StormCon, the North American Surface Water Quality Conference & Expo, is now accepting abstracts for presentation at the 2011 conference. The conference will be held in Anaheim, CA, August 21 – 25, 2011. Abstracts are due December 14, 2010, and can be submitted online at www.StormCon.com.
This is a pivotal year to take part. This will be the tenth StormCon conference, and those 10 years have seen some earthshaking changes in the industry and the regulatory landscape.
When the first StormCon took place in 2002, Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System was not yet in effect, although the cities that would be covered by Phase II permits were gearing up to meet the new requirements that were then about eight months away. How to comply, how to fund the many fledgling municipal stormwater programs that were sprouting across the country, and how best to deploy the new technologies coming onto the market were all hot topics of discussion at that first conference.
Ten years on, when our industry has been shaped in many ways by Phase II, a host of new and still-evolving regulations are on the horizon. The EPA has issued—and is now revising—its effluent limitation guidelines for construction sites; how we will meet those guidelines, in terms of BMPs, monitoring requirements, and enforcement, is still very much an open question. EPA is also taking a close look at the entire structure of the national stormwater program, potentially moving toward watershed-based permitting, and that also has the potential to change the way we work from day to day. These will be among the hot topics of StormCon 2011.
StormCon 2011 will have seven conference tracks dealing with all aspects of stormwater technology, permitting, and enforcement, including two tracks that are new to the conference for 2011.
BMP Case Studies focuses on structural and nonstructural best management practices, including combinations of BMPs to achieve water-quality goals.
Green Infrastructure—previously called the Low-Impact Development track—includes not only lot-level LID techniques but also comprehensive smart growth and green infrastructure strategies for community-wide and watershed-scale water-quality protection.
Stormwater Program Management includes the many different aspects of running a successful stormwater program, such as funding, public education and outreach, staffing, and regulatory compliance.
Water-Quality Monitoring focuses on water-quality assessment, monitoring and sampling techniques, and modeling practices.
Advanced Research Topics includes academic research, methods of testing the effectiveness of BMPs and comparing different BMPs, and trends in stormwater research such as standardizing testing protocols.
Two tracks have been added this year:
Erosion and Sediment Control is intended for professionals who specify or carry out erosion and sediment control practices on construction sites, as well as those involved in the long-term stabilization of streams, channels, slopes, and roadside projects. Topics in this track include construction-site inspections, creating and maintaining stormwater pollution prevention plans, and complying with the new effluent limitation guidelines.
Industrial Stormwater Management covers public and privately owned facilities covered by industrial stormwater permits or EPA’s stormwater multi-sector general permit. Such facilities range from small business in urban areas to manufacturing operations, mining operations, landfills, oil and gas facilities, and transportation facilities.