2023 Award Winners

Since 2016, the Saco River Watershed Collaborative (SWC) has been working to engage 50 public and private partners to protect a 1,700 square mile watershed in western and southern Maine. During the pandemic, the SWC held virtual meetings to develop a 10-year work plan with four actionable strategies, including: 

• Engage and inspire governments, organizations, and community members to take action to sustain the Saco River watershed; 

• Protect water quality through pollution prevention and restoration of degraded sub-watersheds; 

• Support land conservation and stewardship to protect water quality, and 

• Promote and enforce CID strategies, stormwater and wastewater BMPs, and land use development that protect water.  

The SWC has since partnered with Northbridge Environmental, US EPA’s environmental finance management consultant, to identify current and potential funding sources to implement the strategies outlined. The goal is that the 10-year work plan evolves into a long-term plan for sustainable water source protection with eligible funding sources paired with each activity. In 2023 alone, SWC staff has collaborated with the City of Biddeford, Maine Water Company, USFS, and others to implement projects with the support of a Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Set-Aside Grant Program.

The city of New Haven, Connecticut has endured repeated inland and coastal flooding within its 800-acre storm sewershed that impacts business and city operations, as well as residential neighborhoods. During high intensity, short duration storm events, insufficient storm sewer capacity under low-lying areas results in flooding that is compounded by rising sea levels and more frequent intense rainfall events. For example, 600 acres drain towards three pipes that provide about a third of the necessary capacity to adequately relieve upstream drainage during a 10-year, 24-hour storm. 

The city is leveraging a combination of green and gray infrastructure to mitigate flooding in these areas. Green infrastructure installations are currently helping to reduce peak flows into the storm sewer system and lessen the impact of storm surge along the coast. To date, this has included installing 175 rain gardens in public rights of way in the upstream area of the sewershed. Grant funding has also been secured for the construction of a 3,400-foot-long by 100-foot-wide urban living shoreline creating an expanded upper marsh adjacent to Long Wharf Park. The city also secured a FEMA BRIC grant for gray infrastructure, including 3,200 linear feet of 10-foot diameter drainage pipe to increase storm sewer capacity.

One of the better Best Management Practices for nutrient reduction is leaf litter removal. The city of Auburn, Maine customized a 7-yard truck with a leaf collection box and developed an efficient program to accomplish what can be a logistically challenging task. Each fall, a crew of 10 Public Works Department staff mobilize to blow leaves off esplanades and streets into a windrow where the leaf litter is then vacuumed up and shredded into the collection box. A mechanical broom sweeper completes the cleanup, and leaves are dumped in a city-managed compost facility. The crew covered 70 miles of streets in the span of seven days in November 2021, totaling 414 hours in labor and 419 hours on equipment. 

Auburn leverages a CMMS and work order management system to prioritize areas for leaf litter clean up, manage labor, and track equipment usage. Utilizing the calculation methodology within the “Clean Sweep” publication, created by the expert panel, Auburn’s leaf litter collection program has eliminated 94.6 pounds of phosphorus from being discharged to the Androscoggin River which is nutrient impaired. For reference, this load reduction would allow 24 of 34 communities to meet their first phase load reduction requirement. To construct treatment systems to address 94.6 pounds of phosphorus would cost approximately $10 million. 

Beyond protecting the Androscoggin River, wildlife habitat, and valuable recreation areas, the leaf collection prevents storm drain clogging, unsightly debris piles, and reduces the number of residential complaints.