GRANTS PASS – The City of Grants Pass is rethinking its stormwater system and city staff is seeking public input. The city is proposing a Stormwater Management Manual that will facilitate best practices for stormwater mitigation techniques, which help to filter out contaminates and promote natural infiltration. Community members are asked to visit the following link to complete a brief survey to provide valuable feedback and input: http://openhouse.jla.us.com/grants-pass-swmm.
“Stormwater is often an afterthought unless we observe localized flooding, but it is important to think about the affect it has on our City’s most valuable resource, the Rogue River,” said Wayde Elliott, assistant director of Public Works.
As Grants Pass has grown, more impervious surfaces in the form of buildings and pavement have replaced natural landscapes. These impervious surfaces have increased the volume of water the city’s drainage basins discharge to the river. Traditionally runoff from storm events has been detained and slowly released to natural drainage paths, but the increased water volume and contaminates from human infrastructure have degraded the waterways, Elliott said.
“The City wants to be proactive and take steps to protect our rivers and streams for generations to come and we need citizen help,” he said.
“Please take some time to fill out our survey and let us know what the community thinks of a new way to manage stormwater,” said Elliott.
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