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Carolyn Paone

Photo: Carolyn Paone

Carolyn Paone

Project Engineer & Sustainability Leader

Langan Engineering

Biography

Carolyn has over 20 years of experience in civil engineering and stormwater management and is passionate about sustainability design. With a master’s degree in Water Resources Engineering, she has been involved in a variety of urban and suburban development projects for both public and private clients.

As a project manager, Carolyn has led the design and permitting of stormwater management, utilities, and land development for the last 15+ years for complex and critical projects. She has obtained numerous permits for stormwater-management and green-infrastructure designs that include structural and nonstructural stormwater best management practices from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware organizations. As project manager, she has overseen multiple aspects of the projects, including writing proposals, negotiating contracts, billing, meeting with clients, presenting regulatory information, working with staff individually and coordinating teams.

Her experience includes designing stormwater retrofits such as micro-bioretention basins and biofiltration swales in parking lots, subsurface infiltration and water reuse in highly urbanized areas. She continues to establish herself as an internal expert on stormwater management by acquiring practical experience in designing and installing porous pavement, reviewing submittals, observing construction activities, and testing soil infiltration. She takes every opportunity to coordinate with clients, contractors, regulatory agencies and other discipline groups at Langan.

Carolyn has created, organized and led monthly meetings as the Philadelphia Office Green Team Leader for the past 14 years. She was one of the firm’s first employees to become LEED accredited, a step that spurred a firm-wide initiative to have all engineers LEED accredited and to incorporate sustainability into the corporate culture. As Langan expanded its sustainability initiative, she led firm-wide sustainable initiatives such as:

  1. Coordinating efforts to “green” Langan workshops and conferences,
  2. Organizing guest speakers to elevate the firm’s sustainability knowledge base,
  3. Facilitating a paper-reduction contest between all of our US offices,
  4. Spear-heading coffee mug purchases to eliminate paper cups,
  5. Creating and facilitating the yearly sustainable project-of-the-year contest,
  6. Co-authoring our firm’s Sustainability Plan,
  7. Creating sustainable guidelines as a subject-matter expert for stormwater management, and
  8. Creating firm-wide training on sustainable stormwater management.

Rutgers Climate Bridge Panel 4: Rain’s Impact on Stormwater Management

Abstract

Stormwater management has matured into a vital component of land development. Proper stormwater management meets the needs of the property owner, does not adversely affect surrounding properties, and complies with local, state and federal guidelines. As climate change evolves and rainfall patterns intensify, flooding is a more frequent problem. Areas that never used to flood are experiencing damage and areas that are used to flooding have experienced extreme flooding and destruction during large storms. Stormwater management is a key component of putting a site in the best possible position when a large storms occurs. Using green infrastructure, as the “new” NJ stormwater regulations require, and limiting the drainage area to stormwater management features will decrease the amount of runoff from a site and allow for more storage, infiltration, transpiration and evaporation. However, even the best-designed site for stormwater isn’t designed for the increasingly-frequent large storm events. The next level of stormwater management incorporates resiliency as needed with options such as additional storage and smart outlet control devices that are designed to hold water back until the downstream infrastructure has capacity or the storage facility is at capacity. this session will look at an example of distributed stormwater management and a case-study of a resiliency design.