October 2007

Matching Means and Minds

The Pacific Northwest meets Phase II.

The migration of water-pollution-prevention initiatives from the private sector to the public sector has introduced unforeseen complexities. In circumstances of limited financial and political capital, local officials charged with administering stormwater pollution control measures required by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program often find themselves walking a tightrope between mandated environmental stewardship and the provision of other important government services. In some communities, because of limited resources and little enthusiasm for enacting revenue-generating programs, such as utility fees or increased taxes, it is difficult to find the money to fund stormwater projects. Yet, there appears to be a broad acceptance of environmental stewardship as a worthy value. The challenge facing new entrants into the NPDES Phase II permit process is how to match the mindset with the means.

Creative solutions from communities in the states of Oregon and Washington, the latest wave of municipalities entering NPDES regulation under the Phase II program, provide a perspective on the program’s flexibility and prospects.

Washington: One State, Two Permits
The Cascade Mountains cut through the Pacific Northwest along a ridge that runs north to south from Canada through the states of Washington and Oregon. To the west of the ridge are the fast-growing, high-tech cosmopolitan centers of the West Coast’s temperate rain forest, and to the east lie the semiarid, spatially dispersed, moderate-growth agricultural cities of the high deserts and plains.

According to Misha Vakoc, stormwater coordinator for the EPA’s Region 10, which includes the states of Washington and Oregon, legal challenges over the federal pollution control standard delayed the implementation of NPDES Phase II regulation and the adoption of the six minimum measures by these two states. For several years, urban districts in the Pacific Northwest hovered in Phase II limbo. However, environmental awareness and community support propelled some municipalities in the region to move forward with stormwater pollution prevention activities in spite of ongoing deliberations in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Vakoc says some communities were able to take advantage of this respite to get ahead of the curve, developing and implementing stormwater management programs that would largely comply with the eventual permits. On the other hand, she says, many small communities have been hampered by lower revenues and remained focused on essential services with few resources to spare for stormwater projects. For some, Vakoc says, the further question lingered “whether it was appropriate public policy to deal with stormwater at all.”

Nevertheless, after the Notice of Intent and the maximum extent practicable issues cleared the courts in 2004, Oregon and Washington were able to move ahead with their permitting processes. Washington State issued its Phase II permits early in 2007, specifying the six minimum measures, plus two additional measures relating to total maximum daily loads and monitoring and evaluation. Bill Moore of the Washington State Department of Ecology, who administers the program, refers to the measures as “the six plus two.”

Moore says that two distinct geographically based general permits were issued by the state with the rationale that the eastern and western regions were sufficiently divergent to warrant separate policies, individualized stormwater management techniques, and unique stormwater manuals.

According to Moore, depending on the location and the financial resources of the various communities covered by the Phase II permits, progress toward meeting the six minimum measures has also been variable.

First Steps in the Desert
On a typical bright spring day for the City of Richland, WA, where the Columbia and Yakima rivers meet, Nancy Aldrich, special projects coordinator for the city, says area waterways have become a huge recreational draw. She says, among other activities, the city hosts the world-famous Columbia Cup hydroplane boat race and festival. “Over the past few years pollution abatement has turned the river into a fishing paradise.” As a result, she says, “Our biggest challenge was acknowledging that we had a stormwater problem.”

The city was initially developed by the military in the 1940s to house workers involved in the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb. Aldrich says the natural landscape of sagebrush, tumbleweed, and brown desert grass at the edge of town contrasts with the well-manicured green grass lawns of the residential districts. “The few creeks we do have are ephemeral, fed by irrigation. But we recognized the threat to the Columbia River from the first flush of hydrocarbons and other contaminants that accumulate on the roadways during dry weather.”

Aldrich says that in 1998, when it appeared NPDES permits would be forthcoming, Richland’s Public Works director informed the city council that the city was listed as a potential Phase II–covered entity. “City officials adopted a stormwater utility fee to fund our street sweeping program and our regular catch basin cleaning and maintenance program. In early 2000 we started implementing measures to address municipal operations, and we began mapping the system. Today, our maps are 99% complete.”

Additionally, she says, Richland developed a policy to enforce 100% onsite retention for new development, with training for inspectors and plan reviewers—and, she notes, “We’re getting that information out to contractors.”

