Order for a hearing on increasing Green Stormwater Infrastructure Capacity at Boston Water & Sewer and the City of Boston. On motion of Councilor Bok, Rule 12 was invoked to include Councilors Breadon and Coletta as co-sponsors. Referred to the Committee on Environmental Justice, Resiliency, and Parks.
Mr. Kirk, please. RE Docket 0965. Duncan, Emma 0965 Council of Biochar for the following order for a hearing on increasing green stormwater infrastructure capacity at Boston Water and Sewer in the city of Boston. But she recognizes Counselor Bork. Counsel Bork, you have the floor. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Mr. President. I'd like to seek to suspend Rule 12 and add councilors Braden and Colette as original co-sponsors. Seeing and hearing. No objection. Both are out. Great. Thank you. And I also want to acknowledge we and I think there are many fans of green infrastructure in the council house. So if we could add more people, I would also be adding Councilor and Councilor Laura. But it's I'm glad that there's such a caucus of support. I also want to start by offering a shout out to Alaskans and other one of our summer fellows who worked on this hearing order for us and has been doing a tremendous amount of research to back it up. So Boston, as some folks may know, but others may not, we maintain actually one of the oldest and largest traditional gray storm water systems in the country. And unfortunately, you know, it really it right now can only deal with several inches of rain in a 24 hour period. We've got, you know, storms that are projected more and more often to overwhelm the systems. BWC, our Boston Water and Sewer has expressed the need to expand its capacity. We're under a federal order not to let too much phosphorus go into the Charles River, which again involves having a greater capacity system. But unfortunately, the ways in which we have pursued greater capacity in the city of Boston have really been kind of gray in the sense of concrete and not looking enough. I feel at greenest green stormwater system solutions. And, you know, we've even set forward a plan for stormwater management, carbon neutrality and assess GSI in various places in the city. But in terms of our actual implementation, we are lagging behind cities like New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, which have developed plans and models and have hundreds of GSI developments across their city. And I saw this firsthand when I went to Philadelphia, actually looking at their Power four program. They've done so much green stormwater infrastructure that they have a whole division of their water department now, which is their water and sewer that just maintains green stormwater infrastructure. And it's been a great source of jobs for the power for folks who have trained up on the maintenance for these green stormwater installations and have become experts in it. And, you know, it's one of those things where I think the way that we've been thinking about it often in the city of Boston is, oh, green infrastructure, which might mean putting in a rain garden or a bio swale or just, you know, anything where you've got a kind of nature based solution. We look at that sometimes and we say, Oh, well, those porous pavers, they might need a little bit more maintenance, they might need to be vacuumed or they might need to be swept. And we don't have that capacity today. And so it sort of makes sense in a kind of immediate sense, oh, let's go with the set and forget it concrete. But in the long run, Philadelphia's run the numbers and found that this would save an enormous amount of money if you put the green infrastructure in first just because of how much better it handles the water. And and I feel proud of the fact that Boston's one of the first cities in America to really do to scale green stormwater infrastructure. We did it more than 100 years ago with The Mighty River, which is just a giant green stormwater initiative in the middle of the city. And it's time for us to do it again more and more. And I think that there's an opportunity to create great jobs for our young people doing this opportunity to engage our communities. But engaging our communities shouldn't look like a world where because we haven't come up with a real system for green stormwater maintenance, we're saying we're only going to put green stormwater in where some community group agrees to maintain the installation, because the reality is that creates a city of haves and have nots and place in it and the opposite of an environmental justice approach. So I was really excited to see the mayor announce England coming in as our first director of Green and infrastructure last week. And I think there's a huge opportunity to work with Boston Water and sewer and also public works and all of our departments to kind of put in infrastructure to make our standards green and then also to have a real maintenance plan attached to all those that's going to serve our communities well. But I think it's something that the council should be paying close attention to. And I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-sponsors, Brian. And. So thank you, Mr. President. And thank you again to Alice. Thank you, Counsel. The next original co-sponsor was Counsel Braden and Counsel Braden. You have the floor. Mr. President, and thank you, Councilor Bochum, Councilor Collado, for co-sponsoring this. You know, the green stormwater infrastructure capacity, the green stormwater is sort of a pet, a pet project for me. Many years ago we had a persistent problem with it was a big rainstorm. We had incidents of of one instance of having 18 inches of water in our basement. And we discovered that in an extreme, after a lot of weather rain, that the rainwater was just accumulating in the. And we were just coming in to our basement. And then we went to a presentation that was hosted by the Awesome Brian CDC, and it was a presentation by the Charles River Watershed Association, and they presented a presentation on Rain Gardens and Bio Swales. And we, we went home and we, we, we worked, we got some help and we, we created our own rain garden in the backyard. And all of the rainwater that hits our roof goes into our yard. So it we don't have a flooding problem in our basement and any longer. So this is just sort of a micro project that we have we've used in our in our family to manage stormwater. But when you scale that up, we had a someone from the the Boston Water and sewer came by recently and we showed him our rain garden and he was like, wow, if we could more get more people to do this, it would take so much of the stormwater out of our system and and and help alleviate some of the flooding issues that we have. So and I feel that, you know, not only do we need to do this on a on a on a on a city level in our city departments, and think about new but new neighborhoods that have been developed and in East Boston and Allston that we need to be thinking