#stormwater protection

[mikegaragedoorrepairs]

Waterproofing your garage door is an essential step in protecting your home and belongings from stormwater damage. By following these steps and maintaining your garage door regularly, you can ensure it stands up to Fort Collins, Colorado’s diverse weather conditions. Remember, a little prevention goes a long way in avoiding costly water damage repairs.

For all your garage door needs, including waterproofing solutions, trust the experts at Mike Garage Door Repair. We’re here to help keep your garage dry and your peace of mind intact. Contact us today for a consultation or to schedule a service appointment.

[pumpingstationsuk]

Effective Flood Prevention with Storm and Grey Water Pumping Stations

Discover how storm and grey water pumping stations can effectively prevent flooding by efficiently collecting and redirecting excess water. Learn about the role of these systems in safeguarding communities from flood risks. Contact Packaged Pumping Stations Ltd. for expert solutions tailored to your needs.

[reasonsforhope]

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms.

The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “sponge city,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.

With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. For the rainy season in total, LA has accumulated 14.7 billion gallons.

Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in from afar, LA is on a quest to produce as much water as it can locally. “There's going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water,” says Art Castro, manager of watershed management at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”

Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding. Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability. “The problem of urban hydrology is caused by a thousand small cuts,” says Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. “No one driveway or roof in and of itself causes massive alteration of the hydrologic cycle. But combine millions of them in one area and it does. Maybe we can solve that problem with a thousand Band-Aids.”

Or in this case, sponges. The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers—porous subterranean materials that can hold water—which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea...

To exploit all that free water falling from the sky, the LADWP has carved out big patches of brown in the concrete jungle. Stormwater is piped into these spreading grounds and accumulates in dirt basins. That allows it to slowly soak into the underlying aquifer, which acts as a sort of natural underground tank that can hold 28 billion gallons of water.

During a storm, the city is also gathering water in dams, some of which it diverts into the spreading grounds. “After the storm comes by, and it's a bright sunny day, you’ll still see water being released into a channel and diverted into the spreading grounds,” says Castro. That way, water moves from a reservoir where it’s exposed to sunlight and evaporation, into an aquifer where it’s banked safely underground.

On a smaller scale, LADWP has been experimenting with turning parks into mini spreading grounds, diverting stormwater there to soak into subterranean cisterns or chambers. It’s also deploying green spaces along roadways, which have the additional benefit of mitigating flooding in a neighborhood: The less concrete and the more dirt and plants, the more the built environment can soak up stormwater like the actual environment naturally does.

As an added benefit, deploying more of these green spaces, along with urban gardens, improves the mental health of residents. Plants here also “sweat,” cooling the area and beating back the urban heat island effect—the tendency for concrete to absorb solar energy and slowly release it at night. By reducing summer temperatures, you improve the physical health of residents. “The more trees, the more shade, the less heat island effect,” says Castro. “Sometimes when it’s 90 degrees in the middle of summer, it could get up to 110 underneath a bus stop.”

LA’s far from alone in going spongy. Pittsburgh is also deploying more rain gardens, and where they absolutely must have a hard surface—sidewalks, parking lots, etc.—they’re using special concrete bricks that allow water to seep through. And a growing number of municipalities are scrutinizing properties and charging owners fees if they have excessive impermeable surfaces like pavement, thus incentivizing the switch to permeable surfaces like plots of native plants or urban gardens for producing more food locally.

So the old way of stormwater management isn’t just increasingly dangerous and ineffective as the planet warms and storms get more intense—it stands in the way of a more beautiful, less sweltering, more sustainable urban landscape. LA, of all places, is showing the world there’s a better way.

-via Wired, February 19, 2024

[mccarthyplumbinggroup]

Case Study – EPA Site Improvement Notice on Dangerous Chemical Storage

How to assess and maintain controls to reduce environmental pollution risks at your commercial premises

Site Improvement Notice given by Environmental Protection Authority Victoria

How do you safely store over 5 million litres of expired hand sanitiser, one of the waste products of the Covid Pandemic? That’s the question one of our industrial clients in Melbourne had when they came to us for a plumbing consultation and rectifications after receiving an EPA (Environmental Protection Authority Victoria) Site Improvement Notice on their facility.

