Post Classifieds
Students take part in mapping project
By Michael Canfield
On August 16, 2012
Buffalo State is leading the way on an initiative designed to help Western New York communities keep
their waterways clean and usable for residents.
The Western New York Stormwater Coalition Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Mapping
Project sets out to find manholes, drainage pipes and drainage inlets in 42 municipalities throughout
Erie and Niagara Counties, and map them. Kim Irvine, professor of geography and planning, heads the
project, which is a joint effort with the Erie County Department of Environment and Planning. Mary
Perrelli, also with the department of geography and planning, is the Co-PI for the project. Three Buffalo
State students have been hired to work on the project, Perrelli said.
The project has several objectives, including the mapping of the surface and subsurface storm water
conveyance systems in Erie and Niagara Counties related to MS4 urbanized areas and to provide a tool
for illicit discharge track down and elimination and for planning and tracking maintenance operations.
The data will be collected in the field using a GPS device with a custom field form. GPS coordinates will
show the location of each manhole and catch basin within the study area. Eventually the data will be
put into a web mapping program and be available to all municipalities and the general public on the
Internet, said Jennifer O'Neil, who recently graduated from Buffalo State and is enrolled in a geography
graduate program at the University at Buffalo.
"We're looking to map all of the catch basins and manhole basins in all of the urbanized areas in Erie
and Niagara County," she said. "Once we collect the data, we're going to incorporate it in Geographic
Information Systems, and create a map that will ultimately be an invaluable tool to quickly track down
sources of contamination."
Not all of the cities and towns in the two counties have complete layouts of their storm water drainage
systems. This map will allow them to figure out where problems are occurring, O'Neil said.
"If there is an issue at a location where they have a cross connection with a sewer line or they're having
bubbling in the water from high levels of detergents, this gives them a way to say, 'OK, this is happening
and I can look at this map to trace back and try to figure out where the problem is,'" she said. "Right
now, they don't all have that. If there are high levels of pollution, or high contamination of ecoli, or
other pollutants that are coming off of the runoff, they don't have a good system to help prevent the
contamination in their storm water systems."
Another goal of the project is to help raise public awareness of the project, which included the
development of a webpage and creating index cards and a flyer explaining the project, O'Neil said.
"If we're ever approached by someone in the community wanting to know why we're walking through
their yard, we can actually give them a copy of the index card and it has a code on it that will actually
link them to the webpage," she said. "We're taking a positive, proactive approach with the community."
The project is important because it allows for a way to ensure the water being let out into natural
waterways is clean, said Rachel O'Neill, a biology major at Geneseo.
"By mapping it, it'll be more effective for communities to be able to find the pollutant, go back, fix it,
and have our water be usable," she said. "We can swim in Lake Erie, you know."
Michael Canfield can be reached by email at canfield.record@live.com.
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