Stormwater Expert Panel: There's often a tension between growth and development and protecting our waterways. What do you think communities should be thinking about as they try to balance the two?

The City of Madison Engineering Division is proud to take part in the statewide Wisconsin Stormwater Awareness Week 2026! Wisconsin Stormwater Week is a collaborative effort of organizations throughout the state that work to raise awareness about the sources of stormwater pollution. WI Governor Tony Evers signed a proclamation establishing September 19 – 27, as the 2026 WI Stormwater Week.  Each day this week, we're hosting a blog panel: focusing on one question, and answers from staff experts in stormwater in our agency. We asked our staff, and here's what they said: 

QUESTION: There's often a tension between growth and development and protecting our waterways. What do you think communities should be thinking about as they try to balance the two? 

Jim Wolfe, City of Madison Engineering Division City Engineer 

“Over time, stormwater regulations at the state and local levels, in particular in Madison, have significantly improved, so stormwater management, both for flood control and treatment, is no longer an afterthought with new development and redevelopment.  With improved designs that include more native vegetation, stormwater management areas can be great duel-purpose areas that not only responsibly manage stormwater from the development, but also provide broader ecosystem benefits." 

Greg Fries, City of Madison Engineering Division, Deputy City Engineer – Stormwater and Sanitary Sewer Design   

“This is a very complicated topic and is often the case there is no “right" answer (at least from a stormwater perspective).  An easy example of this is:  larger developments, often called rural subdivisions, use up much more agricultural land per person than higher density development in the cities, and high quality farmland is a finite resource. Rural developments also force the use of cars for almost all transportation options.   Dense urban development on the other hand creates more runoff and other stormwater impacts than rural development, and force full regrading of the landscape due to the density of the development impacting the soil structure for decades to come.    The short answer is there is no free lunch here, just tradeoffs on what resources you will impact, and those impacts you choose to minimize which is a personal values decision." 

Janet Schmidt, City of Madison Engineering Division, Principal Engineer and Section Manager for Stormwater Design Section 

“More incentives for incorporating green infrastructure as an amenity in addition to using it for stormwater management.  It's been shown time and time again the benefits of green infrastructure on health and wellbeing in addition to helping protect our waterways. Trying to make it more integrated with the community and making it more asset focused will provide not only stormwater and environmental benefits but also provide more benefits for our community and our urban wildlife." 

Phil Gaebler, City of Madison Engineering Division, Stormwater Resource Engineer  

“When done correctly development with well thought out stormwater management can add habitat when compared to an agricultural field and reduce most of the pollutants that leave the developing area. Chloride is the one exception to this rule." 

Check back tomorrow for a new question, and new answers from our stormwater expert panel. To learn more about what we're up to this week, learn more in our Engineering blog.