Our client had received a contract to store a gargantuan amount of expired hand sanitiser in large containers. The sanitiser, classed as dangerous goods, is comprised of 60% alcohol, meaning it is out of date 3 years from manufacturing date. The chemical is highly flammable and must therefore be stored appropriately.

Storing Expired Hand Sanitiser is a Nationwide, and Worldwide, Problem

In June 2023, Cleanaway received a fine for $18,492 by the EPA for accepting hand sanitiser without recording and reporting the waste. In this example, the EPA stated that ‘we have fined the company $18,492 for its records management failure. It’s a reminder to all businesses to track and record wastes in line with EPA publication 1827.2 Waste classification assessment protocol.”

Again in September 2023, Cleanaway received an EPA fine for transporting hand sanitiser without properly logging the movement of the chemicals. The $30,000 fine was due to the company again not recording the sanitiser as a reportable priority waste (RPW) on the EPA’s Waste Tracker System.

WA Today recently reported that the WA Health Department recently contracted Cleanaway to collect, transport and dispose of 130,000 bottles of expired sanitiser at a cost of $187,000. The NSW education department contracted Cleanaway to do the same a few months back at a cost of $536,000.

Achieving EPA Site Compliance for our Client

Our client was contracted to store 5 million litres of expired hand sanitiser. The sanitiser is currently housed in a 25,000m² newly built storage facility. The client received an EPA Site Improvement Notice requiring immediate rectification. They contacted McCarthy Plumbing Group for guidance as they were unsure of the process on how to achieve compliance.

In the initial stage of discussions on gaining EPA compliancy, we walk our clients through the process, variations and give examples of our history of EPA compliance rectification works. In this instance, the storage facility was being changed from a standard storage facility to a dangerous goods facility, given the contents of the containers (expired hand sanitiser including highly flammable ingredients such as ethanol).

As a part of the required facility upgrades in order for our client to accept 5 million litres of highly flammable chemicals, we needed to complete a site assessment to confirm the facility had been installed as per the builder drawings and was compliant. We needed to ensure there were no restrictions in access, depth and size of the existing pipes as this would pose risks and require additional safety processes and hazard prevention controls.

We obtained copies of the current ‘as built’ civil/stormwater drawings from the builder and thoroughly reviewed them. We also visually audited the site to confirm everything correlated as per the drawings.

Our main role in the rectification of changing the site from standard facility to dangerous goods facility was to ensure all stormwater points had isolation valves installed in the event of a spill, fire or other emergency. An isolation valve is a critical component in stormwater management. It allows for the rapid shutdown of the stormwater system in emergency situations, preventing potential environmental hazards and ensuring the safety of personnel and the facility. Stormwater isolation is crucial to prevent dangerous goods and contaminants from entering the stormwater drainage system during emergencies such as spills or leaks.

The two isolation valves used were selected based on our site audit and conditions. We conducted a Dial Before you Dig to get a site map of existing legal points of discharge (LPoD) from the site to cross reference with the civil/stormwater drawings. The emergency stormwater isolation valves were then installed using the following process:

Prepare the base of the pit and apply concrete filler to create a smooth surface for valve to bond to.

Install fasteners to the face of the pits in preparation for the valve installation.

Organise franna crane to lower valves down into position.

Secure valve to face of pit.

Extend isolator shaft to ground.

Provide signage and valve key to isolate in the event of emergency.

After installation, a custom 15 page standard operating procedure manual was created and site training occurred for select team members. The training ensured team members could isolate the stormwater drains using the valve in the case of an emergency.

The EPA carried out a site inspection, in which our installation was compliant, and our client achieved the required rectification for the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) within three weeks of receiving a site improvement notice, ensuring no further breaches or fines.

I’ve been issued with an EPA Improvement notice, what do I do now?

