LATIS

A Scaleable Low Impact Development Site Assessment Tool

Increasingly, many federal and state agencies, county economic development authorities, developers, engineers and others in the Southeastern United States have expressed a strong interest in having an easy to use tool to assess the water quality and quantity impacts of proposed developments. In the Summer of 2004 the Environmental Protection Agency (Region IV), the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality funded a multi-disciplinary team at Mississippi State University to undertake a proof of concept project to develop such a tool. The tool was then applied to the American Eurocopter industrial site under development in Lowndes County, Mississippi. Afterwards, the tool's results were compared to those an existing proprietary tool developed for the site. Those results were subjected to a peer review process. The peer review validated that the concept was proven on the Eurocopter site and the resulting tool was named Latis after the Celtic goddess of clean water and ale.

It is important to remember that Latis is intended for use by a large and diverse group of stakeholders. Ultimately, Latis is intended to be useful to anyone responsible for land use planning, management, or development. Latis is a flexible tool. Ideally, Latis would be used to evaluate and refine site plans after a development site was selected for a particular type of development (i.e., industrial, residential, retail, mixed use, etc.). The development site itself could have been identified as part of a County land use plan or a watershed scale model could be used to identify and prioritize potential development sites. The developers or engineers would provide the site specifications (square footage, etc.). Latis would then be used to evaluate potential environmental and economic costs and benefits from incorporating Best Management Practices into the site design. Latis could also be used in conjunction with watershed scale models to help Counties develop, evaluate and adopt land use plans to direct future growth under a Smart Growth or Growth Readiness approach. Accordingly, Latis' potential stakeholders range from County Economic Development Authorities, Water Management Districts, County and Consulting Engineers and others.

Available information on BMP removal efficiencies, costs, and rates of infiltration was compiled in a series of Excel spreadsheets. When coupled with Latis' modeling component, these spreadsheets allow users to evaluate the cost and effectiveness of various alternative BMPs in their site design. A GIS interface was selected and tested. Latis now consists of a suite of tools and techniques that accomplish the desired functionalities and has been well received by diverse audiences. Numerous potential evaluation sites have been proposed for a Latis assessment. However, some important work remains to be done before Latis is officially released. After these tasks are completed Latis will be ready for a public release. In conjunction with that release, there will need to be a significant education and outreach effort to work with our partners to inform stakeholders about Latis and arrange workshops and educational programs to train them on using Latis in their communities and watersheds.