{"id":2389,"date":"2026-07-27T13:15:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T13:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/?p=2389"},"modified":"2026-07-27T13:15:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T13:15:05","slug":"stormwater-management-can-you-spot-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/stormwater-management-can-you-spot-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Stormwater Management: Can you spot it?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Can you spot Michael in this photo?<\/p><\/div>\n

Here, you can (if you squint) see me waist-deep in one of the most interesting parts of my fellowship\u00a0with the City of Greenville\u2019s Environmental Engineering department: stream walks. While this sounds like a leisurely way to spend one\u2019s day,\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0be fooled. Even a guy like me that loves rivers, streams, and all things in between gets as tired as anybody else would\u00a0walking\u00a0in hot, heavy waders in the constant sun during the great heatwave of Summer 2026.\u00a0And this is not to mention that not all streams are exactly made to be walked through \u2013 we\u00a0have to\u00a0follow the streams even if they\u2019re covered in thick brush or layered with spiderwebs, barely a trickle of water or as deep as I am tall.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite all this, I\u00a0quite\u00a0enjoy stream walks. Being outside and in water is a treat, and\u00a0every once in a while,\u00a0I find myself in a location that feels more out of a Lord of the Rings movie than\u00a0the brush beneath the power\u00a0lines\u00a0Greenville, South Carolina. But we\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0walk streams because I enjoy them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We do stream walks to check these often-overlooked\u00a0patches\u00a0of the city for signs of erosion or potential erosion. While spotting erosion is\u00a0fairly straightforward, being able to tell if a stream is likely to erode is less so. Typically, a stream with high bank angles, low root density, and a large difference between the\u00a0bankfull\u00a0height (the height of the water when the flow of the river or stream is at the level where channel maintenance is most effective) and the bank height is prone to erosion. Too much erosion in streams can\u00a0affect\u00a0both the natural environment by disrupting\u00a0habitats and city infrastructure by redirecting the flow of water in a way that our built infrastructure\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0prepared to handle. For this reason,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0critical that the environmental engineering department\u00a0keeps tabs on\u00a0streams in the city limits.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the streams that we\u00a0have to\u00a0look at aren\u2019t flashy or big like the Reedy River.\u00a0The first stream I walked, for example, was tucked between an auto shop and an empty parking lot on Woodruff Road. On any other day, I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0even think I would have registered that this\u00a0relatively small\u00a0plot of land covered in thick trees and greenery existed, much less that it was home to a stream.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This experience reflected a common\u00a0theme in my time with the Environmental Engineering Department. Most of our work is with water. This might seem like a\"\" simple\u00a0focus, but water\u00a0is\u00a0actually\u00a0the\u00a0root of so many problems ranging from the strictly practical to the deeply philosophical, since water and its movement is like a trickster that always finds a way to circumvent our basic desire to\u00a0build something constant. We want roads and houses to stay as they are, but water constantly changes its behavior regardless of where our houses and roads are.\u00a0\u00a0If water moves in ways we\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0expect,\u00a0things we build are subject to erosion. Because of this, we need to build ways to manage water into our infrastructure\u00a0in order to\u00a0minimize erosion and the damage it can do to our built infrastructure. But as big and dramatic as this war against erosion is, the battles\u00a0can\u00a0be\u00a0hard\u00a0to spot.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember the first Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) inspection that I did with another intern working for the city\u2019s environmental engineering department. These inspections ensure that the facility\u2019s stormwater management is up to code. When walking through the facility, I observed the other intern so that I could learn myself how to do these inspections. And I proceeded to see the other intern stop and note down things that I initially thought were completely unremarkable. A mark of dirt on the pavement? Vehicle storage? An actual pile of dirt? Fuel containers? Lots of storm drains, which made sense, but I have never had any reason to pay much attention to them. Having to inspect them made me realize how many there are and how intentional their placement is. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Like a good murder mystery, all the scattered clues quickly came together, creating\u00a0coherent\u00a0narrative about the facility\u2019s stormwater management practices. The mark of dirt on the pavement showed that erosion was happening — water was carrying dirt down the slope of the pavement, and this water inevitably ended up in the storm drains placed intentionally at the bottom of the slope where stormwater would accumulate. These storm drains would carry the eroded sediments to the river, creating problems both for the river and the drain. The culprit, in this case, really had no chance of getting away with the crime \u2013 it was the huge pile of dirt further up the hill.\u00a0The fuel containers and\u00a0vehicle\u00a0were exonerated, since they both had dedicated storage areas that were protected from stormwater with a roof, preventing the runoff of dangerous chemicals into the water.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a smaller example, but it reveals that stormwater management and environmental engineering as a whole is happening everywhere. Every small thing on or by the road, whether it\u2019s a sewer manhole, sewer cleanout, stormwater drain, or a curb cut, is there intentionally, and each one has to be working well for the city to function properly. I would say blink and you\u2019ll miss it, but I feel like a lot of us miss them even when they\u2019re right in front of us. Next time you\u2019re driving down the road, try to find some of these examples storm and wastewater infrastructure. Can you spot them?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the author:<\/strong> Michael Ross, \u201926, from Memphis Tennessee, graduated from Furman in May with a Bachelors of Science in Sustainability Sciences and a minor in Data Analytics. He took the City of Greenville Environmental Fellowship with the Shi Institute<\/a> because he wanted to have experience in public sector work that combines sustainability with data analytics. In addition to working his fellowship, this summer Michael will be recording his second album with his band \u201cNormal People.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here, you can (if you squint) see me waist-deep in one of the most interesting parts of my fellowship\u00a0with the City of Greenville\u2019s Environmental Engineering department: stream walks. While this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":2401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16,13],"tags":[15,14],"class_list":["post-2389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-student-blog","category-student-news","tag-furman-innovation-lab","tag-sustainability"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2389"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2404,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions\/2404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}