Our Stormwater Management category features projects that are successful in mitigating, directing, and decreasing storm water run off 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.

The North Central Storm Water Project was designed to relieve substantial overland flooding from approximately 150 acres of developed watershed consisting of residential and school property. A unique treatment train concept diverts storm water runoff from the main drainage channel into linear treatment basins in lieu of traditional pipe conveyance. This cost effective concept reduces infrastructure costs, provides significant regional flood control, reduces pollutant loading to Poor Farm Creek, adds aesthetics to the area, and is adaptive to future flooding. A sand-iron filing filtration system component was developed at the University of Minnesota as part of its Storm Water Research Program and augmented for this unique site application. Using a gabion weir sandwiched around the sand-iron filing filtration system represents the first time this innovative approach to removing soluble phosphorus has been implemented in the State of Iowa.