Lawrence Tech Wins Grant To Promote Water Quality

The Alliance of Downriver Watersheds has awarded a $30,000 grant to Lawrence Technological University to provide technical support for efforts to improve water quality in the region.

The grant is a component of a $600,000 grant from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment to the ADW to implement water quality projects in Wayne County.

The Lawrence Tech grant will be administered by Associate Professor Donald Carpenter of the Department of Civil Engineering, who is director of Lawrence Tech's Great Lakes Stormwater Management Institute and a leading advocate of low-impact development techniques.

Lawrence Tech's role includes developing an enhanced web-based inventory of LID techniques in southeast Michigan (see www.ltu.edu/lid/), establishing a monitoring and education program for a new vegetated roof in the Woodhaven-Brownstown School District, and assisting with planning a series of green infrastructure education conferences. The first ADW green infrastructure conference for stormwater professionals and municipal planners will be hosted by Lawrence Tech on Sept. 24.

The vegetated roof monitoring program will begin this summer and continue through 2011 to determine the effectiveness of vegetated roofs as a stormwater management practice. Lawrence Tech will help the Woodhaven-Brownstown school district integrate the roof data into the middle school science curriculum.

In addition to promoting LID, Carpenter is also a member of a statewide planning committee for an international event to promote water technologies and economic development in Michigan.

"Michigan is blessed with tremendous water resources and Lawrence Tech will continue to be a regional resource for its citizens," Carpenter said.

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