McCarthy Plumbing Group will act as ‘first responders’ in assisting you with assessing and maintaining interim controls given to you by the EPA Authorised Officer. These controls may include capping of legal points of discharge to the stormwater outside of your boundary, installing isolation valves, educt and clean contaminated stormwater pits, assist in nominating an Environmental Consultant, installing bunding, clear stormwater pipes for assessment with a hydro-jet, assess stormwater collection using CCTV drain cameras, and give general plumbing and stormwater advice.

We can then assist your chosen Environmental Consultant to action the tasks in your site improvement notice and/or stormwater management plan including engineer control to stop trade wastewater/chemicals discharging beyond the boundary of the premises, design a stormwater management system (this can include preparation of groundworks/sealing, surface water controls, flow directions, drainage, sumps, pumps, valves, retention volumes, pipelines, legal point of discharge and attenuation systems).

If you have received an EPA site improvement notice, compliance notice or any other remedial notice and require assistance in navigating the requirements to achieve compliance, McCarthy Plumbing Group can assist in preventing further or potential water pollution occurring from your site by assessing and controlling risks to stormwater drains past your legal point of discharge.

We are situated in the Laverton North industrial area in close proximity to Kororoit Creek, Ryans Creek and Cherry Lake and are geographically central in location to assist businesses across Melbourne’s west and inner suburbs in ensuring stormwater management system compliancy. We are expert environmental protection plumbers working collaboratively with environmental consultant plumbing experts. To discuss your site improvement plan and stormwater management plan queries on 03 9931 0905.

[nnctales]

Porous Concrete: Exploring the Various Types and Applications

Porous concrete, also known as pervious concrete, is an innovative and sustainable material that has gained significant attention in recent years. Its unique composition allows water to pass through, making it an excellent solution for managing stormwater runoff, reducing flooding, and promoting groundwater recharge. This article delves into the different types of porous concrete and their…

[acornecstormwaterstuff]

Part 1 Navigating the TPDES Multi Sector Permit: Unraveling Signatory Authority and Delegated Signatory Introduction:

In this series we are going to cover the six fatal flaws commonly found during an industrial stormwater inspection. Hopefully, the series will allow EHS and Industrial professionals some insightful knowledge that will reduce their facility’s risk of non-compliance or enforcement actions. If you have a burning questioning that you think would benefit others, please let us know below! Navigating…

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #25

June 28-July 5 2024

The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Is putting forward the first ever federal safety regulation to protect worker's from excessive heat in the workplace. As climate change has caused extreme heat events to become more common work place deaths have risen from an average of 32 heat related deaths between 1992 and 2019 to 43 in 2022. The rules if finalized would require employers to provide drinking water and cool break areas at 80 degrees and at 90 degrees have mandatory 15-minute breaks every two hours and be monitored for signs of heat illness. This would effect an estimated 36 million workers.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced $1 Billion for 656 projects across the country aimed at helping local communities combat climate change fueled disasters like flooding and extreme heat. Some of the projects include $50 Million to Philadelphia for a stormwater pump station and combating flooding, and a grant to build Shaded bus shelters in Washington, D.C.

The Department of Transportation announced thanks to efforts by the Biden Administration flight cancellations at the lowest they've been in a decade. At just 1.4% for the year so far. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg credited the Department's new rules requiring automatic refunds for any cancellations or undue delays as driving the good numbers as well as the investment of $25 billion in airport infrastructure that was in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The Department of Transportation announced $600 million in the 3rd round of funding to reconnect communities. Many communities have been divided by highways and other Infrastructure projects over the years. Most often effecting racial minority and poor areas. The Biden Administration is dedicated to addressing these injustices and helping reconnect communities split for decades. This funding round will see Atlanta’s Southside Communities reconnected as well as a redesign for Birmingham’s Black Main Street, reconnecting a community split by Interstate 65 in the 1960s. 

The Biden Administration approved its 9th offshore wind power project. About 9 miles off the coast of New Jersey the planned wind farm will generated 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power almost a million homes with totally clear power. This will bring the total amount of clean wind power generated by projects approved by the Biden Administration to 13 gigawatts. The Administration's climate goal is to generate 30 gigawatts from wind.

