Engineering: Stormwater: Water Star

What is the Water Star program?

Water Star WI was launched on Earth Day and honors cities, villages, towns and counties that have taken important steps to protect surface water and groundwater, such as strengthening stormwater controls, ensuring water quality, protecting habitats and encouraging residents to conserve water.

Why is Water Star important?

Many facets add up to make a community a Water Star. The three basic components of the Water Star Program and why they’re important to Wisconsin are:

Surface Water

Quality: Many Wisconsin lakes, rivers and streams suffer from degraded water quality. Reducing polluted runoff is critical to halting the decline of water quality and in protecting high quality waters. Additionally, keeping pollutants out of water is cheaper and better than trying to remove it later.  Clean surface waters play a key role in human health, recreation and local economies; making municipalities better places for people to live and businesses to succeed.

Quantity: Historically, only 4% of rain water ran off into lakes, streams and rivers. Now, in urban areas, more than 35-80% runs off with great speed and force greatly impacting our aquatic environments. Even in rural areas water runs off much quicker than it did in the past due to ditching and tiling. Habitat: Drained wetlands, straightened streams, concrete drainage ways, sedimentation, dredging and the removal of shoreline vegetation and in-water woody debris have severely degraded fish and wildlife habitat throughout Wisconsin.

Groundwater

Quality: Human-generated and natural contaminates impact drinking water in many areas of Wisconsin. Actions can be taken to protect drinking water quality, and where the contamination is naturally occurring, to protect the consumers of that water.

Quantity: Wisconsin is a water-rich state, but in some areas there is a shortage of groundwater either due to excess pumping or due to naturally low water bearing rock. When shortages occurs, human use must be adjusted to safeguard streams, wetlands or springs.

Recreation

A healthy community provides recreational opportunities for its citizenry while protecting the natural resources that people enjoy and desire.

What has River Falls done to make it a Gold Water Star Community?

  • Proactive in storm water management measures, requirements exceed state requirements
  • Water Resources Engineer on staff; also the equivalent time of one full time street department worker is dedicated to storm water tasks
  • Extensive public education including tours, brochures, demonstration sites, and various presentations
  • Have an illicit discharge response and clean up program
  • Limit the use of fertilizer and herbicide on City properties and perform soil tests to determine amount of fertilizer needed 
  • Promote recreational use of the river with festivals, providing public access areas as well as walking trails along river
  • Encourage, promote and demonstrate green infrastructure improvements
  • Comprehensive street sweeping program
  • Work with dentists and other businesses to reduce heavy metals such as waste mercury
  • Lawn watering ordinance and other water conservation efforts


This program was also highlighted in a River Falls IN Focus Program, which can be viewed here.

If you have any questions regarding this program please contact Kristy Treichel, ktreichel@rfcity.org, (715) 426-3412 or check out the Water Star WI website.