Page 1 of 3

\\server01\shared\Projects\LCWMD\7000 Education & Outreach\2016 LID Conference Tour\20160829_Long Creek LID Tour Itinerary.docx

Stormwater BMP Tour Itinerary for Long Creek LID Conference Tour Tour date: August 31, 2016; 1 – 5 PM 

 Participants shall wear sturdy shoes and shall bring safety vests, if possible. 

 Tour guides:  Pete Carney (Executive Director, Long Creek Watershed Management District [LCWMD]) Peter Newkirk, P.E. (Surface Water Quality Unit, Maine Department of Transportation) Scott Reynolds (Watershed Specialist, Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation District) Aubrey Strause, P.E. (Stormwater Program Manager, Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation 

District)  Alternates:  Fred Dillon and Gretchen Anderson (Water Resource Protection Department; City of South Portland, 

Maine)  

 ~Buses leave Holiday Inn by the Bay, Portland~ Travel time to Stop #1: 20 minutes  Stop #1: Colonel Westbrook Industrial Park (1 Thomas Drive, Westbrook) 

Time on site: 45 minutes 

Buses will enter Thomas Drive from Outer Congress street and will park in the eastern part of the lot, occupied by IDEXX Laboratories, circled in red below.   

 

Page 2 of 3

\\server01\shared\Projects\LCWMD\7000 Education & Outreach\2016 LID Conference Tour\20160829_Long Creek LID Tour Itinerary.docx

There is minor walking during this stop.  

Participants will see and learn about a restored section of Blanchette Brook as well as a gravel wetland.  

 Transition from Stop #1 to Stop #2 

En route from 1 Thomas Drive, Westbrook to Mall Plaza Shopping Center (220 Maine Mall Road).  

Drive time: 15 minutes 

Buses will turn left from Thomas Drive onto Spring Street, then left onto Sable Oaks Drive. 

Participants will receive a private virtual tour from the comfort of their coach of this Audubon‐certified golf course, located right between the South Branch and Main Stem of Long Creek.  

Buses turn left from Sable Oaks Drive onto Running Hill Road.  

As buses turn left from Running Hill Road onto Maine Mall Road, participants will see and learn about the vegetated underdrained soil filter constructed during LCWMD’s 2014 Maine Mall Road/ Gorham Road project.  

 Stop #2: Mall Plaza Shopping Center (220 Maine Mall Road, South Portland) 

Time on site: 60 minutes 

Buses will enter this shopping center from Maine Mall Road entrance and park adjacent to the StormTreat BMP in the center of the lot, circled in red below.  

  There is moderate walking during this stop.  

Participants will see and learn about one of LCWMD’s StormTreat BMPs as well as a large underdrained soil filter.   

 Transition from Stop #2 to Stop #3 

Drive time: 5 minutes 

As buses turn left from Mall Plaza Shopping Center onto Gorham Road, participants will see and learn about the vegetated underdrained soil filter medians constructed during LCWMD’s 2014 Maine Mall Road/ Gorham Road project. 

Buses will turn right onto Philbrook Ave. 

Page 3 of 3

\\server01\shared\Projects\LCWMD\7000 Education & Outreach\2016 LID Conference Tour\20160829_Long Creek LID Tour Itinerary.docx

 Stop #3: Gravel Wetland (350 Philbrook Avenue, South Portland) 

Time on site: 75 minutes 

Buses will park in Maine Mall lot at the location circled in red below.  

  

There is minor to moderate walking during this stop.  

Participants will carefully cross Philbrook Avenue to the gravel wetland.  

Participants will be able to walk around the BMP on top of the berm as they see the various components of the BMP. Discussion will include design, construction, closeout, and maintenance of this BMP.  

Handouts:  o Photos and information about this BMP o Summary prepared by Hydro International on the trash study they did of materials 

collected during a cleanup of the South Branch of Long Creek in May 2016.   Transition from Stop #3 to Return to Portland 

Buses turn onto Philbrook Avenue toward John Roberts Road and go around the Maine Mall. 

Participants will learn about “Greening of the Maine Mall” project to be constructed in Mall parking lot. 

Turn right onto Maine Mall Road, participants will learn about the section of porous pavement on Maine Mall Road installed and maintained by LCWMD. 

 ~Buses return to Portland~ Travel time back to hotel: 20 minutes  

 

This riparian enhancement restored approximately 800 linear feet of stream, using:

Large boulders

128 trees with root wads

655 perennials

more than 2,600 shrubs and herbaceous plants.