The Biden Administration announced funding for 12 new Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs. The $504 million dollars will go to supporting tech hubs in, Colorado, Montana, Indiana, Illinois, Nevada, New York, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. These tech hubs together with 31 already announced and funded will support high tech manufacturing jobs, as well as training for 21st century jobs for millions of American workers.

HHS announced over $200 million to support improved care for older Americans, particularly those with Alzheimer’s and related dementias. The money is focused on training primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, and other health care clinicians in best practices in elder and dementia care, as well as seeking to  integrate geriatric training into primary care. It also will support ways that families and other non-medical care givers can be educated to give support to aging people.

HHS announced $176 million to help support the development of a mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccine. As part of the government's efforts to be ready before the next major pandemic it funds and supports new vaccine's to try to predict the next major pandemic. Moderna is working on an mRNA vaccine, much like the Covid-19, vaccine focused on the H5 and H7 avian influenza viruses, which experts fear could spread to humans and cause a Covid like event.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change after the state suffered catastrophic summer flooding and damage from other extreme weather.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law without his signature late Thursday, saying he is very concerned about the costs and outcome of the small state taking on “Big Oil” alone in what will likely be a grueling legal fight. But he acknowledged that he understands something has to be done to address the toll of climate change.

“I understand the desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in so many ways,” Scott, a moderate Republican in the largely blue state of Vermont, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

The popular governor who recently announced that he’s running for reelection to a fifth two-year term, has been at odds with the Democrat-controlled Legislature, which he has called out of balance. He was expected by environmental advocates to veto the bill but then allowed it to be enacted. Scott wrote to lawmakers that he was comforted that the Agency of Natural Resources is required to report back to the Legislature on the feasibility of the effort.

Last July’s flooding from torrential rains inundated Vermont’s capital city of Montpelier, the nearby city Barre, some southern Vermont communities and ripped through homes and washed away roads around the rural state. Some saw it as the state’s worst natural disaster since a 1927 flood that killed dozens of people and caused widespread destruction. It took months for businesses — from restaurants to shops — to rebuild, losing out on their summer and even fall seasons. Several have just recently reopened while scores of homeowners were left with flood-ravaged homes heading into the cold season.

Under the legislation, the Vermont state treasurer, in consultation with the Agency of Natural Resources, would provide a report by Jan. 15, 2026, on the total cost to Vermonters and the state from the emission of greenhouse gases from Jan. 1, 1995, to Dec. 31, 2024. The assessment would look at the effects on public health, natural resources, agriculture, economic development, housing and other areas. The state would use federal data to determine the amount of covered greenhouse gas emissions attributed to a fossil fuel company.

It’s a polluter-pays model affecting companies engaged in the trade or business of extracting fossil fuel or refining crude oil attributable to more than 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions during the time period. The funds could be used by the state for such things as upgrading stormwater drainage systems; upgrading roads, bridges and railroads; relocating, elevating or retrofitting sewage treatment plants; and making energy efficient weatherization upgrades to public and private buildings. It’s modeled after the federal Superfund pollution cleanup program.

“For too long, giant fossil fuel companies have knowingly lit the match of climate disruption without being required to do a thing to put out the fire,” Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said in a statement. “Finally, maybe for the first time anywhere, Vermont is going to hold the companies most responsible for climate-driven floods, fires and heat waves financially accountable for a fair share of the damages they’ve caused.”

Maryland, Massachusetts and New York are considering similar measures.

The American Petroleum Institute, the top lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, has said it’s extremely concerned the legislation “retroactively imposes costs and liability on prior activities that were legal, violates equal protection and due process rights by holding companies responsible for the actions of society at large; and is preempted by federal law.”

“This punitive new fee represents yet another step in a coordinated campaign to undermine America’s energy advantage and the economic and national security benefits it provides,” spokesman Scott Lauermann said in a statement Friday.

Vermont lawmakers know the state will face legal challenges, but the governor worries about the costs and what it means for other states if Vermont fails.

State Rep. Martin LaLonde, a Democrat and an attorney, believes Vermont has a solid legal case. Legislators worked closely with many legal scholars in crafting the bill, he said in statement.

