Daniel Line

The NC Division of Mitigation Services requests the services of NC State University (NCSU) for production of stream restoration mitigation planning, design, construction oversight and monitoring on sites identified and managed under DMS. DMS and NCSU wish to establish a working relationship for production of stream and wetland restoration related work for the Millstone Creek Mitigation Project. This project includes approximately 2100 lf of Millstone Creek (main stem), two low-order highly incised tributaries (400 lf and 600 lf), and existing wetland areas. Millstone Creek and the tributaries will be restored using innovative practices designed to maximize mitigation credit, functional uplift, habitat availability and pollutant removal. NC Sea Grant and the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering will work with the DMS to prepare restoration design(s) and a mitigation plan. In addition, NCSU will conduct construction oversight and monitoring as necessary to ensure proper installation and long-term efficacy of the restoration projects. The services associated with this work may include monitoring and assessment of water quality, biotic community, stream morphology, hydrology, habitat, structure, and bank condition and other technical services/support. Services provided will be undertaken to support mitigation project implementation and required regulatory monitoring. In addition, monitoring activities will be conducted in a manner to gauge the effectiveness of the restoration approach with a purpose of enhancing future mitigation design and construction.

NC State University will conduct water quality monitoring to support a paired watershed study of two ponds located at Riverside High School in Durham, N.C. The two existing stormwater ponds were constructed in approximately 1990 and drain watersheds nearly equal in size (approximately 52 acres) and development characteristics. One pond is completely breached and the other is currently at a high risk of failure due to outlet clogging combined with an overgrowth of trees on the earthen embankment. The Durham Soil & Water Conservation District will restore one pond to its original condition while the second pond will be retrofitted with several modern stormwater enhancements (e.g. littoral shelf with wetland plants, forebay, deep and shallow water zones, secondary spillways, and reuse of water). Prior to the retrofit and repair work, NCSU will install automated samplers to monitor water quality during both base flow and storm flow for a one-year calibration period. Following the repair and retrofit work, sampling will be restarted and continue for 12-18 months to assess the effectiveness of the pond enhancements.

Recent extreme rainfall events have revealed the transportation network������������������s vulnerabilities to road washouts. Currently, NC DOT reacts to these problems as are reported from the field. This inability to predict where washouts are likely to occur leads to long response times and inefficient positioning of resources. The availability of high quality statewide elevation data, historical rainfall records and advances in computer processing presents the opportunity to modify and develop programs to predict where washouts are likely to occur during extreme rainfall events. The purpose of this project is to develop models and test several approaches for predicting crossing washouts based on forecasted rainfall. A team of NCSU BAE engineers will first characterize and analyze historical washouts during extreme events. Then, detailed HEC-HMS models will be developed and calibrated and validated for one watershed in each physiographic region. A user interface will be created to run the models using forecasted rainfall, relate the predicted discharge to potential washouts using water surface elevation-discharge relationships, and then output the results for display in a GIS map. The model output for a large number of historical events will then be used to test different machine learning algorithms for their ability to predict discharge and potential washout locations. The information on historical washouts and the model predictions will be used to develop a network of ����������������safe��������������� routes for each watershed. The results will help determine if existing hydrologic models can be leveraged to accurately predict potential washout locations and to evaluate if machine learning technology can be employed for accurate flood prediction. This project has the potential to substantially enhance NC DOT������������������s ability to respond to storm events and position resources appropriately. Results will be disseminated in NC DOT meetings, a training workshop for NC DOT personnel, and through extension factsheets and academic publications.

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate and evaluate a regenerative stormwater conveyance (RSC) practice on a swine and beef farm in Randolph county. Discharge from two similar streams will be monitored prior to and following the installation of an RSC on one of the streams. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loading in each stream will be statistically compared to determine the effectiveness of the RSC. Results will be presented in research articles and fact sheets.

