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Runoff Rundown |
Welcome to the 20th issue of Runoff Rundown, the Center for Watershed Protection's quarterly electronic newsletter!
STAFF NEWS:
We hope that everyone enjoyed the summer. This season, however, has proven much more devastating weather-wise, and has undoubtedly kept most of you extremely busy. We have continued to press through our many projects and are very pleased to add a few new team members to help take on our many tasks. We have a new financial officer, Lindey Brown, who comes to us with 20 years of experience both as an accountant and as a catering chef, the latter proving to be the deciding factor in her hiring (just kidding). We are also joined by Lani Nguyen, our Administrative Assistant, who splits her time between us and her pursuit of a Masters in Organizational Psychology – we’re waiting to have the Center show up in one of her research papers! And just last week, David Hirschman came on board as our Water Resources Specialist. Dave has a Masters in Urban Affairs & Planning from Virginia Tech and over 20 years of experience in the local government, university, non-profit, and private consulting environments providing expertise on water resources and land use management, stormwater retrofit project design, and much more. We are also pleased to have Watershed Analyst Neely Law return, even if part-time, from maternity leave. Welcome to everyone!
| Manual 2 of the Urban Subwatershed Restoration Series Released last month is the much anticipated Manual 2: Methods to Develop Restoration Plans for Small Urban Watersheds. Joining Manuals 1, 4, 8, 10, and 11, Manual 2 helps tie the others together and provides a step-by-step approach to developing a restoration plan. This manual is available in PDF for immediate download, in hard copy, or through the end of October, available as a bundle for a significantly reduced rate. Click here to order: http://www.cwp.org/PublicationStore/USRM.htm |
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| New Teaching Modules Available The Center has recently bundled our most popular manuals with slideshow presentations and exercises from our workshops to create teaching modules ready for the university instructor’s lecture or lab coursework on a variety of topics including Better Site Design, and Rapid Watershed Planning. Many will find however, that they are useful for any training environment. For more information, click here: http://www.cwp.org/PublicationStore/modules.htm |
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Annual Report |
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PROJECT UPDATES:
What We're Wrapping Up:
The Center recently drafted a guide for developing watershed plans in Maryland for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The Maryland Watershed Planning User's Guide provides a common planning framework for Maryland communities, assembles planning resources into one place, integrates regulatory drivers, and presents the methods necessary for completing a watershed plan. The guide represents a compilation of information gathered from 25 interviews with state agency program managers and local government staff and incorporates a review of more than 47 local watershed planning surveys. Completion of the guide is anticipated by the end of 2005.
In April, Runoff Rundown reported on our collaboration with the EPA Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds to better integrate wetland protection tools into the Center's local watershed protection message. The research phase is complete, and the staff is well into the production phase: two of the three articles have been drafted, and the website featuring wetland resources, links, and other information is set to be launched by the end of the year.
The Center’s Smart Watersheds Benchmarking Tool is another project that is slated to be complete in the next few months. See below for the feature article on this project.
What We're Working On:
Are you an MS4 community? Want to help the Center with research on post-construction stormwater programs? The Center for Watershed Protection is asking for your help with a project that will benefit Phase II communities across the country. We have just launched an online research tool for our Post-Construction Stormwater Management Program Research project to collect information from communities in order to better understand key aspects of establishing an effective post-construction stormwater management program. The tool deals with stormwater plan review process, budgets, post-construction design criteria, and inspections and other key stormwater program issues. The information provided will be used to develop guidance on the basic building blocks of a successful post-construction stormwater program and include examples of how local communities across the country are tackling this difficult issue. To participate in the online research tool, click here - https://websurveyor.net/wsb.dll/35365/pcresearch.htm.
As part of our community watersheds program, Center staff have spent the last few months working with the James River Association on a vulnerability analysis for the James River Watershed in Virginia. The goal of this project is to take a very large and complex river basin and identify the most critical watersheds, from a pollution and conservation perspective, for future watershed planning efforts. The project's outcomes will encourage basin level watershed planning and identify watersheds critical for restoration and protection. The project will be completed in the spring of 2006. See below for other updates on community watersheds projects.
