EPA Region III in Philadelphia has circulated guidance on what it considers green infrastructure, which includes a wide array of practices to manage wet weather to maintain and restore natural hydrology by infiltrating, evapotranspiring and capturing and using stormwater.

 

These practices, EPA guidance says, includes restoration of natural landscape features, such as forests, floodplains and wetlands, bioretention, green roofs, porous pavements and cisterns.

 

In addition, EPA says, green infrastructure technologies can simultaneously provide other benefits like helping to filter air pollutants, reducing energy demands, mitigating urban heat island and sequestering carbon.

 

Both Maryland and Virginia are doing special solicitations on the green infrastructure provisions to collect project proposals. The Maryland solicitation was issued last Friday with a deadline of February 28.

 

There has been no decision on whether the PA Infrastructure Investment Authority, which is charged with administering the water infrastructure money received by the state, will open a special green infrastructure project solicitation, even though the green infrastructure provisions are now more common knowledge.

 

PennVEST worked with municipalities and other applicants to submit other water infrastructure project applications ahead of its February 17 deadline for applications and waived the normal requirement that Department of Environmental Protection permits be in-hand when the application is submitted to speed the process in anticipation of the federal stimulus funding.

 

PennVEST plans to award the bulk of the federal stimulus funding for projects at its April 20 meeting, assuming the applications it has in-hand now meet the federal criteria.

 

A copy of EPA Region III guidance is available online.