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Examples would include requiring office buildings to cover flat roofs with plants, using permeable pavement on roads and parking lots, and increasing parkland and urban green space. Milwaukee is encouraging residents to use rain barrels and plant "rain gardens," which have wildflowers and deep-rooted vegetation particularly suited to absorbing excess water. Indianapolis last year renegotiated an earlier deal with EPA that cuts the city's costs by hundreds of millions through greater use of green features, Mayor Greg Ballard said. A new ordinance in Santa Monica, Calif., orders building developers to capture the first three-quarters of an inch of rainwater in a storm and encourages meeting the requirement with green infrastructure. Cleveland has pledged to spend $42 million over eight years on green projects, said Jennifer Elting, spokeswoman for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. An assortment of measures are required in Chicago under a deal struck with EPA this month that sets deadlines for completing a gigantic tunnel and reservoir project, which has lagged since work began nearly 40 years despite repeated sewer overflows. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has pressured EPA to give cities more time and options for limiting overflows. Testifying before Congress this month, Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle said the agency's embrace of green infrastructure was a welcome change from a heavy-handed approach that demanded big-ticket investments in conventional water treatment equipment. "Using enforcement actions as the default option sends the message via the mass media to our citizens that mayors are not trustworthy, and that they condone water pollution," Suttle said. The federal government should help struggling cities pay for sewer improvements but shouldn't let them off the hook for overflows, said Lyman Welch, water quality program manager with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, a Chicago-based environmental group. "Cities have had decades to deal with this problem," Welch said. "We need firm deadlines and we need strong enforcement so it can finally be solved."
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