Resources for Phase II Permittees

This part of the website is dedicated to providing resources for the cities and counties in Oklahoma that have Phase I and Phase II stormwater permits, or any other city that may wish to develop a stormwater protection program for their community.  INCOG has assembled and created a substantial amount of material for permittees.  These include model ordinances, PowerPoint presentations on various technical issues, inspection forms, education materials, guidance documents, and summaries of technical issues facing permittees. 

The information on this “yellow” website for permittees will be updated periodically as new material is obtained and developed.  Please refer to this page periodically for technical and resource updates.

What's New

Please check back for updates.

Programs, Guidance, Etc.

APWA Stormwater Certification Program

The American Public Works Association (APWA) has developed a new Certification Program for stormwater managers. “The purpose of the program is to promote excellence in the profession by advancing knowledge and practices in stormwater management. A Certified Stormwater Manager will have understanding and experience in the administration of a stormwater program, use of best practices, hydrology, maintenance and other related areas.”

"APWA's Certified Stormwater Manager Program is an important step forward for clean water and sustainable infrastructure," said Assistant Administrator for Water Benjamin H. Grumbles. "It's helping to raise the bar for stormwater professionals and ensure water utilities are highly effective in meeting current and future needs." To achieve certification, applicants must meet a set of eligibility criteria and pass an examination. APWA will conduct two exam sessions in the coming year, with the first scheduled for May 16th, 2009 in Dallas, Texas. For more information, you can visit http://www.apwa.net/certification .

Center for Watershed Protection – Stormwater Monitoring Guidance

As part of an EPA grant, the Center for Watershed Protection and the University of Alabama prepared six monitoring study designs, outlined in the project's final manual, Monitoring to Demonstrate Environmental Results: Guidance to Develop Local Stormwater Monitoring Studies Using 6 Example Study Designs. This guidance is designed to navigate the stormwater manager through the complexities of implementing a monitoring program so they can be confident in their results and get the most out of their limited stormwater dollars. The six study designs address the following questions:

• What is the quality of the stormwater at the outfall?

• What are the sources of pollutants in stormwater?

• What is the effectiveness of individual stormwater treatment practices in reducing pollutants?

• Do implementation and maintenance factors affect stormwater treatment practice function over time?

• What is the effect of public education programs on water quality?

• What is the cumulative effect of treatment within a watershed?

Each study design covers such essential elements as scoping, budgeting, and staffing needs as well as equipment and sampling requirements. Special issues associated with each monitoring study design are also covered for those unforeseen but inevitable monitoring challenges. This manual is available for free download from the Center for Watershed Protection's website: http://www.cwp.org.

Center for Watershed Protection – Post-Construction Manual

The Center for Watershed Protection has developed a new manual called “Managing Stormwater in Your Community: A Guide for Building an Effective Post-Construction Program.” This manual was developed to assist Phase II communities in developing and building effective post-construction stormwater programs. The manual outlines the major elements of a post-construction program, including the relationship between local land-use decisions and stormwater management. It also covers critical elements such as developing an ordinance and design criteria, implementing a plan review process, establishing a maintenance program, and tracking and evaluating the program. There are also eight related tools, including a self-assessment, model ordinance, manual builder, and more. You can download the manual and tools at www.cwp.org/postconstruction.

Sustainable Stormwater Best Management Practices Web Site

The Water Environment Research Federation (WERF) recently unveiled a new web site that offers the private and public sector creative new ideas on sustainable stormwater practices. The site provides practical tools, frameworks for implementation and planning aids that can be adapted to your community or project. The web site is designed to encourage and facilitate the integration of stormwater best management practices (BMPs) into development projects in your area. Visit the website at: http://www.werf.org/livablecommunities/

EPA Green Parking Lot Guidance

A new guidance document is available from EPA Headquarters as part of the Green Infrastructure educational material. This guidance will be useful whether you are retrofitting established areas, newly developing along the urban fringe or, transforming newly "discovered" rural communities and open space. Making this available to municipal employees for review can also be part of phase II stormwater employee education material. The document can be downloaded from the Oklahoma Stream Team website at http://www.streamteamok.net/Doc_link/Green Parking Lot Guide (final).PDF. Also, please refer to other links to websites and documents regarding LID and stream restoration on the OST website.

