The City of Philadelphia is starting the new year with an exciting new incentive to manage their Stormwater and Wastewater.
The Philadelphia Water Department is proud to introduce two programs: the Stormwater Management Incentives Program (SMIP) and the Greened Acre Retrofit Program (GARP); both of which reward local businesses, institutions, and others financially for retrofitting their properties to divert stormwater out of their combined storm and wastewater system.
In the latter half of 2014, the projects awarded 8.25 million to four projects, representing 11 properties, which created 92 green acres. They are aiming to have 9,500 impervious acres converted to “green acres” over 25 years.
SMIP was started in 2012 and aims to create an incentive for property owners to build and maintain systems that capture stormwater that would otherwise end up in the sewers and waterways.
Grant recipients not only get financial assistance for the design and implementation of their systems, but they also enjoy lower Stormwater fees.
GARP came on board in 2014 to provide stormwater grants to contractors who can build large-scale retrofit projects.
Philadelphia is calling for more applications to both grants and is encouraging people to get in now for the January to March 2015 quarter.
More information about both grants is very adequately provided on Philadelphia’s official government website.
From an infrastructure asset management perspective the SMIP is a demand management program that has started dealing with the source of the problem being experienced rather than the symptom.
This is smart management and will lead to long-term gains.
Something to think about longer-term is that stormwater catchment management is holistic and integrated.
When private assets such as the Green Acre Retrofits are included as part of your holistic asset management plan, then you will need to include these in your infrastructure planning, asset information systems and records, and capacity models even though you don’t own the assets.
This can take some management and planning by utilities.
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