A Pathway for Volunteers
Though Richland’s outreach programs are in their early stages, Aldrich doesn’t foresee any difficulty spreading the message. “We have a huge technical population and a high concentration of doctorates in the community. It’s not going to be hard to get them involved,” she says.

“One of the interesting things about the Phase II program is the intent to regulate the individual behaviors of private citizens involved in commonplace activities, such as car washing and lawn care. It’s a different approach, but it’s gradually being accepted.”

In support of that view, she says, “Earth Day is a big thing out here.” During Earth Week, “A group of volunteers drawn together from the Earth Day Committee and the nearby cities joined together to stencil storm drains. I think it’s great to get groups involved. We like to use private groups like the Eagle Scouts in these kinds of efforts, and it’s a way for them to fulfill their community service mission. Community volunteers are great resources.”

Voluntary efforts notwithstanding, Aldrich credits the strength of the City of Richland’s stormwater program to early initiatives to generate a self-sustaining funding source. “Our water utility is our major success, and it is what will enable our program to develop. I sympathize with small cities who don’t have that resource. It’s going to be a stretch for many of them; without funding it’s going to be difficult.”

Measuring the Costs
A scant 6 to 14 inches of rain fall in Yakima County, WA, annually, but Donald Gatchalian says that is enough to support eastern Washington’s robust agricultural economy. Replete with orchards, vineyards, and hayfields, this agricultural belt stretches from Yakima Valley all the way east to Spokane, on the border with Idaho.

Gatchalian is assistant director of public works for Yakima County. In addition to the many official duties that he attends as supervisor of both the county’s Surface Water Management Division and its Stormwater Division, he helped develop the Stormwater Management Manual for Eastern Washington and the state’s underground injection control guidance.

He believes funding for carrying out the six minimum measures may require resources beyond those available locally. “We’re in the middle of trying to determine a funding source for the five years of our permit.” He says the local economy relies on agriculture, and “our citizens can only absorb so much cost.”

In 2004, Yakima County commissioned the consulting firm OTAK Inc. to evaluate the costs of compliance with the prospective Phase II regulations. The company’s preliminary cost estimate for a comprehensive Phase II–compliant stormwater program was $5 million. According to Gatchalian, that was a figure outside the county’s price range. In 2006, when Washington State’s final draft permit became available for review, Yakima County commissioned a follow-up study, evaluating costs in light of the permit’s specific requirements.

The follow-up study concluded that the cost of the program could be reduced from $5 million to just $3 million through a no-frills approach if the county performed “just those activities strictly required by the permit—and nothing extra,” Gatchalian says.
Gatchalian believes that further efficiencies can be achieved through regional cooperation, and he says Yakima County is exploring that option as well. “With the county as lead, we’re trying to develop a regional stormwater group with three other Phase II cities. We’d like to develop our own stormwater manual for the Yakima area, tailored to include the BMPs [best management practices] appropriate to this region. We could then designate a uniform design storm and facilitate consistent regulation, whether development projects are located in the cities or in the county.”

Sound Program in Federal Way
“The temperate rain forest along Puget Sound is experiencing a great deal of urbanization,” says Paul Bucich, the surface-water manager for the City of Federal Way, WA. With a population of 86,000, this city along Hybelos Creek is a full participant in that development trend. Building activity in Federal Way, he says, includes “new residential uses and a fair amount of commercial development in the city center.”

As in Richland, Bucich says Federal Way’s utility fee has been instrumental in moving the city’s stormwater programs forward. “Since the stormwater utility was approved in 1991, we’ve been doing a great deal to improve stormwater infrastructure.”

In addition, he says the utility has enabled Federal Way to be aggressive in efforts to restore parts of Hybelos Creek. On the education front, he says, “We’ve developed bilingual posters for restaurant employees, explaining proper disposal techniques for grease and other restaurant waste products, and we’ve brought in a part-time staff person to specialize in inspections and outreach to restaurants. And we’ve offered evening classes in natural yard care practices.”

100% Goal
“We have over 600 to 800 private detention and retention facilities, which we inspect annually,” says Bucich. “New developments are required to sign an easement for inspection.” In addition, he says the city operates a number of regional detention facilities, each with a water-quality component.

