City of Aventura Preventing Nutrient and Stormwater Pollution of Biscayne Bay
Emilio Lopez
Three years ago, the inaugural Biscayne Bay Marine Health Summit took place at Florida International University’s Biscayne Bay Campus. The event included presentations and discussion groups comprised of state and local government agencies, environmental nonprofits, and solution providers all with the same mission in mind: to establish collaboration among diverse stakeholders, in order to create an effective Action Plan for reducing pollutants in Biscayne Bay as well as in Miami-Dade County’s canals and rivers.
At the Summit, the City of Aventura Public Works Stormwater Manager learned about ways to prevent stormwater pollution with the use of stormwater inlet filters provided by SOP Technologies. Similar to cities around the world, Aventura was looking for ways to address the massive volumes of leaves and litter that enter stormwater systems.
The first video below shows trash in a stormwater catch basin, and the second video demonstrates how stormwater filters keep trash out of the basin.
Inlet withOUT a stormwater filter
Inlet with a stormwater filter
A few months after the Summit, Aventura began a pilot project with several stormwater filters along 188th street and 213th street. The pilot project demonstrated three things:
Filters prevent pollution by blocking leaves (nutrients) and street litter from traveling into the stormwater system/pipes and flowing into the Bay.
Filters reduce the city’s maintenance costs by keeping leaves and litter on the road for low-cost cleanup using street sweepers (as opposed to vacuum truck cleaning of catch basins).
Filters prevent floods that are caused by clogged stormwater pipes.
After several months with the pilot project, the city decided to expand the filter implementation to all curb inlets throughout the city. Due to the city-wide implementation, the Public Works Department earned the 2019 “Branch Stormwater Project of the Year” from the South Florida branch of the American Public Works Association (APWA).
In September 2019, before the second Biscayne Bay Marine Health Summit: The Action Summit, additional data were collected and quantified for several of the stormwater filters in Aventura. The data as captured according to recommendations from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). The analysis estimates that, every year, the stormwater filters prevent over 10,000 pounds of leaves and street litter from reaching stormwater catch basins and the Biscayne Bay.
Within the next few years, Aventura is expected to recuperate its initial investment in the filters and have a net cost savings of tens of thousands of dollars within 10 years. All of this is happening while the city prevents its stormwater pipes from clogging and causing street flooding during rain events. The full analysis report can be downloaded below.
