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Though it’s not yet typical for architects or even landscape architects to concern themselves with stormwater management, the atmosphere is slowly shifting. “It’s a big conceptual and financial leap for clients to understand that the establishment of the landscape can actually be part of the infrastructure—not just a treatment that’s applied to the land after the building is complete,” says Urbanski. “It changes the way building programs are planned.” The confluence and increasing interdependence of built and natural environments is a trend or, more correctly, a resurgence that is still in the making (see “Landscape Urbanism,” page 66).

Architects may be the catalysts for making natural treatment systems more popular, because using them requires action early in a project, when the architect’s involvement is highest. The project budget might need reshuffling, for instance, to allocate adequate funds for wetland design. “People tend to view and fund the building program, the supporting infrastructure, and the landscape as separate elements,” says Urbanski. “But managing runoff innovatively means you have to treat them as what they really are—interrelated systems.”

It’s not unlikely that today’s innovations will become tomorrow’s status quo. Constructed wetlands aren’t just a feel-good solution or a way to assuage environmentalists—they’re a way for architects to showcase their inventiveness and increase their credibility and value to clients and the public. Cutting-edge practitioners who have walked the talk know that this is one key to remaining relevant in a society that increasingly questions their role. “If architects and landscape designers can make the landscape into something beautiful, something people can appreciate, and something that’s also ecologically beneficial,” says Urbanski, “then we’ve succeeded.”

Regulations for Runoff and Wetlands Stormwater discharges are regulated by the EPA under the Clean Water Act (CWA) through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). Under NPDES, the EPA or an authorized state agency issues a permit to a municipality or private industry limiting the type and amount of pollution entering natural bodies of water. The NPDES program first focused on controlling point sources of pollution, such as discharge from a manufacturing facility. But unlike most industrial activities, urban runoff is a nonpoint source—one that has no single point of origin, or doesn’t enter a waterway through a single outlet. Regulators are now focusing increasingly on controlling these nonpoint sources. The Phase I and Phase II NPDES rules require regulated entities to obtain permits and use Best Management Practices (BMPs), such as constructed wetlands, to keep pollutants out of runoff. Alteration of natural wetlands is regulated under Section 404 of the CWA and administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Owners or developers must apply for a special permit when construction will disturb natural wetlands. Surviving the complex application process has no doubt taxed the sanity of many an architect overseeing construction. Often, developers must build new or enhance existing wetlands to restore functions lost during construction—a concept known as mitigation. In a controversial practice called wetland banking, developers can even build new wetlands to use as “credits” against future projects that may destroy natural ones. DS