Latest / The City of Frankfort Podcast / Ep 30: Stormwater Mythbusters

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Ep 30: Stormwater Mythbusters · The City of Frankfort Podcast

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  From Capitol Halls to Bourbon Balls, this is the City of Frankfort Podcast.
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  For Frankfortians, we're swapping stories, spilling tea, and celebrating the
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  quirks that make Kentucky's capital city the best hometown around.
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  Welcome to the City of Frankfort Podcast. I'm Kenton, and today we're here with
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  the city's Deputy Director of Public Works, Matt Noonan, for a special podcast
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  episode, Stormwater Mythbusters.
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  We're going to talk all about stormwater, debunk some of the common misconceptions. Welcome, Matt.
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  We're excited to have you. Thank you, Matt. I'm glad to be here. Okay.
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  All right, Matt, let's start off.
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  How about you tell us a little about yourself and where you come from,
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  your background, and basically, what do you do as the Deputy Director of Public Works?
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  So, yeah, like I said, my name's Matt. I'm from Orlando.
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  I'm predominantly focused on a lot of stormwater stuff.
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  I went to the University of Central Florida, where I focused out of a lot of
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  environmental mental situations where I moved here and where I've spent a lot
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  of time working with stormwater and other environmental related concerns for the city of Frankfurt.
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  One of our major goals is obviously stormwater and keeping our waterways cleanliness,
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  cleanly, and just keeping water flowing.
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  Nice, nice, nice. Now, let's kind of dive into a little bit more about the day
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  in the life of a deputy director of the public works department.
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  And like, kind of, you know, what's that about...
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  So, you know, as much as I like to, you know, spend all my time on stormwater,
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  a lot of times we have to focus on many different baskets, you know,
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  from traffic, stormwater, pavement, and various topics throughout the city.
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  So I don't exactly have all my time to spend on stormwater, which is why,
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  you know, we're glad to have a fantastic staff that can spend all day,
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  every day, cleaning up our roadways, storm drains, and so forth.
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  Speaking of fantastic staff you and i actually have the pleasure of working
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  together on a daily basis because i am the stormwater inspector for the city
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  of frankfurt so i am part of the wonderful staff that he was talking about you're welcome um so,
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  kind of like matt was saying you know as a director he doesn't have time to,
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  he can't do everything he can't spend all his time on one thing like stormwater
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  so that's kind of where like my position comes in and you know i will handle
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  some of the day-to-day stuff with the stormwater and ms4 program stuff um,
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  so if you call and you have a stormwater issue more than likely you will end
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  up talking to me first before you talk to anybody and i may,
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  be the only person you talk to so that's kind of yep and kenton's in charge
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  of you know reeling everything from little storm drains all the way up through
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  major thoroughfares of water throughout city you know dishes and so forth,
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  so together we work as a team we're only two pieces of a bigger puzzle, but,
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  you know, Together Public Works, you know, we kind of handle it.
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  One of the biggest challenges with stormwater is people don't really think about
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  it until it becomes a problem.
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  Like if it backs up in your yard or something like that. But,
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  you know, we actually deal with stormwater every day.
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  What do you say we do some stormwater myth busters and walk through some of
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  the common perceptions and misconceptions about stormwater? What do you say
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  than that, sir. Sounds good to me. All right. Um...
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  Myth number one, stormwater only shows up when it rains. And that is actually
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  a very large misconception.
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  Most people don't realize that if you are downstream from a major river,
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  creek or anything, water will come your way.
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  For example, the river flows through our city, the Kentucky River,
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  receives a lot of water that comes from southeastern Kentucky.
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  Which flows in southeastern Kentucky. That water doubles back and goes through
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  the city of Frankfort. So although we might not see rain, we might see increased water levels.
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  And even potential flooding, depending on how much rain fell upstream.
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  So that's pretty interesting right there. So it doesn't even have to rain in
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  Frankfort for us to potentially have flooding.
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  Say there's a big monsoon type event that hovers over eastern Kentucky,
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  southeastern Kentucky, and just fills up the river from that way.
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  Eventually, it will make its way to Frankfurt, and we could potentially see
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  flooding from that. And then, yep, that can take days, hours,
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  weeks. It just depends on how much rain and how often it's falling. No.
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  So that's an interesting fact right there. Okay, okay.