The technology used in the subwatershed allowed for water quality treatment and quantity controls for volumes from 1”, 24-hour storm event. BMPs constructed in this subwatershed included:

in-stream/riparian enhancements

a gravel wetland

StormTech chambers

Brentwood tanks

underdrained soil filters

www.RestoreLongCreek.org

1 Thomas Drive: Before (Left, 2008) and After (Right, 2016) BMP Installation

Subwatershed: Blanchette Brook Year Constructed: 2011 Construction Cost: $~809,000 IC Area Treated: 58 acres

View LCWMD

Landowner Resources

including Fact Sheets

and Signage Options at:

www.restorelongcreek.

org/pages/general/

factsheets

Long Creek Watershed Man-

agement District Managed by: Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation District

35 Main Street, Suite 3, Windham, ME 04062

(207) 892-4700 | www.restorelongcreek.org

This project included the retrofit of an existing detention basin into a large gravel wetland. This BMP now includes a sediment forebay, an aquatic emergent zone, and a permanent pool (or “micropool”).

The construction phase of this project is currently being closed out: we’ll update photos on the LCWMD website to show how it changes over time!

Mall Plaza: Before (Top, 2006) and After (Bottom, 2015) BMP Installation

Gravel Wetland During Construction

The improvements at the Mall Plaza Shopping Center were constructed using ARRA “Stimulus” funds, in two phases, to treat the water quality volume from 1”, 24-hour storm. Several pretreatment technologies are in use at this property.

StormTreat units on the site remove or reduce pollutants including bacteria, petroleum hydrocarbons, metals, and nutrients.

The StormTech subsurface chambers store runoff.

The underdrained soil filter has seven treatment cells, to collect and distribute stormwater. The LCWMD maintains the BMPs on this property. Subwatershed:

Lower Main Stem Year Constructed: 2010 Construction Cost: $~1,254,000 IC Area Treated: 14.5 acres

Subwatershed: South Branch Year Constructed: 2015 Construction Cost: $~658,000 IC Area Treated: 32.6 acres

Peter J. Carney LCWMD Executive Director pcarney@restorelongcreek.org

(207) 894-4320

Aubrey Strause, P.E. Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation District astrause@cumberlandswcd.org

(207) 641-7704

Storm Water strategies within framework of Audubon Sanctuary Environmental Plan

Your Sable Oaks guides: David D'Andrea and Al Hardy

13th green approach includes native plantings recommended for riparian stream areas as well as

maintaining a buffer zone above stream area.

14th green approach includes native plantings to discourage golfers from entering sensitive areas,

plants for filtering runoff and increasing shade on waters.

Open Area Management: An important part of the environmental plan includes encouraging open

areas to return to native plants that help capture runoff, support a healthy pollinator and butterfly

population and reduce maintenance input.

As part of our education and outreach we have established and actively monitor a 21 box breeding

nest box trail. Collaborating with Biodiversity Research Institute we carry out a seasonal

monitoring and banding program that has documented a thriving population of native secondary

cavity nesting songbirds.

Learn more at: Sable Oaks Golf Course: www.sableoaks.com Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf: www.auduboninternational.org/acspgolf Maine Current article on Sable Oaks’ certification www.fbenvironmental.com/PDF/News/ SableOaksGolfCourseGainsAudubonCertification_Oct2012.pdf

Maine Mall

Portland

Jetport

Sable Oaks

Golf Club

Sable Oaks Golf Course Gains Audubon Certification Posted: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 11:02 am

By Duke Harrington dharrington@keepmecurrent.com

SOUTH PORTLAND – The 13th fairway at the Sable Oaks Golf Course in South Portland is about to get a little more difficult.

“This already is one of the most challenging greens in the state. It’s an extremely hard hole,” course superintendent Matt TenEyck said on Monday. “What we’re doing now with this is, we are actually changing the way this hole is played, making it potentially even harder.”

But those changes are not being made merely to frustrate area divot divas. The plan is to restore that natural conditions of Long Creek, which flows through the middle of the course, adding a 50-foot buffer zone to an area of the fairway that, not so long ago, was tended right up to the edge of the stream. It is part of an effort to restore habitat for bugs in Long Creek, to bring back trout and meet certain water-quality standards by 2020, the ultimate goal of the Long Creek Watershed Plan, created in July 2009.

“I think it takes a true stormwater geek to get really excited about the bugs, but generally, when a golf course is more environmentally friendly, it’s just a nice place – it’s a more beautiful golf course,” said Tamara Lee Pinard, executive director of the Long Creek Management District, as well as stormwater program manager at the Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District.

