Adopt-A-Drain: A Multi-jurisdictional Stormwater Education Campaign
Presenters – Sarah Norberg, City of Tacoma, Tally Greulich, City of Redmond
The Adopt-A-Storm Drain (AAD) program is a stewardship and behavior change opportunity that encourages community members to take regular and sustained actions to prevent flooding and reduce stormwater runoff pollution through the simple action of clearing their storm drain twice a month. This presentation will provide an overview of the AAD program, challenges and success stories experienced by currently enrolled municipalities, and information on how to participate.
Right-Sized Public Outreach
Presenters – Julie Brandt, Parametrix
This presentation will highlight online tools like GIS story maps and equity dashboards, why timing matters, how to increase inclusion in your outreach, and lessons learned about pitfalls (both logistical and legal) to watch out for. We’ll show you how to showcase data you already have and access additional equity information that is readily available, and specific examples from the Cities of Renton, Des Moines, Bothell, and Camas will be used.
Translation Services in the Field and Beyond
Presenters – Erik Lust & Heidi Zarghami, Seattle Public Utilities
It can be hard to predict when translation services will be needed when working in the field conducting business inspections or other related stormwater investigations. Set your team up to provide equitable education and outreach services to your city residents with this introductory course to in-field translation services. This presentation will cover how to choose a translation service, establish supportive translation resources, and provide training for field staff.
SPU RV Wastewater Program and Data-Driven Interventions
Presenters – Chris Wilkerson, Seattle Public Works
Presenters – Chris Wilkerson, Seattle Public Works Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) RV Wastewater Program was initiated in 2020 as a response to an increasing frequency and severity of spills of sewage from recreational vehicles. Over the last three years, SPU has created a successful program that proactively collects wastewater from unhoused vehicle residents to prevent spills and improve water quality and public health. This presentation will focus on how we incorporate data collection into our process and how that information may be utilized to create community consensus to support interventions related to the mitigation of the harms associated with homelessness.
Follow the Water: Building an Interstate Public Awareness Campaign
Presenters – Eric Lambert, Clark County
In 2020, Clark County joined the Clean Rivers Coalition (CRC), a statewide Oregon-based group of municipalities, agencies, and non-profits working on water awareness and behavior change topics. Seeking to give a ‘voice to water’, in 2022 the CRC launched the public awareness campaign Follow the Water. This presentation will discuss how the CRC’s values-based and regional approach has helped Southwest Washington overcome challenges in accessing mass media and developing high-quality content essential for successful public awareness campaigns.
Street Sweeping: Wash-off + Flow-off Pollutant Reductions
Presenters – Shelly Basketfield, Seattle Public Utilities
Measuring street sweeping effectiveness in stormwater is challenging. A trend towards performance-based monitoring, measuring both wash- and blow-off load reductions, provides a practical alternative. We collected sweeping samples (n=256, n=4+ for 6PPD-q), representing whole environment reductions (water/sediment, land, and air), and applied a wash-off model to estimate direct wash-off reductions. FINDINGS: (1) Preliminary 6PPD-q results show promise; (2) Direct wash-off load reductions likely under-represent sweeping performance by four to eight times; and (3) Seattle’s whole environment dry season average pickup rates of 7.3, 49, and 20 gm/curb-mile for copper, phosphorus, and zinc, respectively may be applicable to urban eastern Washington.
Study Design for Swales: Fun with Swales!!!
Presenters – Chris Gustafson & Kevin Brandhorst, WSDOT
For the past decade, WSDOT has been designing water quality studies at various Bioswales. These studies have been plagued with difficulties and provided many lessons learned. WSDOT has now used these lessons to create a study methodology and site selection strategy that can be applied to bioswales and potentially other ephemeral stormwater BMPs. The unique hydraulics of bioswales caused challenges in collecting scientifically sound, single-storm event, composite samples. The slow-flowing, flat profiles of swales pushed the capabilities of volume and flow measuring technologies (WSDOT utilized flumes over weirs to minimize back watering). Using past failures, WSDOT was able to develop a site selection process and sampling methodology that ensures accurate hydrological data collection is possible at any study site.
Performance of a Non-Vegetated Filtration Swale BMP
Presenters – Taylor Hoffman-Ballard, Evergreen StormH2O
Non-vegetated BMPs would benefit permittees statewide that are located in areas with hot and dry summers by providing a BMP option that does not require a supplemental water source. In particular, biofiltration swales include vegetation that requires irrigation and the cost to construct and operate irrigation systems adds to the overall expense of a BMP and consumes water that could have a higher beneficial use. In response to this need, Eastern Washington jurisdictions* conducted an effectiveness study evaluating a non-vegetated filtration swale to fulfill Eastern Washington MS4 Permit Requirements in S8.A Monitoring & Assessment. This presentation will summarize the development of the study design involving controlled field tests in West Richland, the treatment performance of the BMP, the estimated maintenance needs, and lessons learned during the study. At the time this abstract was submitted, the data collection phase of work was complete, and the data analysis is underway. If the BMP meets basic treatment performance goals, a modification to the Ecology-approved biofiltration swale design guidance will be recommended to include an option for non-vegetated filtration swales.
Chemical Properties, Fate, and Treatment of 6PPD-Quinone
Presenters – Ximin Hu, University of Washington
In the U.S. Pacific Northwest, one species of salmon, (coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch), annually exhibits previously unexplained acute mortality upon stormwater exposure when adult salmon migrate to near urban creeks to spawn. We subsequently identified the transformation product “6PPD-quinone” of the globally ubiquitous tire rubber antioxidant 6PPD as the primary causal toxicant for coho salmon mortality. Subsequent research efforts have shown that this compound is ubiquitous in roadway environments and highly toxic to several species of fish. Here, we describe some of our recent research efforts to describe the chemical properties of 6PPD-quinone and its environmental occurrence and fate. Additional results related to the treatment of roadway runoff in several representative treatment systems will also be presented.