“Most importantly, the stakes are too high – and the costs too steep for Vermonters – to release corporations that caused the mess from their obligation to help clean it up,” he said.

[elminx]

Since I have seen a lot of posts about correspondences in witchcraft going around again, I wanted to stop for a minute and talk about how correspondences work and why you might want to make sure that you understand the correspondences you are using in your own craft.

This is likely an oversimplification, but I think that we can break down correspondences into three main categories:

Cultural Correspondences - these are often heavily steeped in the mythology and folklore of a particular region. They are often but not always correspondences of items found in that region. This is where correspondences become the most varied because, despite what you may have read in Those Bad Witchcraft Books, culture is not universal. A great example of this is that most Western cultures associate the color black with Death and Mourning but a lot of non-Western cultures have the same association with the color white. It stands to reason that this type of correspondence will work the best for you if you are sticking as close to the correspondences of the bioregion that you grew up in as possible (1) and that they will be most effective when used magically on somebody else from that bioregion (2).

Material Correspondences - these correspondences are based on the physical properties of the item in question. Some plants are edible, some medicinal, and some poisonous. Things with thorns can hurt you when you touch them. Quartz has high levels of electric conductivity. The idea here is that if Rosemary repels insects, it can be used in a banishment spell to repel that unwanted "insect" from your life. These are, in my opinion, the immutable correspondences - the item you are using will ALWAYS carry its physical characteristics with it into your magic. Spicy peppers will always be Hot and Burning, so-called "Weeds" will always grow tenaciously, and Sugar will always be Sweet. It is worth keeping in mind here that when using plants, the part of the plant may affect whether it carries that correspondence. Sometimes only one part of the plant carries a particular property - consider the difference between the sweet scent of rose petals that we use in love spells versus the sharp thorn that would be better used for protection. 3. Sympathetic Correspondences - The base concept behind sympathy is that two things that are alike in some way share a connection with one another that can be harnessed magically. The more alike that two things are, the deeper the connection. There are many ways that this is used in magic. A lot of herbal correspondences involve sympathy through the Doctrine of Signatures. This is the thought process that anything shaped like an ear can be used to affect ears/hearing magically. The Doctrine of Signatures gets rolled in a little bit with Cultural Correspondences as it is heavily rooted in Western herbalism, but it deserves a mention on its own. Another way that sympathetic magic makes its way into correspondences is the idea that an object from a particular place carries some of the energy of that place which can be harvested for magical intent. You see this in the use of bank dirt in money spells or cemetery dirt in baneful magic. This is also where Holy water, moon water, and stormwater come into play - here we are assuming that something that has been done to the water (being blessed by a priest, charged in the moon, or collected during a storm) carries an inherent energy that can be then transferred to your spell. Depending on your viewpoint, you may or may not agree with the concepts of sympathetic magic.

And that's the whole point of this. Witchcraft, as a whole, isn't the sort of path where you are supposed to proceed based entirely on blind faith. If you're flipping to a certain page in Scott Cunningham's infamous Green Book and finding the first money herb you come across to use in a spell, you are probably doing yourself a disservice. I suggest that you look closer. Not only will the physical correspondence change how your spell manifests (I've written about this before) but you may find that you don't even BELIEVE or AGREE with that correspondence at all. And maybe that's not important to you (but if that's true, why are you even reading this?). But I suggest that it should be. That understanding of a correspondence deepens your connection with the energy of the item you are looking to use. Moreover, exploring it further may give you all sorts of juicy ideas for spellwork to augment that energy.

Do you like my work? You can support me by tipping me on Kofi or purchasing an astrology report written just for you.

[cognitivejustice]

What is Green Infrastructure?

Runoff from stormwater continues to be a major cause of water pollution in urban areas. It carries trash, bacteria, heavy metals, and other pollutants through storm sewers into local waterways. Heavy rainstorms can cause flooding that damages property and infrastructure.

