What is a MAGNA Stormpark™?
A MAGNA Stormpark™ is MAGNA’s nature-based solution to the question: how can we make stormwater work for our community?
Using engineered wetlands, we create a centralized stormwater management system with built-in treatment cells that is customizable to your community. This ensures that your stormwater management system matches your community’s values and goals.
What's the difference between a MAGNA Stormpark™ and a Traditional Storm Pond?
Traditional Storm Pond
Traditional Wet Pond Concept Drawing
In a typical development, stormwater is collected through drains into stormwater mains. These mains lead to an oil and grit separator (OGS) that settles the sediment and oil from the stormwater before discharging into a wet pond. These storm ponds are typically one of two types:
Controlled Flow: Slowly discharges the stormwater through an outlet control system (OCS) into the local waterways, such as streams, rivers, or lakes.
Evaporation: Stores the stormwater until it evaporates naturally back into the water cycle.
Traditional storm ponds are designed and sized to manage water quality and discharge within the same pond, which is often not very efficient.
Other considerations for traditional storm ponds are:
Larger footprints
Lower water quality
No opportunities for water reuse
No flood and drought resiliency
More elaborate operation and maintenance schedule
MAGNA Stormpark™
MAGNA Stormpark™️ Concept Drawing
A MAGNA Stormpark™ is a reimagining of a traditional stormwater pond that integrates ecosystem services, habitat features, and park-like amenity elements for the community. This combination of elements offer multiple facets of value, contributing to the environment and community that they occupy.
In general, a MAGNA Stormpark™ will fall into one of three sub-categories:
Stormwater management and utility focused.
Ecological and conservation focused.
Amenity and placemaking focused.
The category that a new MAGNA Stormpark™ falls into depends on the developer and their needs.
Each type of MAGNA Stormpark™ has the same three main operational stages:
Stage 1 - Primary Treatment: A high-performing sediment clarifier sits at the beginning of the system. This helps control all sediment within the stormwater. It is important to note that all traditional water quality standards are met once the water moves to stage 2.
Stage 2 - Volume Detention: This is active storage for the water before it moves into stage 3. This main pond body is designed to act as a traditional storm pond during an extremely large storm.
Stage 3 - Secondary Treatment: The water cycles through engineered wetlands, using natural processes to remove additional nutrients such as nitrogen, to purify the stormwater to a reuse standard.
The wetlands are connected to the primary sediment clarifier with a recirculation system. This allows the water to be continually treated until it is discharged into the ecosystem in whatever fashion the developer chooses.
Why use a MAGNA Stormpark™?
A MAGNA Stormpark™ prioritizes an effective, fit-for-purpose, treatment system that allows developers to properly allocate space and function towards stormwater management utility, placemaking, and ecological services. No single MAGNA Stormpark™ is the same, and MAGNA prides itself in considering the needs of the development and community during the design process. Our designs aim to maximize the usefulness of the infrastructure and allows for multi-purpose value for the community. For more details on various MAGNA Stormpark™ projects, please see our Project Profiles.
By targeting specific stormwater objectives within the various MAGNA Stormpark™ treatment stages, the system can be more useful, more often. This also allows for service and amenity value to be added. As a result, the cost of construction is less, there are lower maintenance costs, and a higher value land use.
Maximizing the Benefits of a MAGNA Stormpark™
Developers experience many benefits from using a MAGNA Stormpark™ in their development. The ones listed below are contribute to creating a stormwater management solution that allows our designs to rival the costs for a traditional pond while offering higher value land use to a community and the developer.
Reuse Potential
The high-quality stormwater output from a MAGNA Stormpark™ can easily be adapted for irrigation reuse within the community, without costly on-site treatment facilities, and can offer a long-term replacement for potable water inputs for landscaping maintenance or naturalized recreation features. This results in less lifecycle costs and encourages a holistic and communal approach to water resource management.
Footprint Efficiency And Increasing Developable Land Area
A MAGNA Stormpark™ can provide stormwater attenuation in a smaller footprint than a traditional storm pond. It makes use of low flow circulation and off-peak discharge systems that result in more efficient use of storage potential. This results in less overall cut required for the facility, and less liner for the facility. When compared to a traditional facility, this usually results in 10-15% footprint reduction, which ultimately is an increased amount of developable land available, which can be repurposed within the community to meet development and municipal goals.
Land Use Optimization
A MAGNA Stormpark™ provides a development with opportunities through land use designations that a conventional pond can not achieve. Due to the increased amount of constructed wetland features, there is an opportunity to reduce the public utility land requirement in the stormwater management facility by up to 75%. Additionally, converting areas within the stormwater management facility to an environmental reserve as opposed to public utility land reduces assessment costs associated with the Stormwater facility area. The area within the MAGNA Stormpark™ is also eligible to be designated as a municipal reserve, reducing the need for other municipal reserve lands in your development. This approach offers a mixed-use hub within the community that can, from a planning perspective, result in more efficient zoning.
Operations And Maintenance (O&M)
The MAGNA Stormpark™ is designed to reduce the O&M burden of a traditional storm pond. This is done by using a sediment clarifier (Stage 1) that has been designed to be drained in a few hours for inspection and cleaning. Additionally the engineered wetlands (Stage 3) rival other stormwater treatment solutions (such as UV treatment) in a far less complicated way. This results in simplified infrastructure, energy requirements, and operator training.