Bucich says the goal of 100% onsite retention for new construction can be promoted through low-impact development (LID) practices. “We need to continually educate builders in both construction and post-construction stormwater management.” But he says engineers and public officials themselves are not always familiar with LID principles. “We need to discuss how these projects will look and how they will perform. We need engineers and public officials used to the idea of narrower streets and fewer paved areas than what they’re used to seeing with traditional development.”

He says he turns to the regional American Public Works Association Surface Water Committee as a valuable resource. “We meet monthly, with up to 45 members in attendance. It’s a great opportunity for local staff to exchange ideas with their colleagues from neighboring jurisdictions. It also provides an opportunity to hear from experts in the field, including doctorates from the University of Washington who are often invited as guest lecturers.”

A Concrete Solution
“Last year our Parks Department wanted to pave a parking area for Historical Cabin Park,” says Bucich. Runoff control was mandated, but the options were constrained by an adjacent wetland area. “The space was too small to accommodate a detention pond, and a swale option would have called for an aesthetically unpleasant serpentine design,” which, he says, “would detract from the historic character of the setting.” The recommendation was to use pervious concrete to pave the parking area. “But we had to educate the council on what that meant—how it would look and how it would perform.

“We walked into the city council meeting with three buckets of water and three pieces of concrete. One block was standard concrete, the second was pervious concrete, and the third was a pervious concrete block engineered with a proprietary formula.”

Before the council members’ eyes, Bucich says, the standard concrete, predictably, repelled the liquid. In contrast, the pervious concrete was fairly absorbent. Finally, Bucich demonstrated the block containing the proprietary formula, which he says gives it the capacity to absorb one-third of its weight in water. “That blew their socks off. The council members wanted to know why we weren’t using this stuff everywhere.” Bucich says he was able to demonstrate a cost savings in comparison to standard concrete pavement, paired with water-quality treatment. “The council was convinced that we had arrived at a cost-effective solution.” According to Bucich, the completed parking lot has been getting excellent reviews. He says one enthusiastic park visitor commented that when he visited the lot in pouring rain, “There was no surface water at all visible on the pervious concrete.”

Monitoring to Cut Costs
Bucich says the costs of catch basin maintenance programs can be reduced through monitoring and evaluation. “We’ve instituted a catch basin evaluation program, dispatching temporary workers with devices to record the size of each of our structures and to monitor how quickly sediment is accumulating within them. We’ve plotted this information graphically, and we use it to fine-tune our maintenance schedules for each individual device. We’ve been able to save $40,000 by optimizing our catch basin cleanout program based on this kind of information.” He says it also helps to keep track of what’s going into the system, adding, “The salt or sand you apply during the winter may impact your cleaning schedule.”

Oregon’s Statewide Approach
In contrast to Washington State, Oregon has but a single federally designated urbanized area to the east of the Cascade Mountains, while the state’s 17 remaining urbanized areas lie to the west. Consequently, says Greg Geist, stormwater permit specialist for Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the State of Oregon issued a single Phase II permit covering the entire state.

As in Washington State, he says, there have been a wide range of early responses to the new regulation in Oregon. “Some programs are relatively mature, while others are just getting under way.”

Geist acknowledges reaching compliance may prove a challenge to small towns where public works directors must carve out the resources to pursue stormwater projects in tandem with all of their other responsibilities.

Small City on the Trail
On a mid-April morning in 2007, David Sawyer, city administrator for Turner, OR, says his city, on the rainy side of the Cascades, is enjoying a rare treat—sunshine.

Sawyer says Turner is a small city at the end of the historic Oregon Trail. Flowering trees and well-protected stream corridors, he says, give it “the feel of small-town New England.” Sawyer says throughout the winter clouds and drizzle are constant features of the typical weather pattern. But heavier rains and what he terms “an abundant supply of water” in 2005 caused one of the major threats to water quality in the creek. “Floodwaters topped the levees, washing through a mile-and-a-half stretch of town.” In 2006, he says, floods threatened again when “the creek came within 6 inches of a levee breach.” In fact, Sawyer believes this flooding is perhaps a primary means by which contaminants of all types from the city streets enter the receiving waters.