“I play golf all over New England and Sable Oaks has some of the best greens and fairways,” said Bell, whose firm is helping Sable Oaks obtain the Audubon certification. “It proves that ‘environmentally friendly’ can translate easily into ‘great conditions.’”

“Reclaiming this much, this is a lot,” said Forrest Bell, senior scientists for Portland-based FB Environmental Associates. “To leave a buffer of this width is a really big deal.”

On Tuesday, officials from city, county and state government were on hand to help plant red osier dogwoods, choke berry bushes and other plants along the stream that separates tee from cup on the Par 3 green. That digging was done in part to celebrate Sable Oaks’ recent certification in environmental planning from the

Photo by Rich Obrey

Noah MacVane, a groundskeeper at Sable Oaks Golf Club in South Portland, works around the 13th green on Monday, planting a red twigged dogwood tree in a marshy area along the banks of Long Creek. The golf club was honored this week for its work in helping to protect the Long Creek watershed.

Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses, the first of six steps leading to recognition as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.

“We welcome Sable Oaks Golf Club’s commitment to the environment and management of the golf course with wildlife in mind,” said Jim Sluiter, staff ecologist for Audubon International, in a release announcing Sable Oaks’ effort to stand alongside the Portland Country Club, the only golf course in Maine with full sanctuary certification.

According to Pinard, Sable Oaks, at 154 acres, is the largest single lot of 127 along the 10 miles of Long Creek and its associated tributaries. Impervious surfaces – roofs, parking lots and other hard areas that speed stormwater runoff into the stream – cover between 11 and 67 percent of each of those lots. Eight percent is enough to impact water quality, says Pinard. Because of that heavy development, Long Creek does not meet minimum state water-quality standards.

That realization led to the creation of the Long Creek Management District, encompassing 2,240-acres and four-municipalities, from Blanchette Brook tributary at the Colonel Westbrook Industrial Park, past the Maine Mall to Clark’s Pond and out to the Fore River.

When the management district was formed two years ago, landowners of an acre or more of impervious surface were given a choice for how to meet Maine Department of Environmental Protection standards created to restore the stream to former health. They could obtain individual permitting or join the district under a general permit, at a cost of $3,000 per acre, for 10 years.

“We operate on a cash basis because it was really important to the landowner that we not be taking out loans and that sort o stuff,” said Pinard, pointing to work on settlement basis at Texas Instruments slated for next year, as well as a 2014 mitigation project around the Mall.

“This is a real public-private partnership,” said Pinard. “We want to do what’s best for the stream but we also want to do what’s best for the property owners in the district.”

According to Pinard, only one property owner, who controls four of the 127 district parcels, is not in compliance. Of the rest, one, the MTA Administrative Building, already has met state standards, while three – UPS, the Wyndham Hotel and Capital Automotive – have pressed on with individual permits in progress when the Long Creek Management District was launched. The remaining 119 parcels fall under district auspices, said Pinard.

But given the amount of development surrounding Long Creek, Sable Oaks presents some of the best available wildlife habitat in the watershed.

“Preserving that habitat and improving the water quality in Long Creek, made joining Audubon’s Cooperative Sanctuary Program a win-win for both the watershed and the golf course,” said TenEyck.

That’s true in more ways than one. Because it is creating the buffer zone on its own dime, the golf course will get a discount on its watershed dues.

“Instead of Long Creek having to come in and do these plantings, they’re doing it, so they get that in-kind value,” said Pinard.

However, Sable Oaks also got to make a trade with the Department of Environmental Protection, which allowed TenEyck to cut back some areas along Long Creek had become overgrown with “larger woody materials that were obstructing the playability of the golf course,” particularly at the course’s signature 14th hole.

“The Long Creek Advisory Board approved the design plan for new plantings on Hole 13, and DEP allowed me to do what I needed to, to make the restoration efforts easier,” said TenEyck.

At one time, said TenEyck, the greens on Hole 13 were tended right up to the edge of Long Creek. That made life easy for golfers, who could easily recover the results from an errant swing. Now, those dimpled balls, which can run between $3 and $5 each, are lost forever when they fall into a newly created “enhanced riparian zone” that extends 25 feet from the stream. That and another 25-foot-long “no-mow zone” are designed to slow runoff into the creek, absorb chloride and other toxins and shade the stream bed, to both lower water temperature and increase dissolved oxygen.

“It all helps the stream act more like a stream,” said Pinard. “The warmer the water is, the less oxygen it can hold.”

TenEyck credits Sable Oaks owner Ocean Properties with getting on board with the mitigation project, along with part-time landscaper Al Hardy, the course’s “No. 1 ecologist.”