A model nutrient loading assessment was recently completed for two priority subwatersheds in the Murderkill watershed of Kent County, DE. The Center, working with MSD Associates and Sympoetica, estimated potential future development impacts based on projected land use conversion over the next 20 years and analyzed a database of existing farm best management practices (BMPs). The goal was to use the spreadsheet-based Watershed Treatment Model (WTM) to estimate existing and future nutrient loads in these subwatersheds from both agricultural and urban land uses. Nutrient load reductions were also estimated based on future implementation of various BMPs for agricultural and urban land uses. Results of the WTM indicate that the majority of the nutrient loads in these subwatersheds are from cropland (with more minor sources being septic systems and lawns), and that the most effective nutrient reductions can be expected by implementing appropriate farm BMPs rather than extensive urban treatment practices.
Visited the EPA’s Watershed Academy recently? The list of online training modules is about to get longer as the Center completes its four slideshows on Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination Methods. The modules, covering IDDE "Programmatic Components", "Field & Lab Methods", "Generating Sites", and "Finding & Fixing," are expected to be launched later this year. You can check out the existing modules now by visiting: http://www.epa.gov/watertrain/
What We're Starting:
In July, we mentioned that the Center had many new Community Watershed Partnerships starting. We’d like to update everyone on a few of them:
In September, the Center traveled to Pennsylvania to do fieldwork with the Antietam Watershed Association (AWA), the first step to develop a watershed management plan with them. This watershed is chiefly agricultural and to a lesser degree residential, though the relatively pristine headwaters are forested and located on South Mountain. The watershed has a large presence of Mennonite and religious sect farmers who do not frequently participate in government cost-share programs. As a result, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the AWA are taking an active role in reaching out directly to the farmers and assisting them to implement stream fencing and riparian reforestation projects. Since the area is also experiencing rapid growth, the plan will incorporate stormwater retrofits and other restoration plans for the more urban areas around Waynesboro. The fieldwork results and recommendations will help AWA and CBF better focus and target their restoration efforts. The technical memo will be released by the end of the year and discussed at a public forum.
| The Center and members of the Port Tobacco River Conservancy assessed the stream corridor and upland areas of a small tributary in the La Plata area in August. The watershed covers approximately one square mile, is diverse in its level of development, and poses a unique challenge with both tornado destruction in the La Plata region and an augmented baseflow from wastewater treatment plant discharge. During fieldwork, we identified five possible retrofits and more than 10 smaller restoration sites in the watershed. The Center plans to complete the plan later this fall, after which a demonstration project will be selected and implemented in the spring. |  CWP Engineer Sally Hoyt is assessing the physical characteristics of the stream |
Working with the Beaver Creek Watershed Association, the Center is completing a watershed assessment and watershed plan for Beaver Creek, a trout stream in the Antietam watershed in western Maryland. Priority projects in Beaver Creek are now being identified following the recent completion of fieldwork that included stream and forest assessments and the identification of stormwater retrofit sites. The final Beaver Creek Watershed Assessment and Protection Plan will be completed by the spring of next year.
The Center is working with the Spa Creek Conservancy (SCC) to identify potential restoration sites within the headwaters of the creek. As part of this process, on the first of October, Center staff braved another Saturday morning workshop where they trained volunteers from the SCC and the City of Annapolis on stream assessment methods and then led them into the field to walk the headwaters of Spa Creek. |
 Workshop attendees take time out for lunch! |
FEATURED ARTICLE:
Putting the IDDE into practice – The Center reports its news to the world!
Center staff Sally Hoyt and Julie Tasillo made three presentations during the 2005 Pennsylvania Stormwater Management Symposium hosted by the Villanova Urban Stormwater Partnership earlier this month. Along with presenting the Stormwater Pond and Wetland maintenance guidebook we covered in July’s issue, Center staff presented a paper entitled “Methods for Detecting Illicit Discharges in the Field.” While the paper described the key points of the IDDE Manual and its relevance for both Phase I and Phase II communities, it also focused on recommended field procedures for communities with limited expertise to pursue in association with meeting the NPDES IDDE permit requirements. Guidance was provided on the outfall reconnaissance inventory (ORI) and post processing and prioritization, recommending an approach that is relatively rapid, simple, safe, and cost-effective. Also included was a case study of fieldwork that the Center conducted to test the ORI methods in the Scotts Level Branch Watershed in Baltimore County, Maryland. The article can be reached on our site by clicking here: http://www.cwp.org/RR_Photos/PA_SW_Symposium_IDDE.pdf
Villanova University also provided a webcast (hence the “world” reference in this article’s title) of this symposium so that anyone can view a video showing the speaker and the slide presentation for all of the sessions of this conference. The session that included the IDDE presentation as well as the stormwater pond maintenance was Wednesday's “Operation and Maintenance” session. The video can be launched by going here and clicking on "Part 5" next to the title of the session. To launch the presentation directly, click here. Sally’s presentation on Pond Maintenance begins the webcast and Julie’s presentation can be started by clicking on the first slide of her presentation in the slide listing.
