The extremely well-attended EPA session last Wednesday at StormCon in Anaheim provided an overview of the stormwater rule that EPA plans to unveil in September. Jeremy Bauer, an environmental scientist with USEPA’s Office of Wastewater Management, Water Permits Division, gave a presentation outlining the rule and fielded audience questions afterward.
Elements of the New Stormwater Rule
Among the rule’s key provisions:
*It will quantify performance standards for new development and redeveloped sites, based on a specific storm (the 95th percentile storm, for example). Recognizing that there may be site constraints on redevelopment site, and also that redevelopment has environmental benefits compared to developing greenfield sites, the rule will hold redevelopment sites to a lesser standard (a lower percentile storm). Credits may be available for incorporating smart growth principles.
*It will require MS4s to develop plans to address discharge from existing sites—in other words, retrofits. This requirement applies to municipal, not private, property.
*It will extend the protection of the MS4 program, possibly to include areas not now included such as arterial roads connecting urbanized areas.
Once the rule is presented to Congress in September, there will be a public comment period; EPA will respond to comments and can make modifications to the rule. The final rule is expected to be issued on November 19, 2012.
Stay tuned for more detail on the rule in the October issue of Stormwater magazine. Information is also available on EPA’s site at http://www.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater/rulemaking.
A Special Thanks to the StormCon Moderators
All of us at Forester would like to thank everyone who participated: the conference speakers, attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors. And I personally want to thank a dedicated group of people who make the conference possible: the ones who moderate the sessions that take place on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Every year, dozens of you volunteer to act as moderators for these 60- or 90-minute sessions—introducing the presenters and keeping things running smoothly. Some of you are yourselves speaking during a different session of the conference; some are exhibitors or attendees. Some of you stepped up for the first time this year, and many of you have been offering your time and services at just about every conference since the beginning. Some of you even took on two or three sessions. We’re grateful to everyone who volunteered:
Lori Armstrong, ESRI
Jim Bachhuber, AECOM
Dustin Bambic, Tetra Tech
Greg Baryluk, Advanced Drainage Systems
Lisa Bass, Parsons Brinckerhoff
Caroline Burger, AECOM
Jeremy Burns, AMEC
Mike Campbell, HMH Engineers
Carsten Dierkes, H20 Research GmbH
Bob Domkowski, ITT Flygt
Barbara Eljenholm, RBF Consulting
Lori Gates, Christopher Burke Engineering
Anna Griggs, DeAngelo Brothers
Lisa Haney, Orange County Sanitation District
Kent Holm, Douglas County (NE) Environmental Services
Frank Kim, AAWRE
Fred Kraekel, Hydro International
Prabha Kumar, Black & Veatch
Rosanna Lacarra, La Roc Environmental
Matt Lentz, AMEC Geomatrix
Gary Lienberger, Lienberger & Associates
Richard Lucera, RBF Consulting
Angel Luke, Teledyne Isco
Shokoufe Marashi, City of Los Angeles
Jeff McGinnis, Catch-All LLC
Mel Oleson, Boeing
Michael Pronold, Portland Bureau of Environmental Services
Jamie Quick, Lienberger & Associates
Lisa Rozmyn, Port of Tacoma
Neal Shapiro, City of Santa Monica
Walter Stein, WDD Engineering
Marc Theisen, Profile Products
Elizabeth Treadway, AMEC
And a very special thanks to Gary Oberts, who not only volunteered to moderate several of the StormCon sessions but also acted as moderator for the full-day Coastal Protection Symposium on Wednesday, August 24.