*The Conference will end with a panel on the APWA adoption beginning at 3:15 p.m. in the Main Building (more info at the bottom).
WEDNESDAY 1:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Watershed Planning Room
Sungyop Kim
UMKC
Julia Crowley
UMKC
Floodplain development is a chronic issue in the era of increasing and intensifying flood events. However, the Kansas City metropolitan region has experienced continuing floodplain development. While various green, structural, and non-structural mitigation measures have been implemented to reduce the impacts of floodplain development, it is critical to understand the demographic and socioeconomic dimensions of floodplain development to address the impacts. Using floodplain property data within the special flood hazard areas in the Kansas City metro region and Cragg’s exponential hurdle model, this study analyzed the effects of various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of floodplain development by property type at the census block group level. The study found that the majority of the floodplain development is residential. However, more than a quarter of floodplain properties were commercial, industrial, and public. The model results reveal a broad floodplain development phenomenon in the metro region and the suburbanization of floodplain development but with limited variations in demographic and socioeconomic characteristics on various types of floodplain development.
Civil Works Room
Kaitlyn Loeffler
Black & Veatch
Kaitlyn Loeffler
This abstract presents a case study of a $90 million stormwater program funded partly by WIFIA in Memphis, Tennessee. This program exhibits the multifaceted approach that can used to develop a comprehensive urban stormwater program. The City of Memphis has long struggled with urban flooding challenges, stormwater project prioritization, asset management, and funding.
Some of the strategies implemented by the program that will be discussed include:
- High-level watershed modeling for more than 40 watersheds using PCSWMM
- Updating and standardizing the stormwater asset management program,
- How a stormwater asset management program can be utilized for an innovative project prioritization
- Utilizing alternative funding sources, such as the WIFIA Program to finance prioritized stormwater projects, and
- The importance of stakeholder engagement
This presentation will describe the benefits of Hydraulic & Hydrologic watershed modeling and how to use high level watershed models to determine priority areas within the City. The procedure and importance of having an up-to-date asset management program and how asset management can inform Hydraulic & Hydrologic watershed modeling and be used in the project prioritization process. How stakeholder engagement is necessary to promote and implement a stormwater and asset management program and finally how the WIFIA program has helped finance approximately 30 stormwater projects for the City of Memphis, Tennessee.
MS4/CSO Programs & Standards Room
Elijah Vandepol
Black & Veatch
Sarah Henke-Shafer
Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas
A challenging consent decree project in Kansas City, Kansas. CSO44 incorporates storm sewer separation and a green stormwater infrastructure facility to reduce combined sewer overflows and promote community park amenities in the upper Splitlog Creek Watershed. This project, in coordination with other watershed improvements, mitigates legacy flooding issues and increases stormwater level of service by strategically integrating green stormwater infrastructure throughout the watershed.
Upper Splitlog Creek is a watershed located in the northeast portion of Kansas City, Kansas, and includes some of the oldest urban development, with some plats dating back to the late 1800s. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County – Kansas City, Kansas (UG), faces multiple infrastructure challenges in this watershed.
WEDNESDAY 2:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Watershed Planning Room
Mike Brink
HDR
Joshua Martinez
City of Liberty
HDR partnered with the City of Liberty to develop a dynamic stormwater master plan tool as an innovative alternative to a traditional static PDF report. Hosted on ArcGIS Online as a Hub site, the tool integrates the City’s existing storm system asset data, condition assessments conducted during the planning process, and stream bank evaluations collected via Survey123. It also features an interactive Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) dashboard that enables users to prioritize and sort projects by cost and other criteria. This dynamic, digital-first approach enhances transparency, accessibility, and long-term utility for municipal staff and stakeholders.
Civil Works Room
Rian McCaslin
Contech Engineered Solutions
Rian McCaslin
Exceeding the pumping capacity at a lift station can be cause by either inflow & infiltration during wet weather, or by lack of power to the pumps. In either case, tanks are being used to extend wet well volumes instead of allowing for overflows. The review of a recent project in Springfield, MO will explain how a tank was used to contain these overflows.
