EPA’s Public-Private Partnerships Are a Great Opportunity for Pervious Concrete

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and Maryland Environmental Services (MES) recently collaborated to host the Public-Private Partnership Workshop in Annapolis, MD, to provide introductory training and technology transfer on establishing innovative Public-Private Partnerships (P3) for affordable green stormwater management retrofits. Jon Capacasa, director of the Water Protection Division for U.S. EPA Region 3, explained in his opening remarks that the overwhelming infrastructure requirements faced by local jurisdictions, coupled with a shortfall in funding for infrastructure investments, makes it increasingly difficult for localities to bring their existing stormwater and/or combined sewer systems into compliance. "Public-Private Partnerships are designed to attract private sector financing, expertise and innovation to provide necessary infrastructure improvements and local job creation," Capacasa said.

NRMCA Senior National Resource Director Phil Kresge attended to workshop on behalf of the ready mixed concrete industry to investigate any opportunities that P3 might provide. "Pervious concrete is a great opportunity for our industry to contribute to P3, but P3 is just as great an opportunity to move pervious concrete forward as a significant part of stormwater management design," Kresge said. "P3’s can be a good way to address the challenges and minimize the obstacles of implementing new technology."

According to Kresge, the P3 concept has been executed in other sectors, perhaps most successfully in the Department of Defense’s Military Housing Privatization Initiative. Community-based Public-Private Partnerships are most effectively built on local levels and it is there that ready mix producers can get involved.

For more information on the P3 initiative, click here or contact Phil Kresge at pkresge@nrmca.org.