Storm water runoff

===Milwaukee Encourages Green Roofs for Stormwater Management as Part of Sustainable Development Initiative===
Their Initiative for Sustainable Development encourages builders to contain storm water runoff through green roofing techniques, which is obligatory to those seeking tax increment financing and other subsidies. If you get public money, you should be doing things for the public good.
Milwaukee's Housing Authority's $12 million Highland Gardens public housing mid-rise has 114 affordable apartments for the elderly and the disabled, and with a 20,000-square-foot vegetational roof. That runoff containment model are planted in four-to-eight-square-foot plastic modules and absorb 85 percent of a 2-inch rain. Otherwise, the water would have gone into the city's over-strained sewer system.
The green modules will also protect the roof from ultraviolet sun rays, increasing its longevity by 50 percent and reducing the building's cooling and heating costs by 20 percent.
It's the ultimate low-tech solution, points out Mayor Barrett. And if we're going to sell the idea to others, we believe the city has to walk the walk.
====Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/28/2004====
The mayor and the development commissioner envision another 3,000 green roof public housing units throughout the city, while the Common Council wants other users to benefit, too. Under its recently approved budget amendment, sponsored by Democratic Alderman Michael McGee, experts will look at 125 city-owned buildings with flat roofs, including schools and libraries, to determine whether they can be retrofitted to cut operational costs and control runoff.