MS4/CSO Programs & Standards Room
Jessica Stanton
CDM Smith
Jessica Stanton
The City of Kansas City, Missouri (the City) has engaged design professionals to aid in design of projects to reduce the volume and frequency of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) into waterways across the city in accordance with their Federal Consent Decree. In recent years, CDM Smith was retained by the City under two separate contracts to design sewer separation and green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) at Outfall 054 and Outfall 040, both located within residential communities in the Lower Blue River Basin. The Outfall 054 project has a drainage area of approximately 34 acres and is currently in construction with final completion anticipated in 2025. The Outfall 040 project encompasses a sewer separation basin drainage area of approximately 195 acres and is currently in design with construction to begin in 2026. This presentation will discuss the processes used to guide the design and focus on the challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned during design and implementation.
These projects are designed to reduce sewer overflows and provide rehabilitation of the combined sewers, where warranted, through a combination of green and gray infrastructure. GSI for each project was selected through an alternative evaluation process. Project-specific criteria considered in the evaluation include the ability to meet regulatory and non-regulatory criteria, anticipated operation and maintenance needs, water quality and environmental criteria, sanitary sewer rehabilitation needs, community benefits and impacts, cost, and Envision sustainability review.
The Outfall 054 evaluation resulted in approximately 3,100 linear feet (LF) of new storm sewer, 9,000 LF of new/rehabilitated sanitary sewer, and construction of three GSI areas including elements of permeable pavers in parking stalls, subsurface storage, and extended detention to capture the water quality volume. The Outfall 040 evaluation resulted in approximately 16,000 LF of new storm sewer, 3,300 LF of open channel, extended dry detention basins sized for water quality benefits, and protection or relocation of existing sanitary sewer in GSI areas.
Sewer separation projects in established residential environments present a variety of challenges ranging from coordination with existing utilities and other entities; limited open space; and differing stakeholder priorities and perception of the project. Conversely, these challenges present opportunities for improved collaboration and project outcomes. Early identification of potential utility conflicts helps reduce relocation delays during construction. Community engagement and strategic planning to reduce impacts to private property are essential to ensuring the project aligns with community and City goals. Public outreach of the two projects began prior to design and continued through project duration. The project team managed stakeholder feedback and contract goals while meeting the baseline engineering requirements of the projects.
Overall, the City’s CSO program utilizes collaborative and strategic planning to reduce community impacts and maximize the positive outcomes utilizing GSI design components.
WEDNESDAY 2:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Watershed Planning Room
Aaron Sprague
GFT, Inc.
Aaron Sprague
In contrast to the complete data on location, description, classification, and general condition of the more than 615,000 roadway bridges available through the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) National Bridge Inventory dataset, similar information on the thousands of smaller water crossing assets found across the nation’s roads system is often limited and not readily available. As a result of this incomplete knowledge coupled with increasing intensity of flood events, highway agencies face growing challenges in maintaining and monitoring these small culverts and bridges and assessing the flood hazard risks of those assets. This project developed and tested an automated hydrologic modeling system to rapidly and efficiently identify stream bridges and culvert locations and then estimate the flood risk of those assets using publicly available data sources. The system used light detection and ranging, geographic information system datasets, and statistical correlations of basin hydrological characteristics to predict the crossing location and geometry of culverts less than 20 feet wide, compute a design storm recurrence interval event, and determine whether the roadway could be expected to overtop during this event. Hydraulic calculations used a simplified form of the FHWA culvert equations. Results of the system were validated against 53 surveyed crossings modeled in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydraulic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System storm modeling program. The system was developed into a QGIS Python plugin, a popular free and open-source GIS software, for automated processing of flood risk assessment. The results of this study demonstrate that automated and computer-aided monitoring and mapping technology could help improve the effectiveness and efficiency of early-warning small-culvert maintenance programs, offering opportunity to increase culvert life expectancy, reduce staff demands, and reduce the cost of planning, maintaining, and improving culverts.
Civil Works Room
Chengye Li
UMKC
ZhiQiang Chen
UMKC
Flood vulnerability maps are essential for identifying at-risk areas and guiding urban flood risk mitigation. However, many models lack validation against actual flood experiences. This study introduces a validation framework using 311 flood-related service requests from Kansas City to evaluate the performance of vulnerability models built from multiple spatial indicators.
