Research team:
Jim Anderson (Co-Principle Investigator) – U. Minnesota, Water Resources Center
John Gulliver (Co-Principle Investigator) – U. Minnesota, Department of Civil Engineering
Larry Baker – U. Minnesota, Water Resources Center
Andrew Erickson – U. Minnesota, St. Anthony Falls Laboratory
Raymond Hozalski – U. Minnesota, Department of Civil Engineering
Omid Mohseni – U. Minnesota, St. Anthony Falls Laboratory
John Nieber – U. Minnesota, Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering
Heinz Stefan – U. Minnesota, Department of Civil Engineering
Ron Struss - U. Minnesota, Extension Service
Peter Weiss –Valparaiso University, Department of Civil Engineering
Bruce N. Wilson – U. Minnesota, Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering
Background
The 1987 Amendments to the Clean Water Act required implementation of a two-phase program to regulate discharges of stormwater. Phase I focused on large construction sites, industrial facilities, and major metropolitan municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s). Phase II expands these regulations to include smaller construction sites, industrial activities in small municipalities, and smaller municipalities. In response to these regulations, municipalities and private firms will spend millions of dollars installing and evaluating stormwater treatment systems or "best management practices" (BMPs) over the next five years. This research project will assist municipalities and other entities (i.e. state agencies, consulting firms, etc.) by developing a stormwater BMP assessment protocol, which incorporates visual inspection and testing of stormwater BMPs. Testing is a potentially time- and cost-saving alternative to monitoring that involves investigation of BMP performance without the need to wait for natural storm events to occur. This research involves laboratory experiments, field experiments, and modeling to develop and evaluate BMP testing procedures for inclusion in a BMP assessment guidance document.
Progress to Date
Significant findings from the work to date include: (1) development, calibration, and evaluation of a new device for measuring the permeability of surface soils in rain gardens and other infiltration BMPs; (2) field evaluation of infiltration testing methods for rain gardens; and (3) development and evaluation of a testing protocol for underground hydrodynamic separators. The work on hydrodynamic separators is described in a journal article (Wilson et al., Journal of Hydraulic Engineering , in review). Three other manuscripts are in preparation. We have also completed the first draft of the stormwater BMP assessment guidance document. Two important contributions described in the guidance document are the four-level assessment approach and the use of field testing as an alternative to monitoring. The four levels of assessment are indicated below, in order of increasing effort:
1) visual inspection,
2) capacity testing,
3) simulated runoff testing, and
4) monitoring.
More information can be found on our project website.
Research Sponsors:
Lab Experiments are used to test and evaluate various devices for measuring infiltration rates (for use in capacity testing) including a Philip-Dunne permeameter (left) and a Minidisk infiltrometer (right). Graduate students Brooke Asleson (left) and Rebecca Nestingen (right) are shown collecting data from the Minidisk device.
Field Experiments are being used to develop and evaluate simulated runoff testing procedures for BMPs including underground proprietary devices.
