June 2012

Questions? The Answers Are in Denver

By Janice Kaspersen

What would you say is your most pressing stormwater need right now? The gap your program is struggling to fill, the money you don’t quite have enough of to cover all that you need to do, or the hazards in a particular flood-prone neighborhood?

Every stormwater program faces problems, and there are no simple solutions to cover all of them. But sometimes answers—or at least good ideas—are found in clusters. The very biggest and best of these clusters is StormCon 2012, taking place August 19–23 in Denver, with more than 100 individual presentations and nearly 200 vendors of stormwater technologies and services.

This year’s conference has a strong Green Infrastructure track. You may have read the report, released in April, that quantifies how using green infrastructure—swales, rain gardens, permeable pavement, and other techniques that encourage infiltration—to supplement traditional stormwater systems can save cities money. (If you haven’t, you can download it here.) Three of the report’s authors will be speaking at StormCon on the economic and other benefits of green infrastructure. Other presentations will focus on specific instances of its use, particularly in communities where it’s being used to reduce combined sewer overflows.

Green infrastructure alone can’t sustain a stormwater program, though, and the four other conference tracks deal with a myriad of other problems and solutions: traditional stormwater BMPs; funding, education, and other management concerns; water-quality monitoring; and the latest research in BMP performance, modeling, and testing.

If you’re thinking of obtaining a certification in a specialized area of stormwater management or erosion and sediment control, you can take one of five different certification exams at the conference—CPSWQ, CPESC, CESSWI, CISEC, and CMS4S. You can also attend the full-day review course for any of these exams, even if you’re not signed up for the exam itself—a good way to decide whether it’s the right certification for you.

Finally, if you’re looking for in-depth instruction, you’ll find five full-day preconference courses—each of which earns continuing education credit—on Monday, August 20. These courses cover low-impact development techniques, stormwater pollution modeling, BMP selection, construction-site BMP assessment, and compliance measurement.

So join us at StormCon! The complete conference program, as well as an online registration form, is available at www.StormCon.com. I look forward to meeting you in Denver.