The proposed research will utilize geospatial and statistical analyses combined with water quality modeling to evaluate a large water quality database for streams located within the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The data will be provided by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Stormwater Services (CMSWS) including 15 years of monthly grab samples, data from automated ISCO samplers, data collected at YSI monitoring stations and annual macroinvertebrate data. The overall goal of the proposed project is to identify future monitoring, management and planning decisions that North Carolina municipalities can employ to better protect and restore urban stream water quality. To achieve this goal, extensive statistical analyses and watershed modeling will be conducted. In addition, contemporary watershed models and watershed pollutant load estimation tools will be employed to individual sub-watersheds of specific stream sampling locations in order to identify which models and tools best predict water quality of Charlotte������������������s highly urbanized streams.

Airports in North Carolina are currently considered as industrial sites for stormwater permits by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ). This can lead to costly expenses incurred by airports to meet federally-mandated, state-administered stormwater requirements. Preliminary data collected at Wilmington International Airport (ILM) suggest that the air side of airports may, in fact, behave much more similarly to a residential Low Impact Development (LID) than an industrial facility. This is due to the disconnection of impervious surfaces (namely, the runway and taxiway), where runoff flows over large swaths of turf (or other) grass. This project proposes to examine a pair more airports located in a non-sandy part of the state (tentatively: BUY, Burlington, and INT, Smith-Reynolds in Winston-Salem), to determine if (at least a portion of) the air side of airports can be exempt from stormwater industrial permits. The assessment will be based upon hydrology (volume and peak rates) and water quality (pollutant concentrations and loads) leaving different air side landuses (ramp, taxi way, vegetated treatment areas, e.g.). The results collected herein would be compared to LID projects monitored in the Piedmont of NC and would provide NCDOT the necessary information and data to argue for a potential re-classification of airports from a stormwater permit perspective. This would, in the end, provide potentially substantial financial relief to many aviation facilities across North Carolina.

Recent major flooding events of the Neuse, Tar, and Lumber Rivers have highlighted the need to identify the causes of the flooding and to assess potential abatement and mitigation measures. The purpose of this project is to apply hydrologic, hydraulic and geospatial modeling and analyses to the Neuse, Tar, and Lumber River Basins to better understand the source(s) and nature of flooding in the Basins and assess potential abatement measures. The NC State University Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department (NCSU BAE) is currently conducting a flood assessment study for the Town of Windsor and the Cashie River in Bertie County. Processes, methods and lessons learned from the Cashie River study will be applied to the Neuse, Tar, and Lumber River Basins. NCSU BAE will use a team of engineers and an integrated approach to model and evaluate landuse changes, extreme flood events, structures and floodplain encroachments. Model results will be used to document the relative contributions of subwatersheds within the basin, landuse changes, precipitation patterns, structures and floodplain encroachments to downstream flooding and to assess the effectiveness of potential abatement measures. The study will include analysis of historical, current and future hydrologic, hydraulic and geospatial conditions within the three river Basins.

Upper Coastal Plain communities have been plagued by flooding. Flash flooding along tributaries of the major rivers is an issue along with riverine flooding. NC Sea Grant and the Biological & Agricultural Engineering Department will conduct a study to identify and evaluate potential mitigation measures that could be taken to lessen the impacts of flooding across a range of storm event return periods. The objective of the proposed work is to evaluate the capacity of the large-scale implementation of natural infrastructure projects to mitigate flooding. This will be completed by conducting modeling case studies in two small Coastal Plain watersheds in the City of Goldsboro to evaluate the potential to decrease peak flow and lower water surface elevation (WSE) by converting agricultural land to timberland and restoring floodplains. Specifically, this project will seek to identify how much land conversion and restoration is needed to have a significant reduction in tributary flow and associated flood stage, and to identify the largest storm event at which these efforts can be expected to have a significant impact.

NC Sea Grant and NC State University������������������s Biological & Agricultural Engineering Department (BAE) will evaluate alternatives for the best long-term management and use of Upper Durant Lake within the City of Raleigh's Durant Nature Preserve. Because of the significantly reduced capacity of the lake due to decades of sedimentation, a failing outlet structure, and the structurally compromised spillway and embankment, the City recognizes the need identify opportunities for repairing and modifying the existing lake to improve water quality protection, ecosystem services, flood control, recreational and educational opportunities. NCSU BAE will thereby conduct a watershed and site assessment and develop engineering alternatives for the Lake.

Project is to monitor discharge and sediment load in a stream and lake in Greensboro.