltimore region.

Planned Greenway Aims To Improve Ecology and Public Health

In spite of its rich cultural history and intriguing natural features, Southwest Louisville currently lacks an easy way for people to access and interact with the natural environment in a way that does not depend on the automobile. The goal of the Southwest Greenways Project is to encourage people to improve their fitness and health and make them more aware of the region's resources by creating a system of greenways. As part of a multidisciplinary team, Biohabitats is providing the ecological basis for the planning and design of the greenway system. Our work includes engaging the community in the development of trail alternatives, researching existing ecological studies, identifying and filling critical data gaps, and helping develop greenway alternatives that not only protect existing ecological communities but also restore degraded areas to their full ecological potential.

Gonna Be Some Happy Fish In South Boulder Creek!

Before/After: a completed portion of the restoration.

South Boulder Creek has long delivered ecological and recreational benefits for the City of Boulder. Now that final construction is underway on the restoration of two miles of the creek, it's about to bring even more. Biohabitats led this design/build project for the City's Open Space and Mountain Parks Department, supporting their efforts to improve aquatic habitat along a portion of the creek that had suffered the impacts of water diversions, channel modifications, and grazing. To accommodate the channel's varying morphologic conditions, the restoration incorporated a diverse suite of solutions and eight different design elements. These included boulder clusters, a low flow meander channel, side pools, log cross vanes, step/pools, log wing deflectors, and woody debris clumps. The Colorado Division of Wildlife, which awarded a ‘Fishing is Fun' grant to help fund the project, will stock the project area with a Whirling Disease-resistant rainbow trout (Hofer-strain) to try to establish a self-sustaining population for recreational fishing.

Stormwater Justice To Be Served At Federal Court House

Stormwater from the parking lot and one-acre rooftop of the Pete V. Domenici U.S. Courthouse in downtown Albuquerque receives no on-site treatment. It gets pumped into the City's storm sewer and put on a fast track directly to the Rio Grande. But all that is about to change. Biohabitats subsidiary NSI is playing a major role in a collaborative design effort to vastly reduce the site's water use. The project, led by Rios Clemente Hale Studio, involves shifting the landscaping from turf grass to native, xeric planting, harvesting rainwater from the rooftop, and diverting stormwater into depressed planting beds, where it is filtered through bioretention and an underground vortex separator. The federal government recently approved the project, and it is moving forward into bidding.

Community Puts Finishing Touches on Washington, DC Stream Restoration

Community volunteers spent a beautiful Saturday planting native trees and shrubs and installing deer protection cages along Milkhouse Run, located in the region's popular Rock Creek Park. This Biohabitats and Underwood Associates design/build project for the District of Columbia Department of the Environment was funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The design employed a regenerative stormwater conveyance approach to restore more than 1,000 linear feet of severely degraded channel and reconnect it with its floodplain. Project partners and supporters from the National Park Service and the Rock Creek Conservancy helped organize the volunteer event, which resulted with lots of happy, sweaty, dirty kids and adults improving and learning about their local, urban ecology.

Brownfield Site Transforming Into Model For Sustainable Development

Though the Buffalo River suffered neglect and abandonment throughout Buffalo's industrial growth, it is now poised for a dramatic comeback. The Buffalo Urban Development Corporation's RiverBend development, planned on a 260-acre vacant brownfield site on the banks of the River, will play a critical role in this revitalization. We are thrilled to be playing a major role on the planning/design team led by Sasaki Associates. Unlike many developments, the RiverBend project began with an assessment of the site's ecological restoration potential. The restoration priorities we identified then formed the framework for the site plan. Beyond the restoration of shoreline, forests and grasslands, RiverBend will seamlessly incorporate urban ecology and green infrastructure into the built environment. Now that plans are approved, the project is moving forward and we hope to see the first phase of our green infrastructure recommendations constructed within the next few years. With ecological restoration fully integrated into development plans for a brownfield site, a healthy, naturally functioning river becomes the backbone for a thriving riverfront community.

Biohabitats Boldly Goes Where Few Dare-The Sewer

When we say we're willing to get down and dirty, we mean it. Biohabitats recently installed monitoring equipment in various sections of Baltimore's storm sewer system. The installation is an important step in a joint effort by Blue Water Baltimore, the Center for Watershed Protection, and the Baltimore City Departments of Public Works and Transportation to actively pursue opportunities to retrofit the system so that it complies with the latest NPDES permit requirements and improves water quality. While we monitor the system's existing conditions, we are hard at work designing four permeable alleyways and four bioretention bumpout facilities for two of Baltimore's ultra-urban neighborhoods. We look forward to getting these into the ground and monitoring the results in 2012.

