The Stormwater Management category features projects that are successful in mitigating, directing, and decreasing stormwater runoff in urban or rural settings. Commercial, civic, or residential projects can include but are not limited to the use of natural or sustainable filtration systems with the aim to improve water quality through landscaping or streetscaping, or to recycle and reuse collected water for conservation purposes, such as landscape watering.

Our Stormwater Management Award goes to the 14th St. Parking Lot in Denison. The 14th St. Parking Lot was an aging, highly impervious, fully paved concrete lot that discharged all its runoff into the Boyer River. In addition to being an eyesore with raised concrete islands, its state of disrepair contributed to water infiltrating the basements of surrounding businesses.

An intensely collaborative project, the 14th St. Parking Lot now consists of a functional landscape of stormwater conservation practices including four bioretention cells and permeable pavers. Runoff from the parking lot and surrounding buildings are either sloped towards the biocells (formerly concrete islands) or diverted into the permeable pavers, thus managing all the stormwater onsite.

Interpretive signs were installed adjacent to the practices. Since project completion, the City is receiving benefits from the practices. All the stormwater from the surrounding buildings and parking lot is collected, cooled, and filtered through the practices before either infiltrating into the ground or slowly releasing into the city’s stormsewer system. Patrons of the local businesses have commented that the practices have revitalized the parking lot. Business owners have noticed water does not enter their basements. City staff has noticed the presence of more butterflies and bees in the parking lot, a sign that pollinator habitat in the dense downtown setting is significant.

<Click here to read about the rest of our Award recipients.>