In natural landscapes, rain that falls on the ground mostly soaks, or infiltrates, into the soil. However, in urban areas, impervious surfaces such as roofs, pavement, and streets, prevent infiltration. This results in an increase in stormwater runoff and pollutants flowing into storm drains, local creeks, and the Bay.

Cities and towns in Santa Clara Valley are working together to create sustainable or green streets, buildings, and parking lots that mimic natural landscapes, by incorporating green stormwater features. These features allow rainwater flowing over buildings, streets, and parking lots to soak into the ground and be filtered by soil. This reduces the quantity of water and pollutants flowing into storm drains and local creeks.

Green stormwater features include the following:

• Dispersion of Stormwater Runoff into Landscaping
• Bioretention Areas or Rain Gardens
• Rainwater Harvesting and Use
• Green Roofs
• Pervious Concrete, Porous Asphalt, and Pervious Pavers

Click here for a map of local Green Street projects that have integrated Green Stormwater Features.

Click here for informational fact sheets on local and regional Green Street projects.

• Martha Gardens Alley, San Jose
• Hacienda Avenue, Campbell
• Southgate Green Streets Project, Palo Alto

Backups of the database are made daily.

No, all changes to the database are final and only program staff have the ability to any of the backups and restore data. It is likely best for data management and change tracking that all Permittees maintain all their Project and DMA data in a “Master” version of the spreadsheet template. Please contact us if you would like any data restored.

The website currently does not have the ability for Permittees to draw project boundaries. Program staff will occasionally update project boundaries, or do so on request. When a project is first created, it will create a small square if coordinates or an address were provided. Additional editing abilities may exist in future versions of the website.

At a minimum, enter all projects within your jurisdiction that have stormwater treatment that have finished construction in FY17-18 and later.

It is not required, but can be entered if you know of the project.

It is up to Permittee discretion, but is probably best if each phase is entered as a separate project with the phase as part of the name (e.g., City Place (Phase 1)).

This is likely an older project that has not yet been verified to have or not have stormwater treatment. All of these projects should be checked and then changed to one of the other stormwater treatment categories.

Currently, no. Program Staff have heard great interest in this, and so it is likely that it can be implemented in a future version if there is the demand and resources to add this functionality.