Resources for Development of Water Quality Management Plans

Spreadsheet Tool for Estimating Pollutant Load (STEPL) employs simple algorithms to calculate nutrient and sediment loads from different land uses and the load reductions that would result from the implementation of various best management practices (BMPs).STEPL provides a user-friendly Visual Basic (VB) interface to create a customized spreadsheet-based model in Microsoft (MS) Excel. It computes watershed surface runoff; nutrient loads, including nitrogen, phosphorus, and 5-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5); and sediment delivery based on various land uses and management practices. For each watershed, the annual nutrient loading is calculated based on the runoff volume and the pollutant concentrations in the runoff water as influenced by factors such as the land use distribution and management practices. The annual sediment load (sheet and rill erosion only) is calculated based on the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and the sediment delivery ratio. The sediment and pollutant load reductions that result from the implementation of BMPs are computed using the known BMP efficiencies.  The model can be found at http://it.tetratech-ffx.com/stepl/

A companion software tool for use with AVGWLF has been developed for evaluating the implementation of both agricultural and non-agricultural pollution reduction strategies at the watershed level. This new tool, called PRedICT (Pollution Reduction Impact Comparison Tool), allows the user to create various “scenarios” in which current landscape conditions and pollutant loads (both point and non-point) can be compared against “future” conditions that reflect the use of different pollution reduction strategies (best management practices) such as agricultural and urban BMPs, the conversion of septic systems to centralized wastewater treatment, and upgrading of treatment plants from primary to secondary to tertiary. This tool includes pollutant reduction coefficients for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment, and also has built-in cost information for an assortment of pollution mitigation techniques. Two different cost-accounting approaches are used in the present version to help a user identify the most efficient reduction strategy in terms of both pollution reduction and cost. While information for PRedICT can be compiled manually, the most efficient way to accomplish this task is to use the AVGWLF watershed modeling system. Among others things, this tool automatically creates a “scenario” file that can be used as input to PRedICT. This input file contains useful information on watershed conditions and pollutant loads that can serve as the “initial” conditions from which future scenarios can be developed.  The model can be found at www.predict.psu.edu

Urban BMP Performance Tool

EPA has created a web-based tool (no document) to provide stormwater professionals with easy access to approximately 220 studies assessing the performance of over 275 stormwater BMPs. The Tool provides access to studies covering a variety of traditional and low impact BMP types, including retention and detention ponds, biofilters, grassed filter strips, porous pavement, wetlands, and others. Users will also find a series of essays aimed at improving understanding of BMP performance and the importance of volume reduction/infiltration in these assessments.

EPA plans to add more studies to this Tool over the coming year, focusing on expanding the collection of studies of low impact development or green infrastructure BMPs. The Urban BMP Performance Tool can be accessed at http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater/urbanbmp/bmpeffectiveness.cfm  

Reducing Stormwater Costs through Low Impact Development (LID) Strategies and Practices

Publication Number EPA 841-F-07-006, December 2007

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a new report "Reducing Stormwater Costs through Low Impact Development (LID) Strategies and Practices," which contains 17 case studies from across North America that show the economic viability of LID practices. Using these practices in construction projects can lower costs while improving environmental results.  LID practices are innovative stormwater management practices to manage urban stormwater runoff at its source. The goal is to mimic the way water moved through an area before it was developed by using design techniques that infiltrate, evapo-transpirate, and reuse runoff close to its source. Some common LID practices include rain gardens, grassed swales, cisterns, rain barrels, permeable pavements and green roofs. LID practices increasingly are used by communities across the country to help protect and restore water quality.  The report highlights examples that, in most cases, reduce project costs while improving environmental performance. Total capital savings ranged from 15 to 80 percent, with a few exceptions in which LID project costs were higher than conventional stormwater management costs. As LID practices become more common, it is likely that they will become cheaper to use.  This report provides information to cities, counties, states, private-sector developers and others on the costs and benefits of using Low Impact Development (LID) strategies and practices to help protect and restore water quality.  To download the document, question and answers sheet, and a fact sheet, visit the website at:  http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/lid/costs07/

EPA - NPDES Contacts

This EPA website provides contact information and links to stormwater regulatory resources for EPA headquarters, EPA regions and for each State's permitting authority.

http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/contacts.cfm?program_id=6&type=ALL

Revised August 10, 2010