(Non-HTML users can visit the home page of the conference here: http://egrfaculty.villanova.edu/public/Civil_Environmental/WREE/VUSP_2005_Sym/Web/index.htm)
FEATURED ARTICLE:
Smart Watersheds Benchmarking Tool
The Center continues its work on the Smart Watersheds project to develop a tool that will assist municipal program managers in evaluating how well they implement and integrate fourteen key watershed restoration program areas, such as Stream and Subwatershed Field Assessment, Management of Natural Area Remnants, and Illicit Discharges Detection and Elimination, into a coherent strategy to treat stormwater runoff and restore urban watersheds. This past summer, Center Staff applied the tool to various municipalities around the country including Austin, TX, Santa Monica, CA, Baltimore County, MD and Cary, NC, to evaluate the adaptability and applicability of these watershed restoration program benchmarks.
In Santa Monica, a highly urban area, staff found that one of the City's greatest strengths is the Urban Runoff program which demonstrated a genuine commitment by the City to the concept of sustainability. Efforts to promote sustainability in the City have resulted in project work in many of the 14 smart watershed programs, including pollution prevention, natural area preservation and management, and resource conservation and reuse. The City has stressed an effort to promote permeability as a way to deal with urban runoff, and programs such as Green Streets and permeable pavement have helped efforts toward meeting this goal.
In Austin, an area known for its lush natural resources, the Center discovered that the city has a history closely tied to its watersheds and the protection of Barton Springs as a unique resource. Austin's well-developed watershed monitoring program includes regular monitoring of all watersheds, as well as sentinel monitoring stations using their own Environmental Integrity Index. Since 2001, Austin has implemented a systematic subwatershed restoration planning approach.
Baltimore County, MD is making great strides in involving the public with watershed assessments and developing small watershed restoration action plans, and Cary, NC is developing creative approaches to using GIS in its Phase II program, including neighborhood outfall screening, and in delivering direct services to residents such as curbside used oil pick-up. The results of the community testing are being used to refine the Smart Watersheds tool. The final tool and program profile sheets that include tips for building and refining programs, along with numerous resources, will be completed in January.
UPCOMING INSTITUTES:
Stormwater Institute, November 14-17, Lansdowne, VA – In a few short weeks, we will be heading to Virginia to hold a three-day Stormwater Institute. With registration having filled up in just two weeks, and the wait list having to be pulled shortly thereafter, we are encouraged that this will be a hugely successful institute geared especially for the Phase II community stormwater professional.
Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination Train-the-Trainer Program, November 17-18, Lansdowne, VA - The Center, in cooperation with EPA, is sponsoring a two-day program on Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination. The event is aimed at developing a group of IDDE trainers around the country that will be available to assist smaller communities as they develop and implement the Phase II stormwater requirements, of which IDDE is one. This training is open to approximately 25 participants, and a few spaces are still available to stormwater professionals, including EPA, state, and local government employees, as well as consultants and employees of non-profits. Participants are expected to make themselves available to Phase II communities and others who are seeking training on various aspects of the IDDE program and will be listed on the NPDES website as IDDE trainers. For information on how to register, contact Jessica Brooks at jeb@cwp.org, 410-461-8323 no later than October 27th.
Mini-Watershed Institute at River Rally, May 5-9 2006, Bretton Woods, NH - Join us at River Network's River Rally 2006 for special watershed planning track. While training details are not firm yet, we are leaning towards a hands-on watershed planning and assessment focus.
For more info: http://www.rivernetwork.org/rally/index.cfm
2006 Watershed Institute, Fall, Midwestern U.S. - Interested in protection or restoring your water resources? Want to learn how to complete a watershed plan from soup to nuts? If so, attend the Center for Watershed Protection's 2006 Watershed Institute.
Responding to Institute participant feedback, the Center is making this next Institute cover both Watershed Protection and Restoration methods. We will be identifying a location for the Institute in the next few months.
