Adreonna RaineyWhether you’re heading to class or grabbing coffee between lectures, walking past ongoing construction has become a normal part of daily life at the University of Kentucky. New academic buildings, research facilities, and renovations, in sums upwards of $6 billion, are transforming the campus. But while these projects represent growth for the university, they also raise an important question: how does the UK prevent construction from harming local air and water quality, and what role can students play?
With the rise of construction comes the need to manage environmental impacts such as air emissions, stormwater runoff, and energy consumption. While Construction projects can signify advancement, institutions must ensure that growth aligns with environmental regulations and sustainability standards.
This three-part investigative series will explore what the University of Kentucky is doing to manage stormwater and maintain stormwater quality amidst all the ongoing construction.
The University of Kentucky has outlined several sustainability guiding principles, including modeling environmental excellence, reducing campus emissions, and making the pursuit of sustainability an integral part of the UK student experience. Construction projects provide a real-world setting where these guiding principles must be put into practice, ensuring that campus growth reflects the university’s environmental responsibilities.
History
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was the first major U.S. law to address water pollution, which focused on interstate waters but primarily left pollution control to state and local governments. In 1972, the law was amended, essentially creating what is now known as the Clean Water Act.
As urban development and construction in the nation expanded, stormwater runoff from agricultural and urban areas emerged as a significant unregulated source of pollution. As a result, Congress amended the Clean Water Act in 1987 by passing the Water Quality Act, which established a national program to manage stormwater runoff. This amendment recognized that runoff from construction and urban development could significantly degrade water quality if left unmanaged. The systems put in place in order to address stormwater runoff are called Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s).
These federal laws, among others, set the foundation of how the University of Kentucky manages water quality, especially during construction and operation.
Importance
Stormwater runoff refers to rainfall or snowmelt that flows over land rather than soaking into the ground. When this water moves across impervious surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, rooftops, and parking lots, it can collect fertilizer, oil, pesticides, dirt, bacteria, and other pollutants. As the runoff travels, it carries these contaminants into storm drains, streams, and rivers.
Polluted runoff is one of the largest threats to clean water in the United States. Stormwater management is particularly important during construction projects because new buildings, roads, and walkways increase impervious surface area, reducing the land’s ability to naturally absorb rainfall. Additionally, disturbed soil exposes sediments, nutrients, and other pollutants that can easily be transported by runoff.
Without proper management, this can increase the risk of sedimentation in waterways, localized flooding, and disruption to aquatic habitats. A major concern during construction is that stormwater flowing across active work sites can pick up debris, loose soil, and chemical residues and transport them into nearby storm sewer systems or directly into rivers and lakes.
For a rapidly growing campus like the University of Kentucky, controlling runoff is essential to protecting both water quality and the surrounding Lexington watershed.
What’s Next?
Programs like the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting system and MS4s ensure that development does not come at the expense of water quality. As construction continues to reshape the University of Kentucky’s campus, understanding how environmental protections work behind the scenes becomes increasingly important. From managing runoff during heavy rain to controlling dust and emissions from building sites, these practices influence the quality of the air we breathe and the water that moves through local ecosystems.
In the next blog of this series, we will examine precisely how the University of Kentucky manages stormwater and maintains stormwater quality amidst ongoing construction.
