JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — Johns Creek Stormwater Utility Manager Cory Rayburn was still energized days after a presentation on Creekside Park at the Southeast Stormwater Association’s Annual Regional Stormwater Conference.
On the third floor of City Hall, he began an hour-long conversation by describing the many benefits of the project, the city’s biggest to date at nearly $36 million. Stormwater Engineer Roman Carey, a self-described lifelong “tree hugger,” sat across from Rayburn in the room covered in maps.
A large screen showed unseen park renderings, and at one point, data on weather extremes, illustrating a progressive situation that spoke to the urgency of their role in the Public Works division.
It hasn’t rained since Hurricane Helene swept through Metro Atlanta, bringing with it 10 inches of rainfall in two days.
“We’ve had the driest October on record,” Rayburn said. “…It’s these extreme events that really put a lot of pressure on our infrastructure and our drinking water resources.”
City staff in the Stormwater Department oversee water quantity and water quality. That day, Stormwater Inspector Dahn Nguyen was out sampling waterways around Johns Creek for E. coli.
A novel approach
In August, city leaders broke ground on Creekside Park, the tentative name for the 21-acre plot behind City Hall. It’s an innovative project.
The park’s upper pond will feature an amphitheater and deck over the water, terraced seating and pedestrian access areas, including a 15-foot-wide boardwalk that stretches to a lower constructed wetland area. There will also be a trail connection to the pedestrian tunnel under Medlock Bridge Road, the park’s southern gateway.
The project seeks more than to activate the area with a green space for visitors to enjoy, but it also has major utility. Rayburn said it will add around 4.5 million gallons of stormwater storage for the entire area downstream.
He said the plan is to reduce the water in the lower wetland pond about 5 feet and regrade it into a series of shallow and deep wetland pools, then planting native species.
The pond will help with downstream flooding as well as water quality. Plus, the extra detention volume encourages growth in the Town Center area.
Rayburn said it’s an economic incentive, saving upstream developers up to millions of dollars in creating a detention pond themselves. It also saves space, giving developers more buildable area.
“For us, it’s a win-win,” Rayburn said. “We’re doing good for the downstream folks, but we’re also providing some economic incentive for redevelopment upstream, and we’re using constructed wetlands to do it. It’s kind of a novel approach.”
Pictured is a damaged stormwater pipe. Since the City of Johns Creek implemented its Stormwater Utility in 2021, it has spent around $11 million on stormwater infrastructure repairs, operations, and maintenance.
CITY OF JOHNS CREEK/PROVIDED
‘Headwall to headwall’
Aside from coordinating new projects, the team oversees repairs to the existing stormwater infrastructure. That’s 23,000 assets — 150 miles of pipes as well as manholes, catch basins and other structures.
The city has spent around $11 million on operating and maintaining its stormwater system since it implemented the Stormwater Utility in 2021, and Rayburn said Johns Creek is ahead of schedule.
More than 1,700 stormwater assets have been maintained by removing excess sediment; around 80,000 feet of pipe has been cleaned; and more than 400 pipe segments, spanning 30,000 feet, have been repaired, replaced or lined.
Rayburn said the city’s use of “trenchless technologies” have resulted in significant cost savings. They extend the life of a pipe by 80 years and cut the price of a traditional repair in half.
One practice, called “cured-in-place pipe lining,” works by forcing a flexible liner into an existing pipe and curing it with steam to create a new pipe. Another process, called “spincasting,” uses a remote-controlled robot to spray the insides of an existing pipe with a fiber-reinforced cement that hardens in place.
“So, we’re extending the life of these pipes without having to dig up roads and without having to dig up yards,” Rayburn said.
Without the city’s stormwater credits — incentives to good stewards — and if all $70 annual household bills were paid, the utility would bring in around $3.2 million to maintain, repair and improve the city’s stormwater system.
And, in Johns Creek, one of the newer Metro Atlanta cities to implement the program, the service extends “headwall to headwall,” meaning the city can help repair pipes on private property that are connected to the public right of way.
Carey does most of the reconnaissance, checking out complaints or issues, overseeing a lot of the repair work. He engages with residents regularly, advising them of the opportunity for the city to step in and take the burden, so long as they grant the easement, or right of entry.
