Device Invented at SAFL Means Big Saving For Cities

Thank you to The RiverCurrent for bringing this to our attention.  It's an example of the work being done at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory(SAFL), an interdisciplinary fluid mechanics research and educational facility of the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota.

The SAFL Baffle is the flagship product of Upstream Technologies, a stormwater product development company with products that help keep lakes, rivers, and oceans clean.  The SAFL Baffle is a system developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota that reduces the costs to municipal governments for managing their stormwater.

The stainless steel device helps keep sediment in place so it can be collected and removed by maintenance crews. Without the baffle, sediment escapes to ponds and wetlands, which need periodic dredging to comply with stormwater regulations. Using the SAFL Baffle, a city’s costs for managing sediment could be reduced up to 90 percent compared to dredging.