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STORMWATER BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICE MONITORING
Citation:
STRUCK, S. D. STORMWATER BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICE MONITORING. Presented at New Jersey Water Monitoring Workshop, Newark, NJ, April 20, 2006.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
Implementation of an effective BMP monitoring program is not a straight-forward task. BMPs by definition are devices, practices, or methods used to manage stormwater runoff. This umbrella term lumps widely varying techniques into a single category. Also, with the existence of such a wide variety of underlying oftentimes site-specific conditions, a one-size-fits-all approach to BMP monitoring is infeasible. This presentation will introduce the difficulties of BMP monitoring, give current monitoring approaches, discuss how and what to monitor in structural and nonstructural BMPs, and lastly, how to develop an effective monitoring program. Great variability in stormwater properties and the associated runoff complicates BMP monitoring further. Precipitation varies in time, space, and intensity. Stormwater pollutants can be carried into the receiving water system by the precipitation itself (wet deposition) and/or picked up as it flows across surfaces with or without conveyance by man-made or natural drainage channels. Air quality, land use, drainage systems, and geology characteristics are all non-uniform, again leading to temporal and spatial variation concerning stormwater pollutant loads. An effective BMP monitoring program must incorporate this variability to produce reliable data. From a water quality and regulatory perspective, nonpoint sources are recognized as the major contributor to the uncontrolled pollution of the nation’s waters. BMPs are the primary tools used to mitigate the deleterious effects of nonpoint sources on receiving waters, yet there is little evidence that BMPs are meeting their projected goals. Therefore, high quality BMP monitoring programs are an important piece in completing the current picture of the nation’s water quality and making steps toward improvements.