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  Well, this kind of goes hand in hand with that. Myth number two,
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  flooding can only happen during big storms.
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  That's going to be dependent on what kind of infrastructure and kind of how
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  the storm falls. For example, if you have a storm that drops,
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  you know, three inches in 20 minutes, it can cause significant flooding.
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  Filling up storm drains too fast and everything just starts backing up.
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  So it's not necessarily how big the storm is, but how fast it falls on you. Okay.
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  Okay. So this is a, we're kind of going to go off script here a little bit.
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  I hope you don't mind because this kind of goes hand in hand.
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  So I'm going to say this is myth number three. Um...
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  No matter how much rain we get, the stormwater system is designed to handle it.
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  Because this has been something we've dealt with a lot this year.
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  Unfortunately, not true. So the grates and all the infrastructure we have is
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  actually limited for a specific, what we call a design storm.
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  So a design storm is essentially saying I get a rainfall intensity of X inches
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  per hour over a period of time.
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  And so when, anytime you cross that threshold over, you know,
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  inches per hour over a certain time, that's more than our inlands can take,
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  it's going to start backing up and causing, you know, flooding and what,
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  what have you, you know, and that's, that's true going all the way through,
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  you know, creeks and everything else.
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  Some creeks have limited capacity if water gets there too fast,
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  you know, they can fill up too fast and just water can't go anywhere.
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  It starts backing up into the street.
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  So that's like that. That's the importance of like the rain intensity you were talking about.
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  It's not necessarily the overall rainfall. sometimes. It's how quickly that
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  overall rainfall comes, correct?
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  That's right. If you get 10 inches over the course of the day,
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  it's going to be far more severe than if you get 10 inches over the course of
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  a week. Fair enough. I mean, that's a good way to think about it.
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  That's a good way to think about it. Okay.
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  Our next myth, stormwater goes through water treatment plant,
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  through the water treatment plant.
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  That's true in some areas of the country and the world. For example,
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  in Toronto, you have what's called a combined sewer system where everything kind of flows together.
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  But here in the city, generally speaking, every drop of water that comes into
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  the street, your yard or anywhere, it goes directly to the creek or river itself.
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  There's no treatment factor. So whatever you put in there will go down the drain to the river.
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  So if it's on the ground, it's in the river.
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  That's a good segue to try and tell folks, like, hey, be careful about the stuff
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  you're putting on the ground.
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  We don't want people putting used motor oil on the ground or dog waste.
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  That kind of stuff that can cause issues in the watershed.
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  That goes all the way down to leaves. If there are too many leaves,
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  it blocks up the storm drains, and it adds a lot of excess nutrients to our
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  water that wouldn't normally get in there if we raked them and picked them up and bagged.
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  Here's a myth to kind of go on with that. Litter, the myth is litter isn't a
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  stormwater problem. You kind of just talked about that.
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  Even leaf litter, like excess leaf litter, grass clipping, stuff like that,
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  can get in and clog up a stormwater system and cause a major issue.
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  In general, if one person does it, it's not usually a huge deal with trash or
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  leaves and such. But if you have that on a community-wide consensus that it's
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  okay, then it kind of compounds and can be a huge problem.
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  For example, you go over to areas like Bangladesh, where they dump their trash in the water.
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  It can pollute the water and everything else, and that eventually makes it in the ocean.
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  Just because we don't see it go on the ground doesn't mean it's not going somewhere
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  that can impact someone else. Yeah.
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  Okay. So don't dispose of your yard waste in the storm drain.
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  To make a long story short, we do not want people doing that.
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  And we do have some programs here in the city to kind of help take care of some
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  of those things. I know we do a leaf collection in the fall, correct? Yep.
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  Every fall we have residents place all their leaf litter and piles on the edge
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  of the road and we come through with our back truck and we suck them out. There you go.
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  So, you know, there are ways to kind of help curb that.
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  Also, you've probably seen me or Sarah at any of the local events here.
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  And usually we're there and we have some dog waste bags.
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  So if you ever need some, then you can probably find us at a city event and
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  we will probably gladly give you a dog waste bag, like a little roll of those
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  so that you can, you know, help keep our waterways clean.
