Best Management Practices
Outreach | Rules
The Rice Creek Watershed District and our consulting engineers (Emmons & Olivier Resources) have put together a number of resources for project managers to use in implementing Best Management Practices (BMPs) on their project sites. Because the practices detailed here are often unfamiliar to those in a position to implement them, these guidance documents and resources were assembled to properly plan and construct them as a part of a project.
All of the techniques detailed here—rain gardens, infiltration trenches, green roofs, vegetated swales and pervious pavement—have the potential to decrease the total amount of water that runs off a site and at the same time, increase the water quality in that which does. These issues are at the core of the work the RCWD does, and we see these practices as being a great way of addressing these concerns while at the same time minimizing the construction and ongoing maintenance costs for implementers. In addition, when mature, many of these techniques are quite beautiful and can add intrinsic value to the areas where they are constructed.
By using the Best Management Practices Browser, you can look at each of these practices and get an idea of what is required to properly implement them. On each page you can find diagrams of these techniques, special considerations for their construction or implementation, and even sample specifications and designs (designs provided on this website are not meant for construction) that you can use as a model for implementing any of these BMPs on your project site. On a few of the pages, we have listings of known product vendors available, where special materials are needed.
Included among these pages is an extensive and searchable database of native plant species that can be used along with these techniques.
We hope that by making these resources available we will see more of these innovative practices being constructed in the near future.