LID in Minnesota State Statute: Minimal Impact Design Standards

To better protect the State's water resources, the Governor of Minnesota signed Low Impact Development into law in the spring of 2009. Statute now reads: "The [state] shall develop performance standards, design standards, or other tools to enable and promote the implementation of low impact development and other storm water management techniques. For the purposes of this section, ‘low impact development' means an approach to storm water management that mimics a site's natural hydrology as the landscape is developed. Using the low impact development approach, storm water is managed on site and the rate and volume of predevelopment storm water reaching receiving waters is unchanged. The calculation of predevelopment hydrology is based on native soil and vegetation." MN is currently developing the performance standards, design standards, and tools to enable and promote the implementation of LID to protect and restore predevelopment hydrology. The process and package is called Minimum Impact Design Standards (MIDS). By creating consistent performance standards and calculation methodologies, as well as zoning