Urban retrofits: Stormwater retrofit plan for Minneapolis and what our first project did to incorporate paid learning lab jobs training into infrastructure projects.

One of the new requirements of the MS4 permits consists of a stormwater retrofit plan. This presentation will summarize the plan developed for the City of Minneapolis. We will also showcase one of the retrofit projects that was constructed, explaining how we took a different approach to incorporate environmental equity into the project through a jobs training learning lab without increasing the budget. The city has four flood surge ponds that are being evaluated for retrofit to provide water quality treatment. These ponds activate only when extreme weather events cause conveyance pipes to back up. This type of existing pond retrofit can be very cost effective and in some cases, may be one of the few options available in an already developed urban area. The first pond to undergo retrofit for water quality treatment was the Holland Basin, an existing flood surge pond that covers an entire city block. The basin is adjacent to a public high school and the neighborhood used the pond as a park space, adding to the complexity and outreach needs. The adjacency to a public high school in an over-burdened community presented an opportunity to use the project as a learning lab by employing youth to help with outreach, training material development, and restoration of the disturbed area using native plants. The project was successfully completed in the summer of 2021, and the learning lab contract continues for the warranty period to provide establishment maintenance. The learning lab paid 92 youth and installed more than 4,000 native plants for a project that provides water quality treatment for 20 acres. This presentation will explain the retrofit project and the approach to incorporate racial equity into an infrastructure project.