About the Stormwater Corps
Stormwater runoff is a growing problem for Connecticut communities. Whether it’s in response to repeated flooding, water pollution, the “MS4” stormwater permit or all of the above, town officials are looking for ways to start “disconnecting” impervious cover using low impact development (LID) practices, also known as green stormwater infrastructure (GSI).
But where to start? In an effort to help towns get a handle on these issues, CLEAR faculty from the award-winning NEMO Program have created the Stormwater Corps, a program that combines classroom instruction on stormwater management with projects in the community that develop Runoff Reduction Action Plans for town officials.
Stormwater Corps is part of the UConn Environment Corps, a program to assist Connecticut communities address environmental issues while giving students real world experience. (See below for more information on "E-Corps".) There are actually two versions of Stormwater Corps: the Academic Year program where students perform green stormwater retrofit analyses for credit as part of their academic program, and (as grant funding allows), a Summer Corps program where the same analyses are performed by paid UConn undergraduates as a summer job.
About the UConn Environment Corps
The UConn Environment Corps, or E-Corps, was created to provide assistance to the communities of Connecticut by harnessing the power of trained undergraduate students. In addition to Stormwater Corps, there are the Climate Corps and Brownfields Corps. Each E-Corps course is a two-semester experience: a hands-on, interactive classroom semester with a focus on the local (municipal) perspective, followed by a “practicum” semester where student teams undertake environmental projects in the community.
Check out the E-Corps introductory video and be sure visit the website for more information on the courses and projects.
Watch the E-Corps Intro Video
Partners and Funders
The Stormwater Corps Academic Year program is part of the Environment Corps, a multidisciplinary collaboration at UConn that is funded by the University and a grant from the National Science Foundation. The “Summer Corps” Stormwater Corps program is founded on a partnership between CLEAR’s NEMO Program and the Water Resources Program of Rutgers University, and has been funded by grants from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