“The long-term goal for Sable Oaks is to have the water cleaner when it exits the golf course that it was when it came in,” he said.

But then there’s the matter of how the change will affect players. Sure, says Bell, the 13th hole with a wild swath through the middle of it is nicer to look at, but as TenEyck notes, it may take an extra stroke to make it over the stream, from a newly created “drop zone” for balls lost in the off-limits rough.

“I don’t know how much some will like that,” said TenEyck, “but I haven’t been giving out my cell number.”

Background: Long Creek Watershed

Over a decade ago, the Long Creek which runs through several municipalities in Southern Maine was identified as an urban impaired watershed. In 2007, with guidance from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) along with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the community came together as part of a restoration project led by a steering committee comprised of area municipalities, local businesses, state agencies, and other stakeholders.

Since then a number of stormwater treatment solutions such as tree box filters, media filters, storage chambers, pervious pavement, bioretention cells, detention basins and gravel wetlands have been implemented as part of the cleanup. Despite those storm-water efforts, the area surrounding the Long Creek is still a highly commercialized retail stretch that amasses a significant amount of trash. During storm events, that debris will make its way into drainage lines and from there into the stream if it's not appropriately screened out.

New England Trash Study: Long Creek Watershed

Non-biodegradable trash is an eyesore on land, but one way or another, much of it will end up where it will arguably do the most damage to the environment: in water.

Aquatic life found in the lakes, rivers and oceans where most unscreened trash will eventually find its way, is vulnerable to these floating pollutants that can deceptively look like food. Once consumed, birds, fish and other wildlife are either poisoned or unable to effectively digest the material and in most cases pass away.

While these pollutants may spell the end for that particular animal, the life of that plastic bottle cap, food wrapper or beverage straw has only just begun. After the animal decom-poses, those same pollutants are once again free to reenter the ecosystem by way of a rain event or other means and can threaten the life of another animal and another.

Eighty percent of trash in water is generated on land.1 A recent City of Los Angeles study of the composition of trash found on land compared to trash in the water showed that plastics make up a significantly higher percentage of trash found in water.2

The avenue by which most waterborne trash is able to reach bodies of water is via stormwater drainage systems. While some states (California) and cities (Baltimore) have a zero tolerance for trash TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Loads) discharging from their runoff, most areas of the country leave it to the discretion of the civil engineers oversee-ing development/redevelopment projects to decide if trash screening is necessary. If it’s not specifically required of them and there is an additional cost to their clients, many engineers are unlikely to recommend a screening option, especially if they know that another screen may already exist further down the drainage line.

No amount of trash can safely be assimilated into a natural ecosystem. Until legislation catches up to this important issue, engineers and contractors have an important oppor-tunity to protect area wildlife from centuries of harm.

The Problem: The Effects of Trash in Water

Long Creek is a 3.45 square miLe watersehd in PortLand, south PortLand, westbrook and sCarborough, maine

1 National Resources Defense Council: Waste in Our Waterways. August 2013. http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/files/ca-pollution-in-waterways-IB.pdf2 Chen, D. and Kjaraghani, S. Stormwater Magazine. Surf and Turf: Characterization of trash in water and land. Jan/Feb 2016. http://foresternetwork.com/daily/water/stormwater/surf-and-turf-2/

New England Trash Study: Long Creek Watershed

38% of collected litter was a form of food or beverage container

Trash Study: Community Clean up uses Trash for Environmental Research

Hydro International worked with the CCSWCD (Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District), LCWMD (Long Creek Watershed Management District), United Way, Fairchild Semicon-ductor and the City of South Portland to do a trash cleanup of the high-traffic area in and around the Long Creek Watershed in May of 2016. The waste collected during the collaborative volunteer day was used in a research study to help enhance water quality treatment across the country and the world.

The research study took place within Hydro International’s hydraulics laboratory in Portland, ME. This facility is one of the largest manufacturer-owned testing facilities in the country and has been used for water quality performance verification for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), the Massachusetts STEP (Stormwater Technology Evaluation Project), the Maine Department of Transportation as well as many industrial facilities operating under a storm- water discharge permit.

Hydro International will use the trash study data to inform smarter designs for future stormwater treatment systems such as screens, separators and filters. Knowledge of the material types that are more prevalent regionally and how various materials break down will shape product development for treatment devices used across the United States and around the world.

Results: • Number of bags collected: 54• Pounds of trash collected: 583 • Average weight per bag: 11• Gallons (by volume) of trash collected: 1,890

The City of South Portland, CCSWCD, LCWMD, United Way, Fairchild Semiconductor and Hydro International were all involved in the volunteer cleanup day in May of 2016.