The intensive four-day program will focus on:
- detailed guidance on how to put together an effective plan
- practical, comprehensive information on watershed planning techniques
- assessing and identifying protection and restoration opportunities
Look for details in January, early enough to allow watershed groups time to seek funding to participate in this exciting event!
ARTICLE: A landmark study addressing the salinization of the Northeastern fresh water sources was released in PNAS – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and we are pleased to report that Center Board Member Bill Stack, of the Baltimore Department of Public Works, is one of the article’s authors. Entitled “Increased salinization of fresh water in the northeastern United States,” the article is available through the PNAS website: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/102/38/13517 (abstract is free, full text requires membership)
ARTICLE: Past Stormwater Institute speaker Andy Reese has an article featured in Stormwater Magazine’s latest issue entitled “Municipal Stormwater System Maintenance” Full article can be accessed here: http://www.stormh2o.com/sw_0509_municipal.html
ONLINE FORUM: In July, the EPA Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds launched a new on-line interactive Watershed Discussion Forum, http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/forum/forum.html and includes discussion topics such as Invasive Species, Smart Growth, and Storm Water BMP’s. This EPA office continues to hold Watershed Academy Webcasts on a variety of issues. Click here for information on the latest seminar - http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/wacademy/webcasts/
WEBSITE: The U.S. National Academies has launched its Water Information Center, a portal of more than 100 peer-reviewed reports from the National Academies on water-related issues. The website (http://water.nationalacademies.org) aims to assist the work of water scientists, engineers, managers, policy-makers, and students throughout the world. These reports represent independent and objective consensus among experts from academia, industry, and other entities and includes topics such as Water and Soil Remediation and Environmental Assessment, Management, and Restoration.
WORKSHOP: 8th Annual Wetlands and Watersheds Workshop: Aquatic Systems and Water Quality, October 25-28, 2005, Holiday Inn Boardwalk, Atlantic City, NJ. Wetlands & Watersheds Work Group. http://www.wetlandsworkgroup.org/wetreg7/7th_workshop.htm (Center Staff Karen Cappiella and Tiffany Wright presented)
CONFERENCE: Flows for the Future: 2005 Environmental Flows Conference, October 31-November 2, 2005, Texas State University - San Marcos, San Marcos, TX. The River Systems Institute. http://rivers.txstate.edu/flows2005/
CONFERENCE: Brownfields 2005: Reaching New Heights in Redevelopment, November 2-4, 2005, Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO. Environmental Protection Agency and the International City/County Management Association. http://www.brownfields2005.org/en/index.aspx
CONFERENCE: Watershed Strategies for a New Era: Protecting the Environment & the Bottom Line, November 2-4, 2005, Holiday Inn-University Plaza, Bowling Green, KY. Southeast Watershed Forum and the third annual Kentucky Watershed Forum. http://www.southeastwaterforum.org/news/item.asp?id=311
CONFERENCE: Lake Æffects: Exploring the Relationship between People and Water, November 9-11, 2005, Madison, WI. North American Lake Management Society http://www.nalms.org/symposia/madison/index.htm (Center Director of Watershed Research and Practices Tom Schueler will be presenting)
CONFERENCE: Integrated Restoration of Riverine Wetlands, Streams, Riparian Areas, and Floodplains in Watershed Contexts, November 15-16, 2005, Amherst, MA. Association of State Wetland Managers and the Institute for Wetland Science and Public Policy http://www.aswm.org/calendar/integratingrest/integratedrest.htm (Center Staff Julie Tasillo will be presenting)
CONFERENCE: 2005 National Conference on Urban Ecosystems, November 17-18, 2005, Westin Hotel, Charlotte, North Carolina. American Forests. http://www.americanforest.org/conference/
WORKSHOP: Stormwater Funding and Utility Development / BMPs: Pollutants, Selection and Maintenance Workshops November 30–December 2, 2005, Nashville Marriott, Nashville, TN. StormCon. http://www.forester.net/stormcon/nashville/index.html
SYMPOSIUM: CALL FOR PAPERS- Safe Drinking Water: Where Science Meets Policy, March 16 and 17, 2006, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, Carolina Environmental Program/Drinking Water Research Center/Environmental Finance Center USA. http://www.cep.unc.edu/symposium/2006/index.html
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