Introduction to the City of Baltimore’s Integrated Planning Framework Approach

In June 2012 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a potentially historic guidance document that encouraged municipalities to use an Integrated Planning Framework (IPF) approach to maximize infrastructure improvement dollars through an appropriate sequencing of work. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, as Co-Chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Water Council, led lobbying efforts involving numerous groups such as the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and others to convince EPA to consider the many water-related financial obligations municipalities were facing to meet the myriad of Safe Drinking Water and Clean Water Act requirements. In the IPF guidance, the EPA began to acknowledge the regulatory pressures on municipalities, but limited consideration of those pressures to Clean Water Act obligations.Under the IPF guidance, municipalities are allowed to develop an approach to prioritize capital funding for wastewater and stormwater projects to focus on those projects that generate the most environmental benefits. The approach encourages “sustainable and comprehensive solutions, including green infrastructure” that meet regulatory requirements, but may require re-structuring of existing enforcement actions or modification of discharge permits. Municipal participation in the IPF approach is voluntary, but EPA Headquarters has committed to working with all Regions and State agencies to identify appropriate opportunities for implementing the IPF approach.The City of Baltimore, Maryland, is one of the first municipalities in the country to develop an IPF approach. However, since the City is facing significant challenges in funding not only the Clean Water Act-related obligations, but also Safe Drinking Water Act-related obligations, the City expanded their IPF approach to include drinking water projects and developed what might be termed an IPF Plus prioritization model.Under the new IPF, the City developed a system to maximize improvement dollars through an appropriate sequencing of work in accordance with EPA guidance provisions. Different infrastructure configuration scenarios are developed to evaluate prioritization and scheduling alternatives. These scenarios range from regulatory compliance having the most importance to local stakeholder concerns having the most importance. Financial constraint parameters for the amount of water utility, wastewater utility and stormwater utility funding availability are then overlaid on the scenarios so that implementation sequences can be compared to evaluate funding scenarios versus benefit generation curves for each scenario. These benefit generation curves are based on qualitative and quantitative scores for each of 21 economic, environmental and social criteria.The City is currently negotiating a revised compliance schedule under the existing consent decree for the City’s wastewater consent decree with the EPA founded on the IPF implementation sequences and related benefits curves.This presentation will present an overview of the City’s IPF approach, which utilizes a triple bottom line (TBL) scoring system to measure predicted project benefits and for the basis for an integrated prioritization of the City’s identified water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure improvement Capital Improvement Program (CIP) projects.