City creates new Grey to Green Web site

A new interactive landing site for the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) informs residents of runoff management options and monitors results for any specific property in the city.

A Portland home owner can type in their address and find out how much their average monthly stormwater bill is and how many thousands of gallons a year flow from their property into the  sewer and river system.

For example, one of Mayor Sam Adams’ properties on N. McClellan St. has a monthly stormwater bill of $19, with over 95,000 gallons a year left unabsorbed.

From there, users are allowed to consider projects that will increase stormwater absorption and lower their monthly bill.

A list of local vendors is even provided for each particular project type, which include downspout disconnects, rain gardens, tree plantings and ecoroofs, among others.

This new landing site, created by ProjectDX, is an online homeroom for all of the city’s efforts via the five-year, $50 million Grey to Green (G2G) Initiative.

Included in this effort is a partnership between BES and Friends of Trees that has the goal of planting 83,000 street and yard trees over the course of G2G.

New culverts, ecoroofs and green streets around town are all a part of the same G2G effort to absorb our runoff and minimize the overflow damage to the local river system.

–Toshio Suzuki