Historically, communities have used gray infrastructure—systems of gutters, pipes, and tunnels—to move stormwater away from where we live to treatment plants or straight to local water bodies.  The gray infrastructure in many areas is aging, and its existing capacity to manage large volumes of stormwater is decreasing in areas across the country. To meet this challenge, many communities are installing green infrastructure systems to bolster their capacity to manage stormwater. By doing so, communities are becoming more resilient and achieving environmental, social and economic benefits.

Basically, green infrastructure filters and absorbs stormwater where it falls. In 2019, Congress enacted the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act, which defines green infrastructure as "the range of measures that use plant or soil systems, permeable pavement or other permeable surfaces or substrates, stormwater harvest and reuse, or landscaping to store, infiltrate, or evapotranspirate stormwater and reduce flows to sewer systems or to surface waters." 

Green infrastructure elements can be woven into a community at several scales. Examples at the urban scale could include a rain barrel up against a house, a row of trees along a major city street, or greening an alleyway. Neighborhood scale green infrastructure could include acres of open park space outside a city center, planting rain gardens or constructing a wetland near a residential housing complex. At the landscape or watershed scale, examples could include protecting large open natural spaces, riparian areas, wetlands or greening steep hillsides. When green infrastructure systems are installed throughout a community, city or across a regional watershed, they can provide cleaner air and water as well as significant value for the community with flood protection, diverse habitat, and beautiful green spaces.

[headspace-hotel]

Do yk of any annoying plants (annoying for an hoa, sterile city planner, in the oh God we've sprayed pesticides on it four times how does it keep growing) I could put into a seed bomb? I know mint can be annoying in a garden but im not sure if its the best thing for the ecosystem. Idk if this is a strange question. I've been researching a bit and ik you're kinda a plant fella on here so I thought I'd ask anyways (south coastal USA, near gulf of Mexico)

Alright so here's the thing:

Seedbombing an area that is heavily maintained and treated with pesticides and herbicides: ranges from pointless to potentially harmful. The toughest plants nature has to offer are the first to show up in disturbed areas, and they don't need human help to get around.

At best, you're not really doing anything, at worst, you're leading to more pesticides and herbicides getting sprayed than before.

Seedbombing an area that might see occasional maintenance but is mostly neglected and ignored: GOOD. GREAT. What you're doing basically is re-introducing extirpated species, which can have a cascade effect on the rest of the surroundings.

Places like this might include the side of a drainage ditch, a roadside, a little empty lot set aside for stormwater drainage, just those forgotten little areas that get weedy.

You have a ton of biodiversity on the coast that isn't present here, so this will be your own quest mostly, but here's some guidelines for what you're looking for:

Native species (please do not spread invasives, and the benefits of non-natives generally are limited)

Suited to the site you want to try seed bombing (wet and soggy areas host plants suited to wetlands, drier areas have different inhabitants)

Herbaceous plants (nothing that could interfere with underground wires or pipes, so no trees or shrubs sorry)

Vigorous self-seeder that spreads by wind (because you want it to spread)

Germinates and blooms the same year (so it can reach the point of producing seeds)

A lot of plants that fit the above criteria will be annuals.

Spring or early summer blooming plants are a good idea, simply because they are more likely to survive to reseed and to be noticed by people who might think they're pretty and want to preserve them.

There are many species of milkweed. Find a few that are native to your area and mix them in. This is because they will attract monarchs, the general public is at least marginally aware of monarchs as endangered, and thus milkweeds will have a protective effect on everything else on the site.

Include a large variety of seeds. Biodiversity, and also higher success rate.

Good luck in your endeavors.

[tiredwitchplant]

Water and Plants

‐-‐---‐----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plants are powerful and come with different abilities and meanings. However, plants would not grow without their counterpart; water. In this post, I will be showing you the different types of waters , their meanings and different water plants that could be useful to use in green or water magic.

