What is Stormwater Management?
Climate change is bringing increasingly unpredictable weather. Dry spells can end in torrential downpours, taking valuable top soil and contaminants into local streams and rivers. Careful management of the rain water that hits the site of a building is necessary to minimize the effect of a building on its surroundings.
How do we use it?
Several Stormwater strategies have been implemented at the ERC. Our entrance way features pervious pavers that encourage rain water to infiltrate back into the water table. Our parking lot is graded to drain storm water into a vegetated filter strip called a bioswale which captures salt, sand, oil and other contaminants brought into the parking lot by cars. Rainwater is captured from our roof surfaces as well and reused in toilets and urinals, as well as stored for fire suppression systems.
How does it make us more sustainable?
The East Humber River is situated a couple hundred meters to the west of the ERC. Carefully capturing and treating our site’s stormwater helps keep the river clean and suitable for fish and other animals. The implemented Stormwater Management strategies help to recharge the local aquifer, offsetting the water that we withdraw for drinking. Salt and other debris from roads and parking lots are increasingly damaging our waterways. Systems such as ours can reduce the impact our structures have on these sensitive habitats.