City assistance
Carey said homeowners often assume repairs are the city’s responsibility anyway, but that’s a misconception. Carey’s role involves a lot of education.
“A lot of calls that I go out to, what I hear is, ‘You guys neglected the system for 10 years,’” Carey said. “‘Well, this system, this pipe, is through your property. Technically, you neglected it for 10 years, but we have the ability to help you.’”
Sometimes, a pipe on someone’s private property can affect a larger system, like a project that Carey oversaw last year in the Foxmoor subdivision, a neighborhood developed in the early ’90s. Ten properties were affected.
“Essentially, the entire pipe system was undersized, which was causing flooding within the cul-de-sac, which led to water issues for individual residents who weren’t even touching the pipe systems,” he said.
While pipes in the public right of way are often made of concrete, ones through residents’ yards are typically made of corrugated metal which is good for about 40 years. If ignored, Rayburn said they will start to collapse, causing sinkholes, or in worst-case scenarios, washed-out, collapsed roadways.
“It’s much more expensive than to do the preventative maintenance,” Rayburn said, adding that the city has an asset management strategy that prioritizes repair and maintenance.
Trevolyn and Ronald Sullivan describe the nearby eroded embankment in their backyard in the Lexington Woods subdivision.
AMBER PERRY/APPEN MEDIA
Future relief
Rayburn said the City of Johns Creek is exploring a grant-funded program for residents experiencing the detrimental impact of stormwater to their property, like erosion — issues that fall out of the city’s jurisdiction in its extent of service.
Appen Media previously reported on backyard erosion in the Parsons Run subdivision and recently visited the home of a couple in Lexington Woods experiencing a similar issue.
Using walking sticks, Ronald and Trevolyn Sullivan descended the steep slope of their back yard, arriving at a trench that has expanded over time. They said a tree from their neighbors’ yard had recently fallen into the yard of someone living across the way.
“Homes are beginning to move down,” Trevolyn said, adding the expensive efforts of her neighbors to build up their embankments to slow erosion and the legal limitations on construction allowed in the area.
Erosion is affecting nearly a dozen homes in Lexington Woods.
The Sullivans were told about the city’s grant program, which has more than $420,000 in funding in fiscal year 2025. The application process will be open sometime next year, once it’s finalized.
Applicants will be able to install green infrastructure on their property like rain gardens, permeable pavement as well as stream restoration projects.
“There’s about 10 different mechanisms of improving water quality downstream and preventing some of those erosion issues,” Rayburn said.
He noted that the environmental permitting process on the city’s stream restoration project, currently in the works, took 18 months. It will restore 1,500 linear feet of stream bank and add a multi-use, 10-foot-wide trail connecting McGinnis Ferry Road to Creekside Park.
“There’s kind of a quicker way to do some of that kind of stream bank work, but we’re currently talking with [the Environmental Protection Division of the state Department of Natural Resources,] the folks that kind of regulate the buffers and variance process,” Rayburn said.
He emphasized the issue is not just in Johns Creek.
“Everywhere you have development, you start seeing degraded streams,” Rayburn said.
Impact of dog waste
Rayburn, who has a bachelor’s degree in environmental health science, said he’s always been a “policy geek.” Later, he earned a master’s degree in civil engineering.
“I’ve wanted to try to implement policies that will protect homeowners and to improve water quality and improve the environment,” he said.
Since Rayburn joined the City of Johns Creek in 2021, the City Council has passed a dog waste ordinance. Pet owners in violation must pay a fine.
“It’s not something we talk about all the time, but it’s important,” he said.
Last year, Rayburn worked with Student Leadership Johns Creek to develop a survey on dog waste and pamphlets on the city’s stormwater system, handed out at Pup-a-Palooza.
The city is plagued with impaired creeks and streams, meaning they don’t meet the state requirements for fishing, swimming and other recreation. Rayburn said one of the main contributions to the poor water quality is dog poop.
Rayburn oversaw a series of master plans that addressed the issue, identifying a number of projects across three major areas in Johns Creek that could help improve water quality.
Master plans help obtain grant money.
Just this past year, he said the city has received almost $1 million to help with bigger projects, like the stream restoration effort near Creekside Park.
“There’s an unprecedented amount of funds for infrastructure,” Rayburn said. “Having those master plans really help smaller, medium-sized cities to really get some of those federal grant dollars.”