PLACES

If you're heading to the Low Impact Development Symposium in Philadelphia next week, stop by the Biohabitats booth and say hello to water resources engineers Ted Brown, Phil Jones and Nick Lindow. All three of these guys are on the agenda to present on topics directly related to the conference theme of Greening the Urban Environment. If you notice Biohabitats on your name badge, that's because we're a proud sponsor!

Senior environmental scientist Paul Kovalcik will be in Milwaukee October 4-6 attending a gathering of the Great Lakes/Ohio Valley Regional chapter of the Society of American Military Engineers. Paul will join our partners from the Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District in presenting information about stream restoration involving the removal of concrete channels.

That same week, senior engineer Pete Munoz will be co-present "Performance of Decentralized Wastewater Reuse Systems for Green Building Projects in North America and Australia" as part of the Thought Leadership and Research sessions at Greenbuild 2011 in Toronto.

Water resources engineer John Hathaway from our Southeast Bioregion office will present "Stormwater Treatment for Bacteria" at the Smart Growth and Sustainable Site Design Conference 2011, which will take place October 12-13 in Columbia, SC

On October 11-12, Biohabitats Great Lakes Bioregion leader Ivette Bolender will be in Detroit for the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Great Lakes Commission. Ivette will be joined in Detroit by senior environmental scientist Paul Kovalcik for the 7th Annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference October 12-14. We're delighted to be jointly sponsoring this conference with some of the members of Biohabitats' GLRI Team: Planning Resources Inc., Short Elliott Hendrickson, EA, ASC Group, Environ, CEC and Stantec. Be sure to stop by our booth and learn about some of the work our team has already begun on GLRI-funded projects!

Biohabitats president Keith Bowers and associate engineer Erin English will join Ben Haggard of Regenesis in presenting "Regenerative Design: "Story of Place" and a Collective Water Future for the Bay Area" at the Bioneers Conference in Marin, CA October 14-15.

On October 14-16, senior engineer Pete Munoz will present "Reaching Toward Regenerative Design" at the annual gathering of the Great Lakes chapter of Bioneers. Pete will discuss how using water as a cornerstone of design can produce movement beyond the "demonstration" phase of sustainable infrastructure and design.

Senior ecologist Joe Berg and water resources engineer Ted Brown will attend the Maryland Association of Floodplain Managers Annual Meeting on October 20 in Timonium, Maryland.

Senior engineer Pete Munoz will be in Portland, OR on September 26 attending Ecodistrict Summit 2011.

October 26-27, Ivette Bolender and Paul Kovalcik from our Great Lakes Bioregion office will attend the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference in Erie, PA.

Biohabitats president Keith Bowers, ecological landscape designer Nicole Stern and associate engineer Erin English are all on the agenda for this year's annual meeting of the American Society for Landscape Architects in San Diego October 30-November 1. Nicole and Erin are giving a presentation on floating wetlands and Keith will co-present "Climate Change: What Landscape Architects Should Know."

On November 2-4, project engineer Alan Garrido will head to his hometown university in Neiva, Columbia to attend Il Seminario de Uso Racional del Agua en Proyectos de Irrigacion y Acueducto.

From November 7-10, water resources engineer Jennifer Zielinski and senior engineer Pete Munoz will be attending the AWRA's Annual Water Resource Conference in Albuquerque, NM. Pete is presenting "Redesigning the Urban Neighborhood" and Jennifer is co-presenting "Green Infrastructure and Brownfield Redevelopment at RiverBend, Buffalo, New York."

On November 15, natural resources ecologist Mike Thompson will attend the Chesapeake Water Environment Association's conference on Wet Weather Issues: Piped and Un-Piped in Linthicum, MD.

Senior fluvial geomorphologist Ellen McClure will present "Creative Design: The Handmaiden of Restoring Hydrologic Connectivity and Ecological Function" at the Mid-Atlantic Stream Restoration Conference. The conference takes place November 15-17 in Flintstone, MD.

PEOPLE

We are extremely pleased to announce that the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) elevated Biohabitats president Keith Bowers to its 2011 Council of Fellows. Keith joins only 39 other landscape architecture professionals in the nation this year in the fellowship, which is among the highest honors the ASLA bestows on members. This designation recognizes Keith's contributions to his profession and the society at large based on his leadership and management, and his exceptional accomplishments over a sustained period of time. We couldn't be prouder of our leader! Kudos, Keith.