Stormwater Action Monitoring — source identification

Spills to the stormwater system can be reported to local and state governments in a variety of ways. SAM funded King County to investigate alternatives and feasibility analysis on whether a regional or statewide 'hotline' could be used to gather all the spill information in one place.

Scope of work; Regional spill hotline FAQs​; Amendment 1

Results

• Implementation of a multi-jurisdiction regional spill reporting system is technically feasible. Multiple vendors can provide accessible, cloud-based products with desired features including geodynamic routing, data standardization, and two-way communication with the public.
• Implementation of a regional spill reporting system could streamline Municipal NPDES Permit annual reporting activities and promote regional analysis while allowing local spill response procedures to remain in place.
• Based on the survey and interviews, the idea of implementing a regional spill reporting system is not broadly supported by most jurisdictions or state agencies as most use Ecology’s Environmental Report Tracking System (ERTS) for regional spill reporting despite limitied ability to coordinate cross jursiditions.
• Smaller regionalization efforts are recommended for those jurisdictions that want to work together to promote equity, accessibility, efficiency with geo-dynamic routing, map integration, data standardization, and 2-way communications.

Key Project Deliverables

• Systems research: Interview report, Technical memo and options matrix
• Data Analysis:  Final Spill hotline feasibility report and appendices
• SWG Presentation Nov 2020 
• SAM Fact Sheet #23 Regional Spill Hotline Feasibility Study

Illicit discharge detection and elimination (IDDE) incidents are recorded by Western Washington municipal stormwater permittees in many formats. The first SAM source identification project compiled the IDDE incidents reported to Ecology from 2014 into a dataset of almost 3,000 incidents. This represents a first step in capturing the breadth and scale of incident investigation work.

• IDDE Final Report
• SAM Fact Sheet #005

Key findings

• A wide variety of methods are used by permittees to report IDDE efforts to Ecology, requiring a significant effort to compile and learn about local efforts, resource needs, and common solutions. Standardization of reporting is recommended; for example, by spreadsheet.
• Municipal stormwater staff invest a substantial amount of time investigating and addressing potential incidents. Response is quick, usually within one to three days.
• The most common stormwater problems were:
  • Petroleum hydrocarbons and other vehicle fluids — often from accidents
  • Sediment from construction sites
  • Chemicals from industrial activities
  • Sewage from illicit connections
• Most incidents were reported to local governments via hotlines or citizen calls. A significant number of incidents investigated were not illicit discharges, but allowable discharges. Permittees will continue to spend time and effort on such calls.

In 2016-17 the Stormwater Work Group's Source Identification Subgroup revised the illicit discharge detection and elimination (IDDE) recommendations for which fields should be in the form for consideration by Ecology's permit managers. This revision should help standardize data collection for the next permit cycle.

King County and subconsultants led this 2020 update to the Illicit Connection and Illicit Discharge (IC-ID) Field Screening and Source Tracing Guidance Manual (IC-ID Manual), which was originally published in 2013.

Scope of work, Amendment 1

Study findings

The updated IC-ID Manual provides municipal stormwater professionals across the region with widely-used information in an accessible format for screening, identifying, and tracing the sources of stormwater pollution. Trainings on the updated IC-ID Manual provided a refresher for existing personnel, and new additional training resources (five short videos showing techniques) will to help train future personnel on the updated manual. 

Key project deliverables

• Presentation to SWG June 2020
• Final updated IC/ID manual and examples forms in appendix B and on the Washington Stormwater Center ICID website.
• SAM Fact Sheet #21 2020 Update to the IC-ID field screening manual

Visit the IC-ID videos at the Washington Stormwater Center's YouTube Channel for staff training and techniques on MS4 screening and pollution source identification.