introduction of clean city green city
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A couple weeks ago I, along with several other freshwater warriors, attended a conference focused on discussing the topic of freshwater in urban areas. The speakers, all coming from a variety of backgrounds, addressed freshwater issues from their areas of expertise which ranged from economics, engineering, urban planning, political science and biology among many others. One topic that really captured my attention was that of stormwater runoff and their damaging effects to our streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands among other surface freshwater sources. Stormwater runoff are a major problem in urban areas near rivers such as NYC, London and Boston among others cities due to the abundance of impermeable (paved) surfaces such as roads and sidewalks. Rainwater, not being able to permeate through paved surfaces picks up many pollutants such as bacteria, nitrogen, phosphorus and oil on its way to larger bodies of surface water such as the Hudson River, Thames River and the Charles River just to mention a few (Center for Watershed Protection 2013).