about stormwater management in a very proactive and very strategic way. But I also think that we need to engage with our residents of the city to try and encourage, you know, sort of this micro approach of of individuals, households having having a rain garden in their yard to to try and alleviate the the increased threats of stormwater, increased weather events with very heavy, precipitous rain is is a very real threat, especially we're not going to have sea water in a square, but we are going to have problems with stormwater. And I really welcome this hearing and I hope to learn more about this issue and to also help educate our residents across the city. Thank you. Thank you. Council grade and the chair recognizes council, cholera council. Quite a few of the floor. Thank you. Council. President Flynn. I want to thank the maker and including me as a co-sponsor as well as my co-sponsor, Councilor Braden. A Forgotten Crisis and tangential issue two flooding due to sea level rise is mitigating stormwater runoff and the unprecedented levels of precipitation seen in recent years. Mitigation measures have been implemented to protect our coastline from flooding, but we do not account for the water that comes through our sewer systems below our streets. New development is typically built on elevated platforms, just like they are in. In East. Boston, which has helped somewhat. But when there are major storms like the bumble genesis that took place in 2018. Council President Flynn, I know you remember this quite well as on day three of your tenure, but water not only went up and over these elevated platforms, but they went underneath through our drainage system. And so it really was the main reason why Jeffrey's point was flooded. And so the frequency of severe storms is increasing. And our stormwater infrastructure, mostly built in the mid-century, is not equipped to handle the volume of water that we're seeing at this present day. So in this conversation, I'd like to understand how the EPA is looking at this and what standards for any new development taking place and how folks are contributing to green stormwater infrastructure in their own buildings. Copenhagen planners are thinking about the rain too and have required a certain percentage of green spaces. Council Brayton mentioned rain gardens, etc., which could be which could supplement strategies of what we're doing. So I look forward to the hearing and again, grateful to be added as co-sponsor. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel. The chair recognizes council. Borough Council are you have the floor. Thank you, President Flynn. And thank you to the makers and councilor. Councilor, Councilor Brading and Councilor Coletta for moving this forward. This is something that I'm really incredibly excited about as the chair of the Environmental Justice Committee. Part of the work that we did during the conversation about ARPA was to earmark two and a half million dollars to build new infrastructure around waste and compost. And I think that this is moving us in the same direction. Ultimately, if we want to be a city that is climate resilient and we want to make sure that we are looking at environmental justice with an equity lens, we're going to have to build our own infrastructure and we're going to have to build our infrastructure not at the cost of the, you know, economic empowerment of the people here in our neighborhoods. And so I think that this is not only an opportunity to further create jobs, but I think it's an opportunity for us to really realize the dream that we have for Powercor, right? That it's kind of like a hub that continues to grow and provide jobs for young people, particularly in green infrastructure, so that we are a climate resilient city, but we're also providing economic opportunity and well-paying jobs to the people here in the city of Boston. So I'm really excited to support it. I thank you so much for putting it on the floor. And I am happy to steward it through the Environmental Justice Committee. Thank you. Thank you, counsel. Laura, that she recognizes counselors and counselors. And you have the floor. Thank you. President Flynn, I also want to thank the sponsors. I want to thank counselor back for introducing introducing this hearing order. We hear a lot from folks in the city wide issue. So I hear from folks in all of our neighborhoods about the issue of flooding, whether on Mercy Boulevard or in different areas. The city has about 666 miles of underground stormwater pipes that are, as everyone has said, are quite old that we need to update. One of the really great things about the city is our fiscal strength and our ability to bond for infrastructure and to bond for projects. In 2020, the city bonded for the first time green social bonds in the amount of $25 million to update our municipal infrastructure and make them climate resilient. And $35 million for affordable housing projects. We can do that here with green stormwater infrastructure. And it should be continued to be a key component of the Green New Deal for the city. There have been discussions already about looking at four point channel as a way to create more flood gates and to create flood gates around the city. So I'm really excited for this conversation, and I think that we should be leaning into our city's fiscal strength and making sure that we are putting our resources to bear on this really important issue and protecting our communities, especially our most vulnerable communities that our communities as well. So thank you. Thank you, counselors. And. Would anyone else like to speak on this matter? Or sign on. Please raise your hand. Mr. Kirklees. Council. Royal Council Councilor Baker. Counsel Fernandez Innocent Counsel Florida Counsel Lara. Counsel and counsel Murphy and the Chair. Before I assign it to a committee, let me. Let me recognize Counselor Bork. Counsel Bork. You have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. I think we had been thinking because my committee, City Services and Innovation Technology, oversees space and water and sewer that we would be seeking for it to come to my committee. But I also it's obviously been an environmental issue, and cancer is the Environmental Justice Committee. So I don't know if we could potentially, like have it have it come to us and have a joint hearing or have a go at her and have a joint hearing. I just I want to make sure that the water and sewer piece is there. And obviously, my committee has got jurisdiction over them within the council. But I also would love to be partnering on this. So whatever you think is okay. The this will be the this this would be the first time I was assigned to two committees at the same time because it does overlap both committees. So I will, um, I will place it in both both committees. Um. So we in the Committee of City Services innovation in technology in. In the the Committee on Environmental Justice. Mr. Clarke, can you please read?