Cincinnati State to offer new major in stormwater management

June 15, 2010

Cincinnati State Technical and Community College has won approval from the Ohio Board of Regents to launch a new major in stormwater management.

This initiative is largely a response to the growing effort to meet federal water quality standards by minimizing the interaction between stormwater and sanitary sewer systems. Increasingly, governmental officials and property owners are also trying to reduce erosion and the contamination of waterways from runoff during heavy rainfall events.

“In Greater Cincinnati, and really throughout much of the nation, the Clean Water Act is making stormwater management a genuine priority,’’ said Dr. Ann Gunkel, chair of Cincinnati State’s Environmental Engineering Technology program.

The federal government, for example, requires the development of formal plans in most jurisdictions to manage stormwater, she noted.

Greater Cincinnati is under a federal mandate to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows and reduce discharges from combined sewers. Stormwater is a chief culprit in both types of pollution, causing sanitary sewer lines to fill up during storms and in some cases causing untreated wastes to flow through relief valves directly into waterways. Capturing and retaining stormwater prior to its entry into the sewer systems is one means of reducing these overflows.

In Cincinnati and elsewhere, large-scale initiatives are underway to reduce or prevent the discharge of untreated wastes from combined and sanitary sewers. In some instances, Gunkel noted, engineers are concluding that it might be more cost effective to keep stormwater out of a sewer system through “green’’ methods than to channel it through large networks of pipes.

Regardless of what types of controls are used, she said, employment prospects appear strong for those with practical training in the field. For example, Gunkel said, there will likely be a steady demand for environmental engineering technicians, field sampling technicians, water/wastewater laboratory analysts, restoration ecologists, storm water design and installation specialists, and persons with mapping and surveillance skills to work on teams assigned to detect and document illegal discharges.

Students in the stormwater management major (an associate degree program) will take core courses within the environmental engineering technologies curriculum, but will also focus on such areas as:

• Environmental mapping (GPS, Geographic Information System, and remote sensing systems)
• Watershed management (including flood management strategies, habitat restoration, water quality monitoring and control of combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows)
• Stormwater management (including the hydrologic cycle, the history of drainage control efforts, and FEMA and local flood design criteria and control methods)
• Stormwater management technologies (including bioretention swales and basins, vegetative roofs, porous and pervious paving, rain water harvesting and reuse, stormwater wetlands, soil bioengineering systems and subsurface infiltration)

“Cincinnati State has worked closely with our partners in industry and local government to design a major that will serve an emerging need in the workplace,’’ said Dr. Monica Posey, academic vice president at the college. “We’re pleased the Board of Regents has given approval for this program.’’

Enrollment in the stormwater management major will open for the Early Fall Term, 2010.