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Different Types of Water:

Dew Water – difficult to collect; is used for love magic or offerings to the fey or Faery world

Glacier Water- water from glacier; used to provide your magic with clarity and a connection to the ancients

Hurricane water- stormwater; bring quick and sudden change, justice, protection, and is considered to give extreme power and strength

Lake Water- bring calm, peace and joy; is used for workings concerning self-reflection and self-assessment

Ocean Water: water from the ocean; different oceans give different vibrations; used in offering to water deities

Pond Water: best from a local pond; is used for creating opportunities, self-discovery, and relaxation

Rainwater: believed that may rainwater is the best; is used for blessings, cleansings, prosperity, love workings, and other types of magic

Snow Water: represents purity and change, during Yule season is when the snow water is most powerful

Spring Water: is influenced by the surrounding spirits of the place where it was collected; associated with newness and bounty

Storm Water: powerful force; used to strengthen spells and workings, protection, motivation and rebirth; can also be used for hexing, cursing, and revenge work

Swamp Water: has a mind of its own; helps with binding, banishing, hexes, curses, and revenge workings

Urban (Tap) Water: contains the energy of the place it is collected; can give prosperity, luck, high energy, and used for curses and hexes

Waterfall Water: creates newness and rejuvenation

Well Water: used for granting wishes, healing, and connecting to otherworldly beings

Water Plants with Great Benefits

Water plants with great benefits:

Apples -Love, Romance, Passion, Divination, Psychic Connection, Healing and Offering to Hel

Bay- Protection, Psychic Powers, Healing, Purification, Strength

Coconut- Purification, Protection, Chastity

Ivy- Protection, Healing, Luck, Banish Negativity

Lotus- Protection, Lock-Opening, Spirituality

Pomegranate- Fertility, Prosperity, Abundance, Money, Protection, Divination, Knowledge, Wisdom

Rose- Love, Psychic Powers, Healing, Love Divination, Luck, Protection

Sage (Cooking Sage) - Immortality, Longevity, Wisdom, Protection, Wishes

Sandalwood (White) – Love, Meditation, Peace of Mind, Safety

Spearmint - Healing, Love, Mental Powers

Thyme- Health, Healing, Sleep, Psychic Power, Love, Purification, Courage

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Thank you for reading my post. I hope chu are able to use this information to good use. Bye byes~

[captainofthetidesbreath]

What is the drainage like in the Highest Light? What's the infrastructure situation on all those waterfalls? Are any of the waterfalls self-contained / self-feeding, and what's the pump and water engineering on that? What's their system like for significant increases and decreases in water volume of those waterfalls? How is their sewer system laid out? What systems are in place for stormwater management, and how effective is it?

Can someone please put me in touch with their Department of Environmental Protection, because I've got a lot of questions about the drainage and water infrastructure and generally about the water engineering. Their hypothetical and presumed infrastructure problems and concepts are just so interesting to me.

[follow-up-news]

A new federal rule aims to keep people from being pulled into storm drains during heavy rains. It comes after ProPublica’s 2021 reporting on how dangerous and uncovered storm drains were responsible for at least three dozen deaths across the country in a six-year span. The rule, which went into effect in May and applies to new projects funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, builds on guidance the federal agency released in 2022 in direct response to ProPublica’s investigation. It requires that local officials overseeing projects in areas prone to flooding consider safety measures for drain openings, such as grates to cover them. Deaths caused by storm drains continue to occur across the country. In early May, a 10-year-old boy in Christiana, Tennessee, was pulled into a drain while playing with other children in water after severe storms hit the community. The child died 10 days later after his family pulled him off life support. Officials running HUD-funded projects must now, among other measures intended to minimize harm to the environment and people, consider whether they need “protective gates or angled safety grates for culverts and stormwater drains.” Project leaders have to then explain to federal officials which safety features will be adopted and which were considered but not used. A spokesperson for the federal agency told ProPublica in an email that officials believe the new rule and language “will help encourage the use of safety measures for stormwater infrastructure to prevent injury or drownings during flood events.”

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has agreed to a draft Clean Water Act permit that will require more robust oversight of pollution from the Piney Point phosphate facility.

Today’s agreement, which was spurred by a lawsuit from conservation groups, includes establishing enforceable limits on harmful effluent discharged into Tampa Bay.

After allowing the facility to operate without a permit for 20 years, Florida has also agreed to fund independent monitoring of its impacts on Tampa Bay’s water quality.

