Stormwater Work Group

Next meetings

The Stormwater Work Group meetings in 2023 are scheduled on Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.: Feb. 8, May 17, Sept. 13, and Nov. 15. All meeting agendas, materials, and summaries are sent out via email (see more info below).

An innovative approach to stormwater monitoring

Local governments in Western Washington spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year implementing the requirements of municipal stormwater National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits. How do we know if the permits are working?

Most NPDES permits require compliance monitoring. But in contrast to controlled sources which often come from the end of a pipe, municipal stormwater permits apply across continuous, "nonpoint" landscape with thousands of property owners. The virtually unlimited public access to municipal stormwater infrastructure makes these systems especially challenging to monitor.

Permittees asked Ecology for a different approach to monitoring. In 2008 the Stormwater Work Group was convened. Over the first eight years of this process, hundreds of individuals representing dozens of organizations participated in 70 formal stakeholder meetings, dozens of additional targeted discussions, and five public workshops as part of the process to develop and implement a new, coordinated monitoring program.

Stormwater Work Group's role in stormwater monitoring

The Stormwater Work Group continues to meet four times per year to implement, improve, and expand the regional stormwater monitoring program. The group strives for consensus around a cooperative program that leverages existing programs, scientific expertise, and other capacity to improve our understanding of stormwater impacts and evaluate the effectiveness of stormwater management actions.

The Stormwater Work Group sets priorities and oversees the budget for Stormwater Action Monitoring, the regional stormwater monitoring program implemented through the municipal stormwater permits. We want to know whether conditions are getting better or worse, whether we are protecting key resources, and whether our programs are effective at achieving desired results.