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ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY VERIFICATION: DEVELOPMENT OF A PROTOCOL FOR TESTING COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED STORMWATER TREATMENT DEVICES
Citation:
Bachhuber, J. ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY VERIFICATION: DEVELOPMENT OF A PROTOCOL FOR TESTING COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED STORMWATER TREATMENT DEVICES. Presented at 8th National Nonpoint Source Monitoring Workshop, Hartford, CT, 9/11-14/2000.
Description:
Over the past decade, there has been an increasing array of commercially available products for the treatment of nonpoint source pollution from urban stormwater. These products incorporate various approaches to stormwater treatment such as: in-line subsurface treatment chambers, storm sewer inlet inserts, and pre-fabricated filtration systems. Municipal stormwater managers and environmental agencies (local, state, and federal) are faced with various (and often conflicting) manufacturer claims of pollution control efficiency and types of pollutants treated. The decision makers do not have the resources to verify a product's capacity to reduce stormwter pollution. Under the USEPA Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program's Wet-Weather Flow (WWF) Pilot, a protocol is being developed to standardize the testing procedures of commercial products for urban stormwater treatment. The ETV WWF Pilot was initiated in 1998, as a cooperative agreement between the U.S. EPA and the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) International of Ann Arbor, MI, with the purpose of providing verification testing of commercially ready technologies with application to urban WWF. The stormwater tretment systems/devices are among five WWF technology categories designated as the highest priority for the WWF Pilot. For additional information on the ETV Program and the WWF Pilot visit the ETV Internet page (hjttp://www.epa.gov/etv). The purpose of the verification testing program for stormwater treatment systems is to provide watershed managers with consistent, high quality information on which to base decisions regarding the selection and use of stormwater pollution control devices. The analyses and results of each product tested will be made publicly available through a web site. NSF International is responsible for implementing the protocol development and testing program. Earth Tech Inc. is under contract to NSF and is writing the protocol in a cooperative effort with Roger Bannerman of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and Steve Corsi of the U.S. Geological Survey. The major challenges in developing the protocol include: 1) producing scientifically valid results economically; 2) adapting the protocol to be applicable to the various product designs, and 3) fitting the protocol to meet the variety of climatic conditions in the United States. The key monitoring issues standardized by the protocol are: 1) establishment of sampling locations relative to the product's treatment system, 2) selection of the constituents to be analyzed and the analytical methodology, 3) determination of the number of events to be sampled, 4) definition of events to be sampled, 5) QA/QC procedures, 6) sampling methods (automatic, flow-composited), 7) the analysis of data, and 8) the reporting format. Vendors who wish to participate in the ETV program must be willing to contribute financially to the cost of the verification testing and to participate in the development of a test plan following the protocol. Once the test plan is reviewed and approved by the USEPA and NSF International, the test will be conducted by a third party. The results of each testing will be documented in a Verification Report which will describe the testing procedures and results. The results will then be made public. The testing will take place over several years as more vendors participate in the program.