Big-City Rules
“We’re just working our way into stormwater quality. We’re a town of just 1,600 residents, and we have no staff for stormwater.” With the help of one part-time assistant, Sawyer says, he is the responsible party for the town’s public works, planning, parks and recreation, and permitting functions and other duties as they arise. However, he says the small-town ethic affords access for all these concerns. “I sit down to meet with the mayor twice a week to update her on what’s going on, and she sets policy from a community-values standpoint.”

Turner is located 6 miles from Salem, OR, a city of nearly 400,000 residents. Sawyer says, “We often get lumped in with them for regulatory purposes. But there are a number of issues they have in Salem that we don’t have here. One of those issues is growth.” Turner, he says, is currently experiencing a 5% growth rate, which amounts to no more than 35 to 45 new residential permits per year. Sawyer says a similar growth rate for Salem would amount to hundreds of new homes and a proportional environmental impact. Additionally, the typical suburban big box stores have chosen to locate elsewhere within the Salem metropolitan area, leaving Turner with virtually zero commercial development and giving it the character of a quiet bedroom community.

Under these circumstances, Sawyer wonders where funding for developing stormwater-quality programs might be found. “Even if we were to implement a stormwater development charge for new construction, it would provide only enough funding to deal with the new growth, and we still wouldn’t have the funds to manage or repair existing infrastructure.”

Sawyer says Turner was on septic systems until 2001. “It was around that time that we began to experience a growth spurt tied in with suburban Salem, and we began getting involved with all the issues that accompany growth. We put in a sewer system and in 2002 adopted a storm drainage master plan.”

However, Sawyer says that plan predated the implementation of Oregon’s Phase II permitting process and did not specify stormwater pollution prevention measures. “Though there was no discussion of the six minimum measures at that time, we’re looking at ways to augment the pipe plan to make sure what goes in can be managed and monitored.”

Sawyer says it is a matter of priorities, and making the wrong choice could be costly. From a public service perspective, he says, sewer and water come first, but “stormwater quality is beginning to be seen as a stepping stone in the growth process.”

Finding the Means
Sawyer says the permit’s provision for phased implementation of the six minimum measures provides “some breathing space for smaller communities. It’s a five-year process, and the scale of a small city makes it easier to identify the impacts.” Still, he says meeting the challenge will require some outside resources. “We don’t need $50,000 for a study, just some small things the state can do with just a few hours’ work.” Sawyer suggests this assistance could be provided by a “journeyman assigned by the state to provide technical support to communities on an as-needed basis.”

In the meantime, through partnerships with other agencies as they perform infrastructure improvements in the area, Sawyer has found a few ways to work creatively to stretch Turner’s finances. The Transportation Department, he says, recently received a grant under the Main Streets Initiative to renovate roadways and install bike lanes, streetlights, and benches in the downtown area. “We got together with them and we’ll be able to leverage stormwater work as part of that same project.” He says once the transportation crews have excavated the streets for their other improvements, “All I’ll need to do is pay for some pipe.”

Learning From Each Other
The League of Oregon Cities Task Force is another resource Sawyer expects to draw upon to bolster local capabilities. He says the municipal leagues can also be valuable as representatives lobbying at the state level for more resources and support. “They can speak as a body of 250 cities, not just the City of Turner. They can also help identify potential partners. They may know of somebody in the next county who has been through the process. They can provide opportunities to network, borrow a plan.”

Though Sawyer initially sought an exemption for Turner from the DEQ’s Phase II permitting program, he has developed a productive working relationship with the Oregon DEQ’s stormwater permit specialist, Greg Geist. “I’ve been impressed by the DEQ staff,” says Sawyer. “When I need help, they’ll send someone out. Greg and I spend time discussing the requirements on the phone, and he keeps me up to date on what’s happening with lobbying efforts in the state legislature.”

Geist says the nine months he spent reviewing and issuing permits to the state’s Phase II cities was an educational experience. As he looks forward to reviewing stormwater pollution prevention plans from the permitted cities, he says the education process is ongoing. “We point MS4 [municipal separate storm sewer system] operators in the direction of EPA’s Phase II Web site for online courses and workshops and to the Center for Watershed Protection as a place to get ideas and to see what has worked elsewhere.”