Ramsey Washington watershed and Maplewood outline stormwater, retrofit and chloride-reduction work

At a meeting of the Maplewood Environmental and Natural Resources Commission, Ramsey Washington Metro Watershed District regulatory program manager Nicole Morris and Maplewood assistant city engineer John Josh described how the watershed and city coordinate on stormwater permits, retrofits, and emerging chloride-reduction efforts.

Nicole Morris said the watershed district manages drainage by watershed, enforces rules for water quantity and quality, and carries out restoration and monitoring. "Wakefield Lake is currently impaired in Maplewood right now for excess nutrients, particularly phosphorus," she said, noting that the district supports TMDL work and watershed-scale BMPs to delist impaired waters. She explained TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Loads) as state-developed pollutant allocations assigned to responsible parties and said the district provides projects and reporting to meet those allocations.

Morris outlined grant programs the district runs: a roughly 20-year stewardship program (about 600 grants awarded, roughly $8,000,000 spent and an average award of about $12,000) and a targeted retrofit program that has retrofitted more than 40 large sites. "From these projects we are annually removing over 300 pounds of phosphorus from our drainage ways and 90,000 pounds of sediment," she said. The district also runs a pond cleanup program that bundles dredging contracts for cost efficiency and provides maintenance support, permitting and restoration seedings.

On chloride, Morris said the district has begun limited chloride-reduction grants (examples cited: a project in Oakdale and a heated sidewalk/pavement project in Woodbury) and is developing a chloride-reduction plan. "Smart salting, essentially, source reduction, is our best in education and outreach right now," she said, while acknowledging the regulatory and liability challenges for public safety that complicate stricter requirements on deicing.

John Josh described the city's role and said Maplewood's standards are often more stringent than watershed or state thresholds: the city's stormwater triggers often kick in at 0.5 acre of disturbance or 5,000 square feet of new hard surface. He summarized Maplewood's two primary local requirements: runoff-volume reduction (a city guideline of infiltrating approximately 1.1 inches of runoff across project hard surfaces when soils allow) and runoff-rate control to avoid increasing post-development runoff.

On the 2026 Maplewood Street Improvements, Josh said the program includes two project types: pavement rehabilitation in the Walter Beam area (recycling in place) and full reconstruction on other streets that will add curb and gutter, new storm systems and water-quality BMPs where space permits. "If we don't have space for infiltration basins, we're looking at underground infiltration systems," he said, and noted the city designs many systems for in-house maintenance access.

Both presenters emphasized joint permitting and maintenance agreements: larger projects typically require watershed permits, city reviews and recorded maintenance agreements that allow the watershed and city to inspect and enforce long-term upkeep. Commissioners asked about incentives for developers to adopt chloride-reduction measures; Morris said the board is exploring ways to make grants and programs more visible to homebuyers and developers and to consider draft rule language this year for low-salt design or chloride management plans.

The presentation closed with an offer for the commission to partner on outreach (the watershed's "Get Gritty" campaign, street-sweeping grants and pet-waste education) and a suggestion of touring Wakefield-area BMPs in summer. The commission moved on to its work plan but flagged the stormwater topics for future review and outreach.

The commission did not take formal regulatory action at the meeting; the discussion focused on coordination, education and planned projects and grants.