Clearing Blight and Cleaning Up Water in Buffalo | International Joint Commission

What do vacant and abandoned properties in Buffalo, N.Y., have to do with Great Lakes water quality? Quite a bit, it may turn out, once the Buffalo Sewer Authority (BSA) implements a new low-cost approach to transforming more than 230 vacant city-owned sites into green spaces that will help reduce blight while capturing rain and snow melt.

About 80 percent of New York's fresh surface water, more than 700 miles of shoreline, and 40 percent of New York's land area over 33 counties are contained in the drainage basins of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and the St. Lawrence River. Credit: NYSDEC — About 80 percent of New York's fresh surface water, more than 700 miles of shoreline, and 40 percent of New York's land area over 33 counties are contained in the drainage basins of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and the St. Lawrence River. Credit: *NYSDEC*

Locations (in red) of sites selected to receive a green post-demolition bioretention treatment, focused on Buffalo neighborhoods with a concentration of vacant and deteriorated properties. Credit: Buffalo Sewer Authority — Locations (in red) of sites selected to receive a green post-demolition bioretention treatment, focussed on Buffalo neighborhoods with a concentration of vacant and deteriorated properties. Credit: Buffalo Sewer Authority.

Since the 1950s, Buffalo has seen its population drop by half, to an estimated 258,959 people in 2013. The city has since torn down thousands of abandoned homes in an effort to remove some of the blight, demolishing 5,395 structures on 518 acres of land between 2000 and 2013. Today, around 15 percent of Buffalo’s existing housing units are vacant, many of them abandoned and deteriorating, contributing to crime and lowering property values.

Buffalo has a well-developed demolition program which includes detailed construction specifications with protocols including removal of all structures, hardscape and hazardous materials.

In 2012, an idea began to take shape for a new approach --- a replicable, low-tech treatment which would repurpose these sites after demolition. Shallow bioretention systems could be constructed by scraping off the top six inches of material, reshaping the surface to form a shallow depression, and seeding the top with low-maintenance turf grass. During rainstorms, runoff would collect in these areas and over time either infiltrate back into the ground or be taken up, or “evapotranspired,” by the plants. Lower-grade soils typical to the region could be replaced with a soil mix having greater retention and infiltration capacity.

In 2013, the Buffalo Sewer Authority (BSA) implemented a small pilot project using this treatment at six vacant lots as part of an urban green street project. The intent was to manage water where it falls, recharging groundwater and preventing polluted runoff from entering local rivers and streams. The application also helps improve the appearance of the sites, improving the neighborhood’s “curb appeal.”

*Neighborhood regeneration in the city of Buffalo will require removal or rehabilitation of homes. Credit: Google Earth*

With the promising results from the pilot program, in 2014 the BSA was awarded a $1.8 million grant from New York State’s Green Innovation Grant Program (GIGP), which will enable the post-demolition bioswale program to be expanded on a much wider scale. Grants from the GIGP support new, green and “outside the box” approaches to stormwater management across New York state, and this methodology offers the opportunity for a low-cost application that addresses a range of urban issues.

With the GIGP grant, BSA will install the bioretention treatment at 230 city-owned post-demolition sites, eliminating nearly 16 acres of impervious surfaces. Amended soils will allow the bioretention areas to capture up to a 0.9 inches of rainfall, which translates to about 45,000 cubic feet of runoff removed from the city’s drainage system. In addition, there will be an estimated 6,653 tons per year of sediment captured, 12.5 pounds per year of phosphorus removed, and about 90 pounds of nitrogen per year prevented from entering local and regional waterways.

The Lake Erie watershed in Western New York state. Credit: NYSDEC — *The Lake Erie watershed in Western New York state. Credit:* *NYSDEC*

This approach has the potential to impact water quality on a large scale while helping to fight urban blight. The Niagara River/Lake Erie watershed covers 2,280 square miles in western New York state. Water pollution here is associated with past and current industrial activities as well as “nonpoint” sources of pollution - when urban stormwater runoff overloads combined sewer drainage systems, resulting in Combined Sewer Overflows. Stormwater carrying sediments, pollutants and nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen is a major contributor to regional water quality issues.

New thinking like this, implemented on an increasingly larger scale, can result in significant regional water quality improvements in municipalities across the country with similar urban issues. Post-construction monitoring of BSAs project will help refine the process, potentially offering a model for new, cost-effective approaches to some of the major issues troubling our older cities.

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