Urban Stormwater Bmp Performance Monitoring

"Presents and compares all major stormwater/runoff control strategies ; New data on pollutant removal efficiencies, design, costs, environmental impacts and more ; Where and why to use the best techniques for limiting/monitoring diffuse pollution ; Provides the tools to meet regulations and improve water quality in urban/suburban watersheds"--From publisher's description.

The rapid conversion of land to urban and suburban areas has profoundly altered how water flows during and following storm events, putting higher volumes of water and more pollutants into the nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries. These changes have degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system. The Clean Water Act regulatory framework for addressing sewage and industrial wastes is not well suited to the more difficult problem of stormwater discharges. This book calls for an entirely new permitting structure that would put authority and accountability for stormwater discharges at the municipal level. A number of additional actions, such as conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover (e.g., roads and parking lots), and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater, are recommended.

Over the past 20 years, the use of Best Management Practices (BMPs) in the United States has been instrumental in reducing both the detrimental impacts to receiving water quality and the exacerbated flooding caused by urbanization and storm water drainage. More recently, Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) have started to be used in the United Kingdom. Both SUDS and BMPs attempt to mimic the drainage patterns of the natural watershed, and can also provide a degree of treatment needed to improve the quality of the water discharged to an acceptable level. The costs of conventional stormwater collection systems are determined primarily in terms of initial capital expenditure. Long-term maintenance costs are absorbed by stormwater authorities that are responsible for maintaining their infrastructure as part of their "asset base". Currently, only a few of these responsibilities exist for BMPs and SUDS, which generally incorporate surface components and are often dependent on landscaping rather than on traditional construction techniques, but may require significant regular maintenance. Any potential adopting organization will require guidance on the maintenance regimes of different types of systems and how such regimes translate into long-term adoption costs. The project is being conducted in two phases. Phase 1, which is the subject of this report, includes a literature review and a survey of stormwater authorities and organizations in the US and UK to identify the most commonly used BMPs and SUDS and to determine the availability of data on their cost and performance. As part of Phase 2, the operation of selected BMPs and SUDS will be monitored over a one-year period in terms of pollutant removal and hydrologic/hydraulic efficiency, and applicability of their design criteria and maintenance regime. The protocols developed in Phase 1 will be used to assess BMPs/SUDS performance and whole-life costs.

Introduction -- Department of Transportation research preferences -- Review of published literature and potential research needs -- Summary of identified research gaps and needs -- Master bibliography -- Appendixes.

This collection contains 49 papers presented at an Engineering Foundation Conference, held in Snowmass Village, Colorado, August 19-24, 2001.

Ultra urban areas where conventional best management practices (BMPs) are neither feasible nor cost-effective present a challenge to stormwater management. Although new BMPs have been developed for such space limited environments, the field performance of these technologies is still largely undocumented. This study monitored the field performance of four ultra urban BMPs: three oil and grit separators (Isoilater, Stormceptor, and Vortechs Stormwater Treatment System) and a bioretention area. Storm sampling data for each site were analyzed to calculate the removal efficiency for each constituent monitored. Because the Vortechs system was installed improperly, its removal efficiency results in this study are not reliable. Therefore, the system could not be fully evaluated. The results of the study are site specific. The performance of the BMPs was affected by varying factors. The study, thus, concludes that the data and study site conditions must be evaluated carefully before results can be extrapolated to compare the relative and potential performance of a particular BMP under different site conditions.