Last month (April 2018), thirty-one interdisciplinary professionals enrolled in Virginia Tech’s Executive Master of Natural Resources (XMNR) graduate degree program gathered for their fourth meeting of the year. Their focus: how to manage stormwater in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
The Chesapeake Bay supports 17 million people and 3,600 different species. It produces more than 500 million pounds of seafood a year, and its watershed helps maintain the drinking water of 75% of the area’s human population. However, population growth and development have helped make stormwater runoff the fastest growing source of pollution in the Bay and its diffuse and variable nature makes it difficult to manage.
In 2015, Prince George’s County (PGCo), Maryland, was faced with new US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) mandates regarding stormwater runoff. Given that the county has 15,000 impervious acres, the new mandates presented the county with a daunting task.
However, Prince George’s County leaders saw the mandates as an opportunity to invest in sustainable development and the local community and economy. PGCo enlisted Corvias Solutions to help them find an efficient and cost-effective program for managing stormwater. As XMNR alumni Elizabeth Hurley explains, what emerged from their efforts was the CWP, the first Community-Based Public-Private Partnership (CBP3) of its kind… LEARN MORE
