The Stormwater Blogs

Don't worry you can't miss the boat if it is stuck in all that sediment! I too believe there is a lack in the ability (not only in funding but in local governmental support) to conduct both NPDES permitting and TMDL's implementation plans. That is not to say that many local agencies are not trying to address the problems. While many local governments are being requested to implement these plans, I believe more resources should be provided at the State and Federal level. Somewhere there is a happy medium we just need to find it.

A happy medium would be found if EPA could just slow down a bit! There are so many issues and so many questions...I have been concerned that removal efficiencies aren't as proven as are presumed. At the 2007 StormCon St. Louis conference I learned that the verification of BMP performance was initially flawed. There are numbers throughout the internet which really don't mean very much, particularly now that EPA wants to move away from percent removals. I keep hearing about the changes coming down the pipe for MS4s. TMDLs? How do you incorporate E.coli into the NPDES permit when you have very few septics and your treatment plant has a LTCP? Effluent limitations? How do you obtain these limitations when removal efficiencies are in question, and you don't have the resources to conduct $200K studies for a single structural BMP? How does EPA expect small communities to obtain limitations on limited budgets and staff? I could go on and on! There needs to be more money made available to the local governments! I suggest a federally backed incentive program for developers and local governments who integrate green infrastructure practices into their new projects and redevelopment, respectively.

Great post, and I don't think you're missing the boat at all. Excessive sediment is a huge burden on our waterways and renders more water unusable than any other pollutant. It destroys aquatic habitat and costs enormous amounts of precious taxpayer funds to deal with at water treatment facilities. Why should the rest of us have to either suffer or pay the costs to clean up the mess created by a relatively small number of commercial interests for the sake of their increased short-term profit? Their accusations that we are harsh on enforcement and creating issues for growth in the local community are false.

It's great people outside our industry are understanding many "pollutants" aren't "contaminants" - that the major threat to our waters is sediment and nutrients, not, for example hydrocarbons... But I guess I have a little different take on some of the things mentioned above. I worked for or with municipalities my entire professional life and know we're supposed to chant, "Unfunded mandates! State/feds should give us more money if they give us regs!" But, with even wastewater plant loans decreasing, I think hopes for subsidy are dim. Too, keeping the cost of control close to the "polluter" is supposed to lead to less pollution. And finally, I think Americans pay way too little for their water and wastewater; adding stormwater utility fees spreads the cost and benefit from improved watersheds. (This seems to me both a conservative and a liberal point of view, all at once!) And while the construction process leads to the most sediment load per acre, it is of course temporary. I believe the post-development hardened watershed and the resulting erosive velocities carry as much overland sediment on a watershed basis. So, unless I live and work in a tent, I can't just blame the developers! As for good BMP data, be sure and refer to the joint WERF/EPA product: http://www.bmpdatabase.org/ ...there is so much variability in storms, sediment size, contributing basin etc., but it's a help. I, too, question the utility of effluent guidelines for E&S control.