We developed flood vulnerability maps using 14 indicators grouped into three categories: Exposure (E) (e.g., impervious surface, slope, flow path), Sensitivity (S) (e.g., income, population, senior population), and Adaptive Capacity (A) (e.g., sewer/water mains, parks, easements, vegetation). These indicators were aggregated using six different methods, including equal weighting, unit normalization to explore how different techniques influence model outcomes.
To validate the maps, we analyzed over 10,000 geolocated 311 service complaints related to flooding in Kansas City from 2008 to 2024. These complaints were spatially aggregated by watershed and compared against flood vulnerability scores generated using six different indicator aggregation methods.
We observed a consistent positive correlation between vulnerability scores and the density of 311 flood complaints, confirming that the models captured real-world flood impact patterns. The spatial distribution of complaints showed a strong positive correlation with the vulnerability scores in all methods, with the best-performing model achieving an R² of 0.585. This confirms the model’s ability to reflect real-world flood impact patterns and highlights the importance of aggregation selection in flood vulnerability assessment.
This study introduces a novel and practical validation method for flood vulnerability mapping by leveraging publicly available 311 service complaint data. By grounding model outputs in real-world flood experiences, it advances the field toward more credible, transparent, and community-reflective flood risk assessments.
MS4/CSO Programs & Standards Room
Laney Nelson
Opti
Colleen Armstrong
St. Joseph Water Protection
Sanitary sewer separation and storage systems are effective solutions for reducing combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and meeting EPA permit requirements, though sewer separation is costly and disruptive. As an alternative, detention systems offer a lower-cost, faster-to-construct option for capturing and controlling stormwater runoff. These systems detain wet weather flows and release them gradually, mitigating local flooding and CSOs in urban environments.
Continuous Monitoring and Adaptive Control (CMAC) is a type of smart data infrastructure that integrates real-time data from sensors and weather forecasts to actively manage stormwater storage and flows. CMAC systems can be applied to both new and existing detention systems, increasing annual wet weather capture to over 90% and improving infrastructure resilience. By integrating with flow and level data from the collection system and wastewater treatment plant, CMAC dynamically adjusts flows based on capacity before, during, and after storms. Unlike traditional, passive methods, the CMAC process ensures water is released from detention systems only when downstream capacity allows, preventing overflows and flooding, and optimizing collection system efficiency. This presentation will review CMAC applications and performance with two communities in Missouri, St. Louis, and St. Joseph.
The Baden Cityshed in St. Louis was developed in the early 1900’s and at that time was served exclusively by combined sewers. Following a history of flooding problems and MSD’s agreement with the EPA in 2011 to reduce CSOs, MSD embarked on a Cityshed program to reduce CSO volume and flooding through sewer separation and construction of stormwater detention basins along the combined sewer trunk line. MSD then initiated a pilot project which integrated digital solutions from Opti CMAC with ADS Environmental Services (ADS) (continuous flow and level monitoring). By integrating with existing infrastructure and leveraging advanced analytics, CMAC optimizes release timing and volume, minimizing downstream impacts. This successful pilot project demonstrates the potential of CMAC to effectively manage stormwater, reduce CSOs, and enhance overall system resilience. Expanding this approach to a network of connected detention basins across the Baden Cityshed offers a promising solution for addressing CSOs and improving water quality in the region.
The City of St. Joseph, Missouri owns and operates a Municipal Separate Stormwater Sewer System (MS4) and a combined sewer system (CSS). To reduce wet-weather flow to the combined sewer, the City of St. Joseph needed high-value solutions to attenuate peak flows and prevent discharge to the Missouri River. In progress toward the City’s CSO mitigation efforts, the City implemented a natural stormwater detention wetland with Opti CMAC.The constructed wetland was designed to attenuate peak flows and provide natural treatment of stormwater while reducing CSO events. The real-time active control system monitors precipitation forecasts and actively controls the water level in the wetland according to the configured site objectives. The system has both local and watershed-level benefits because before the retrofit, the pond intermittently discharged into the City’s CSS and ultimately into the Missouri River.
WEDNESDAY 3:15 - 4:30 p.m.: Closing Panel
Tawn Nugent
TREKK Design Group
Xue Wood
City of North Kansas City
Sarah Henke-Shafer
Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas
