Stormwater Management at the EPA Headquarters Office Complex

The Ariel Rios Building South Courtyard is being landscaped as part of the Federal Triangle Complex's renovation project. Red and white clover (a nitrogen-fixing groundcover) and wildflowers will be planted in the courtyard. This is a temporary aesthetic and soil building measure while the permanent site design is being reviewed and finalized. The plants will be reused in the final site design and installation for the courtyard within the next year.

Federal Triangle Site Map	Landscaping Illustration
Click Image to Enlarge	Click Image to Enlarge

The Ariel Rios South Courtyard project is part of a larger effort to beautify the EPA Headquarters complex and also demonstrate more environmentally sound building and landscaping techniques. The Facilities Management Division, the Office of Water and the General Services Administration have been working on a plan to exhibit stormwater management techniques, sustainable design and low impact development (LID) at the Federal Triangle complex. We hope that this plan will serve as a model for the federal community and will demonstrate many of the practices that can be employed to mitigate the effects of stormwater runoff and reduce combined sewage overflows into our rivers, streams and coastal waters. It will also demonstrate that sustainable design and LID can be utilized in high profile, urban sites that must pass through rigorous aesthetic design reviews. Some of the techniques we plan to incorporate include:

• low maintenance/native plants
• cisterns to collect and reuse runoff
• bioretention cells (PDF, 135K file)
• "green" roofs to detain and treat runoff (PDF, 153K file)
• permeable pavers (PDF 66K file)

We will also be using recycled and locally produced materials as much as possible in the project.

EPA and GSA are also working on a design to collect rainwater for landscape irrigation and to add rain gardens to the current planting beds along Constitution Avenue. Both the rainwater collection system and rain garden plantings are intended to serve as educational models. As funding permits, GSA and EPA plan on renovating the EPA West Building Courtyard and other sites within the Federal Triangle complex.

For more information:
Office of Water - Low Impact Development

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