Gaëlle BERGÈS
gaelle.berges@vegetalid.com
and
Brennon GARTHWAIT
Brennon.garthwait@vegetalid.com
247 W Freshwater Way, Suite 330
Milwaukee, WI 53204
PH: 585-343-6400
www.vegetalid.us
-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEGreen Roof Company Engineers New Solution to Old Stormwater Management Problem
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - January 8, 2012 - Vegetal i.D. has created an advanced system combining a blue
roof with a green roof that is poised to bring the green roof industry to a whole new level by increasing the
ability for extensive green roof systems to manage stormwater outflows.
In March Vegetal i.D. plans to launch a pilot project to demonstrate the value of STOCK & FLOW ® a new
product four years in the making. STOCK & FLOW ® is a plastic tray that acts as a reservoir below
HYDROPACK® (Vegetal i.D.’s modular green roof trays) and ads up to four additional inches of water
capacity, passively irrigates the plants, and controls the way in which water is released from the roof.
As urban municipalities expand they create impermeable surfaces that disrupt the natural water cycle.
These surfaces create an artificially high rate of water runoff, which becomes increasingly difficult for the
wastewater utility to manage. This can result in sewerage overflows that pollute the local watershed.
Expanding traditional wastewater utility system capacity can be extremely expensive and city engineers
have turned to decentralized management systems such as green roofs to deal with wastewater at the
source, and minimize taxpayer expenses.
Green roofs absorb rain in order to reduce runoff volumes to diminish potentially harmful runoff to the
surrounding environment. “A green roof is like a sponge, and it absorbs a lot of water, but when it’s fully
saturated it doesn’t have much effect,” according to Gaëlle Bergès, product and development manager of
Vegetal i.D.
STOCK & FLOW ® enables city planners to rely on the performance of green roofs when designing
stormwater management infrastructure, reduces peak flow events, and minimizes the risk of damaging
and expensive sewerage overflow events.
The pilot project will test two versions of STOCK & FLOW ®. The first uses a patented flow regulator to
create a slow and constant release of water from the roof. During heavy rain, water is retained in the
STOCK & FLOW ® bladder while slowly being released to the storm sewer system.
The second version harnesses the cloud in order to predict rain events. This enables the system to
autonomously manage the water that is retained in STOCK & FLOW ®. Water is detained during rain
events and held in order to maximize irrigation and retention. When a rain event is predicted, the cloud
system purges STOCK & FLOW ® before the rain event in order to enable it to capture and detain all rain
from the next event and offset peak rain runoff flows.
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Vegetal i.D. envisions a network of rooftops throughout individual municipalities equipped with STOCK &
FLOW ®. “The cloud control runs autonomously using weather data to make its predictions, but it will be
equipped with its own online dashboard for monitoring and control.” According to Brennon Garthwait,
Stormwater Management Specialist at Vegetal i.D. “This would enable building owners to monitor the
health of their system, and allow stormwater officials to monitor the systems as a group simultaneously
and purge the reservoirs as necessary.”
For their pilot project, Vegetal i.D. is partnering with the University of Wisconsin System, Milwaukee
Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD), and the Milwaukee Water Council.
Vegetal i.D. is a branch of Le Prieuré, a French company owned by Raphael Lamé that installed its first
green roof in 1989 and has focused on innovation ever since.
In 2000 Le Prieuré patented
HYDROPACK®,
the first modular green roof system in Europe. HYDROPACK® is a tray system that is
sold fully vegetated with water reservoirs packed into stackable trays that can be easily transported and
installed on rooftops of nearly any pitch.
Since its inception, HYDROPACK® has been installed on over 1,500 rooftops and has become one of the
most trusted modular green roof systems. Vegetal i.D. launched in 2011 with a plant nursery located in
Batavia, NY and has since focused on growing and developing the green roof industry in the U.S. and
Canada.
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