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  Let's see here. this is a good one on that kind of same note uh storm drains
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  clean and filter water true or false or is that myth or not
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  that is false um storm drains do not filter out anything from the water anything
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  that goes in the drain will just go in the pipe and will go downstream,
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  for example if you dump oil that oil will go into the gutter which will go into
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  the drain which go into the pipe which will end up directly in the river there's
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  nothing that's going to mitigate that on the way.
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  Okay. Um...
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  What are some kind of like stormwater features that you could expect to see around the city?
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  Like if somebody has never really paid attention to this and they're wondering,
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  is this a stormwater feature or is this like something to help convey stormwater?
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  Or is this like, you know, what are some things that we use in the city to convey
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  stormwater that people may see or may see daily and just never thought about?
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  Some of the obvious ones are, you know, little storm grates,
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  metal grates in the road that look like they're kind of in low spots where water
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  seems to be being directed.
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  Those are the more common items. Some items that people don't really think about
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  are maybe side yard ditches where water just kind of dumps into them and is
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  conveyed through people's property to a ditch or stream of sorts.
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  Most people don't realize that is directly part of it. Another one would be
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  front yard swales or ditches. Those are designed to catch water that's shedding
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  off the road and kind of work its way through the system.
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  They aren't necessarily just part of someone's yard. Okay.
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  So those ditches or those indentions you see in some people's front yards,
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  those are not just to make it miserable for them to mow their grass.
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  They actually serve a purpose.
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  Yes. They 100% are for conveying water.
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  Same reason for having pipes underneath their driveway. Okay. So there you go.
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  The pipes under that you probably have under your driveway at home um is a stormwater
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  feature to help convey that stormwater so,
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  probably don't fill in those ditches in the front of your property because it
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  could cause issue and if you see the pipes are clogged do your best to kind of keep,
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  keep things from going and then keep the opens and ends uh okay free flowing,
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  yeah that's a that's a that's a good uh.
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  Can do to kind of help out and to do their part into ensuring that we have a,
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  good quality storm water and to ensure that they are not the cause of any issues potentially.
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  Even the simple things, you know, mow your grass regularly. Make sure you're
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  not letting it go too long where you have excess grass clippings getting shot
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  out into the street or into your front yard swales or into storm drains.
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  You know, keep your, like I mentioned earlier, keep your culverts in front yard
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  underneath the driveway is clear um direct water to,
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  open space versus directly to your uh driveway you know that'll help slow down
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  the water and make it you know keep keep the system from filling up as fast,
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  just little things that you can do daily or even just per every storm or however often,
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  okay good information good information um.
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  What about this one so you kind of talked about this earlier but let's let's
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  try and dive a little bit more into it uh water drainage and wastewater can
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  share the same underground pipe,
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  yes so actually downtown frankfurt have what we call a combined sewer system,
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  where when the storm when stormwater flows directly into it it does can go to
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  the wastewater plant it kind of mixes with the sewage in high stormwater events
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  obviously the goal is to keep them separate.
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  But historically, when they built older cities, they were combined and went directly to the river.
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  So we do have some areas where that is the case. We're actually working with
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  the EPA and state departments in Kentucky to help separate those systems.
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  So that way we don't have any combined sewage at all. Great.
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  Yeah, no, that's a, that's an excellent thing. I mean, that should definitely
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  help the quality of our stormwater discharge as a city, Getting those kind of
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  things Under control there.
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  Let's see here.
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  What about, so all stormwater is surface water. How about that myth?
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  That is definitely a myth. Yes, although we can physically see stormwater runoff
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  from rain and other sources, the biggest culprit we see with water issues,
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  particularly in residential houses, is what's called groundwater,
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  where water sits in kind of like a table on the ground and kind of goes up and
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  down depending on how much rainfall you have.
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  And for example, if you have a crawl space and water's coming in through the
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  soil or through the side of your foundation, there's a good chance that that's
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  most likely groundwater.
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  Oh, okay. So that's a good one. What about, like I know that Frankfurt's a pretty
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  karst place and we have some sinkholes and stuff like that. So you want to maybe
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  talk a little bit about like that kind of stuff? Like is that...
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  Kind of, I know that there are places where water enters those sinkholes.
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  What happens to the water once it enters like a sinkhole like that?
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  So there's actually two situations that the karst environment creates in Frankfurt.
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  And that's the first one being sinkholes, which, you know, traditionally speaking,
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  is a direct connection to the cave system below us where water is directed directly
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  into the hole, which then flows into the underground aquifer system and through,
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  you know, the rocks and caves and what forth.
