MSD Green Infrastructure  

Louisville & Jefferson County MSD

 

In 2005 Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2009 MSD submitted its Integrated Overflow Abatement Plan to address sanitary sewer  and combined sewer overflows.

MSD analyzed each overflow location to determine what overflow reduction projects would return the greatest benefit. Most of these projects are large storage basins that capture overflows at the end of the pipe and carry those flows to a basin for storage to be later pumped back into the sewer system for treatment.

MSD also committed to incorporate green infrastructure to help reduce gray infrastructure downstream. MSD defines green infrastructure as projects that capture storm water before it enters the combined sewer system by allowing the water to infiltrate into the ground. This presentation will give an overview of the work completed to-date, and the road ahead.

 

Drawing on his own innovative work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the "prediction paradox": The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.

Green Fire is the first feature-length documentary about Aldo Leopold, a great conservationist and a key figure in developing the fields of wildlife management, restoration ecology and sustainable agriculture. Leopold is also remembered as the author of A Sand County Almanac, a classic of nature writing.

The film's on screen guide is conservation biologist and Leopold biographer Curt Meine. The film uses Meine to help explore Leopold's continuing influence. Meine highlights a multitude of modern conservation efforts that connect people and land at the local level.

The groups inspired by Leopold range from environmental educators working in the inner city of Chicago to connect children to where food comes from, to ranchers in Arizona and New Mexico working on cooperative conservation efforts, to wildlife biologists working on bringing back threatened and endangered species.

The film was honored with an Emmy award for Best Historical Documentary in 2012. Special thanks to the Floyds Fork Environmental Association for sharing rights for this screening.