The Piney Point phosphogypsum stack is a mountainous heap of toxic waste topped by an impoundment of hundreds of millions of gallons of process wastewater, stormwater and tons of dredged spoil from Port Manatee.

Three years ago, after discovering a leak in the facility’s reservoir liner, regulators ordered the discharge of 215 million gallons of wastewater from the gypstack into Tampa Bay to avert a catastrophic collapse and flooding. The massive, fish-killing discharge of toxic, untreated wastewater followed years of regulatory failures and mismanagement at the facility.

Following the spill, the owners of the site, HRK Holdings LLC, entered bankruptcy. The conservation groups have requested U.S. District Judge William Jung hold HRK responsible for violating the Clean Water Act by discharging pollutants into Tampa Bay without a lawfully issued permit.

During the 2021 wastewater release, Tampa Bay received more nitrogen — nearly 200 tons — than it usually receives from all other sources in an entire year. The red tides that have plagued Florida are fueled by nitrogen.

Following the release Tampa Bay experienced a deadly red tide that killed more than 600 tons of marine life in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

“The Piney Point disaster shook the Tampa Bay community to its core. It wasn’t too long ago that shorelines once teeming with life were littered with all kinds of dead fish for months. If you had previously found it swimming in Tampa Bay, it was likely dead after Piney Point,” said Justin Tramble, executive director of Tampa Bay Waterkeeper. “This brings some closure to the past and shifts the focus to making sure mechanisms are in place to prevent even more tragedy in the future.”

The millions of gallons of wastewater discharged into Tampa Bay continue to spread throughout the estuary and into Sarasota Bay, transporting tons of nitrogen and other pollutants into waterways and communities already struggling to manage excessive pollution that has impaired waterways and killed thousands of acres of seagrasses.

The groups involved in the lawsuit are the Center for Biological Diversity, Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, Suncoast Waterkeeper, ManaSota-88 and Our Children’s Earth Foundation.

[atlurbanist]

A new report looks at the hot spots of Atlanta's heat exposure

I like the looks of these recommendations from a recent report about Atlanta's heat risk. Cool roofing for low-rise buildings would be a great program for Atlanta!

As the effects of climate change produce hotter weather, it's important for us to find a way to benefit from the cooling power of urban trees while also adding affordable density in walkable formats near our transit lines.

Check out this map of heat exposure at the neighborhood level in Atlanta from the report. I'd love to see an interactive overlay of this with the satellite images:

I'll forgive this next slide for pegging the property between the Mercedes-Benz stadium & Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) as a high density neighborhood -- no one lives here.

Focus instead on the potential for a cool roof on the giant, sprawling GWCC! That would be great.

This report was funded jointly by Council's Liliana Bakhtiari and Matt Westmoreland.

Here are the recommendations:

1. Increase total tree canopy across atlanta by about 350,000 trees (average of 1,400 per neighborhood). Tree investments should be prioritized in neighborhoods with a total vulnerability score of 8, 9, or 10. All trees added by the city should be positioned to shade impervious surfaces, which will also maximize benefits for stormwater runoff.

2. The results of this heat risk assessment directly support the city council's recently adopted goal of 50% tree canopy cover as a minimum for all neighborhoods. To achieve this level of tree canopy cover, policies for protecting existing canopy will need to be strengthened and complemented with new policies and programs designed to increase tree canopy cover and to replace trees in the public right of way when lost to extreme weather or disease.

3. We recommend cool roofing for all low-rise buildings (4 stories or less). Assuming an average roof area of 1,000 square feet, meeting this recommendation would require about 940 buildings/houses to be converted to cool roofs per neighborhood, on average.

4. The number of cooling centers for extreme heat events should be expanded and targeted to neighborhoods with the highest total vulnerability scores. All cooling centers should be equipped with backup power generation and the capacity to operate during an extended blackout period. The provision of water and ample recharging stations for communication devices can further enhance population resilience during extreme heat events. We recommend that a citywide heat surveillance system be deployed with a density of at least three weather stations per neighborhood with 2,000 residents or more and real-time public reporting of weather conditions. We further recommend that the city stablish a program to evaluate the performance of heat management investments over time.