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  But you also have the opposite scenario where water comes up to the ground in
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  what are called springs.
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  We have several springs throughout the city of Frankfurt where water is constantly
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  is coming out of the ground.
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  That's a unique item to fix or to deal with in general.
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  You know, for example, Parkside Drive has a spring, so water is constantly flowing
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  over the curb. So I think, well, why can't we capture it? Well,
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  it's not necessarily as simple, you know, because they pop up all over the place. Yeah.
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  So springs, so like where the areas where springs are can kind of move around.
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  So like that water will find the easiest path. And sometimes it may pop up over
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  here, but it could pop up over there. But there could be, you know,
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  several springs in one area even.
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  Right. And then there are also areas where if you see the roadways deteriorating
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  at a rapid rate or you see a curb is always wet, that's probably a good sign
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  that there's either groundwater or a spring nearby.
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  That's kind of pushing up on the infrastructure and that's kind of a harder
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  issue to solve correct like there's not there's not really much yeah there's
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  no overnight fix that you can implement that'll make the water go away okay,
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  um let's talk a little bit about stormwater and the roadways,
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  stormwater myth uh.
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  The roadways are there to convey stormwater. That is a myth.
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  A roadway is actually designed to shed water. The best thing we can do for our
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  roads is to get the water off of it and limit the moisture.
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  That's why we have curb systems and front yard swale systems and other systems that carry the water.
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  The road itself is not designed to physically carry the water. Okay. All right. Right.
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  And so what are some of the things we do as the city of Frankfurt to kind of
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  help with stormwater stuff?
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  Like, so you talked about people not having grass clippings,
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  not waiting till the grass is too high.
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  What are some preventative maintenance things that we do as a city to kind of,
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  ensure that we don't have stormwater issues or try to curb those vets we can?
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  And the biggest items we do are we, you know, we send out with our own back
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  truck, our vacuum truck, which, you know, can suck out leaves,
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  litter and dirt from our storm drains and kind of keep the system clear.
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  But we also do things like redefine ditches and other things in areas that are
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  high volume of water, receive a high volume of water.
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  Yeah. So we really just do our best to make sure that the system is free flowing and clear.
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  Okay. So that's kind of our job is to make sure everything's free-flowing and
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  clear and to give our system the best chance it can to direct our stormwater,
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  to places it needs to go.
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  Like we're trying to corral the water and keep it in places it needs to go,
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  but it's constantly fine.
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  It's one of those things. Water is one of those powerful forces.
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  Matt, thanks for joining us today to bust some of these myths on stormwater.
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  If you would like more resources on Stormwater, you can visit the Public Works
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  Department page on the city website.
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  Matt, we like to end all of our shows with a Frankfurt rapid fire.
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  So as a fellow Frankfurtian, we want to hear some of your takes on the town.
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  You say the first thing that comes to your mind, no explanation needed. You ready?
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  All right, let's go. Favorite Frankfurt event?
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  The concert series downtown. Oh. Oh, good one. Good one. Okay.
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  Shout out concert series.
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  Best burger in town? Best one I've had is at the Brown Barrel.
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  Okay. Nice, nice, nice, nice.
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  Eastside or Westside Kroger? Westside. Okay. Westside Kroger.
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  I like it. I'm Westside Kroger guy myself.
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  Favorite season in Frankfurt? My favorite season anywhere. Fall. Okay.
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  And then this is a good one right here. what is your favorite frankfurt waterway,
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  ooh see that one is a little more difficult uh hmm,
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  I would probably say the river itself. Okay. So the Kentucky River?
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  Yeah. And that's just, generally speaking, the river level gives us an idea
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  of how efficiently water is flowing.
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  Okay. Kind of how the flow of how much rain we're getting and just the hydrologic,
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  impacts are just interesting.
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  So that's, okay, nice.
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  Makes a lot of sense. Well, thanks for joining us this week, fellow Frankfortians.
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  We'll catch you again next week on the City of Frankfurt podcast.
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  Don't forget to follow the City of Frankfurt podcast on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
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  And make sure you subscribe to our show feed on Podbeam or wherever you get
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  your podcasts to get weekly episode notifications.
• 19:30
  Thanks again, Matt. We appreciate you coming on to Talk Stormwater with us. Thank you for having me.