Building Partnerships for Clean Water
November 13 & 14, 2017
The Penn Stater Conference Center
State College, PA
Co-sponsored by Pennsylvania's leading organizations representing the state's water
and wastewater industries.
Stormwater continues to demand more attention and resources from municipal and environmental professionals across Pennsylvania in order to meet regulatory requirements and improve water quality. Moving into the next decade, the need for affordable and sustainable stormwater management will require practitioners to avoid thinking in the silos of water, wastewater, and stormwater services, and take a unified approach to managing all of our water resources.
That is why PWEA, PMAA, and PA-AWWA have joined together in presenting an integrated approach to water resource management. The Pennsylvania Stormwater Management Summit: Building Partnerships for Clean Water includes presentations on regional planning, sediment reduction, permit compliance, and multidisciplinary method to water management.
Schedule:
Monday, November 13, 2017
8:30 – 9:30 am: Registration and Welcome Hour with Exhibitors
9:30 – 9:35 am: Welcome
Nathan Walker, AICP, Amec Foster Wheeler, PWEA Stormwater Committee Chair
9:35 – 10:00 am: Keynote Presentation - Navigating the Changing Regulatory Landscape
Chris French, Director of the Water Environment Federation’s Stormwater Institute
The diversity of national and state stormwater regulations and permit programs can provide opportunities for agile stormwater professionals to protect our water resources. In addition, financing stormwater programs is one of the greatest challenges facing the stormwater sector today. Chris will provide an overview on current stormwater regulation and funding trends and what this could mean for the future.
10:00 – 10:30 am: Legal and Regulatory Requirements Applicable to Municipal Stormwater Programs
Steven A. Hann, Esquire (PMAA East Region Solicitor), Hamburg, Rubin, Mullin, Maxwell & Lupin, P.C.
Implementing a successful Municipal Stormwater Program is dependent upon an understanding of the Federal/ State legal and regulatory requirements related to stormwater. This presentation will provide attendees with a basic understanding of such requirements, and address compliance issues and options that are germane to a municipality’s stormwater obligations.
10:30 – 11:00 am: Lessons Learned in Improving TMDL and Pollutant Reduction Plans
Beth Uhler, Cedarville Engineering Group, LLC
TMDL and Pollutant Reduction Plans should contain BMPs that are practical, economical, and environmentally beneficial, while addressing the regulatory thresholds. This presentation will share lessons learned in improving these continually evolving documents by comparing and contrasting challenges in urban, suburban, and more rural MS4 case studies.
11:00 – 11:15 am: Break with Exhibitors
11:15 – 11:45 am: Cloudburst Analysis: Tools and Methods
Zachary Ranstead, PE, LEED-AP, T&M Associates
Cloudbursts are extreme amounts of precipitation occurring for a short duration over a small area. Presentation investigates an instance of extreme precipitation/flooding that occurred in Allentown, PA and demonstrates fast-processing of public NOAA NEXRAD Radar Precipitation Data to quantify a cloudburst event. Data used to consider storm-sewer infrastructure performance.
11:45 am – 12:15 pm: Upkeep and Upgrades: Lessons Learned in Maintaining Green Infrastructure
Kate Austin, Ruth Ayn Hocker, and Kurt Lefever, all with the City of Lancaster
Six years into Lancaster’s Green Infrastructure Plan, inspections, maintenance, and retrofits are key to keeping the City’s GI practices functioning at optimum. Staff will present on the challenges of operating and maintaining GI practices in parks, right of ways, and public properties and opportunities to improve upon previously implemented designs.
12:15 – 1:30 pm: Lunch with Exhibitors
1:30 – 2:00 pm: A Community-Based Approach to Green Infrastructure
Claire Maulhardt, Capital Region Water, and Andrew Dobshinsky and Mary Morton, both with WRT
With its Community Greening Plan, Capital Region Water has committed to the implementation of green stormwater infrastructure throughout Harrisburg as part of its stormwater management strategy. While facing common stormwater issues, Capital Region Water is taking a novel approach to implementation—empowering Harrisburg residents to partner in public realm transformation.
2:00 – 2:30 pm: Places + Performance: Integrating Green Infrastructure into Pittsburgh’s Urban Fabric
John Ross, Arcadis, and Christine Mondor, evolve EA
With completion of their comprehensive Sewershed Urban Design Study, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority is consciously shaping their greenspace to be ecologically high performing amenities that are not only economically viable solutions to the City’s wet-weather needs, but also sustainable and adaptive benefits to the City’s urban fabric.
2:30 – 3:00 pm: Embracing Stormwater: Overcoming the Challenges to Benefit Residents, the Municipality, and an Authority’s Own Operations
Wayne Schutz and Michael Callahan, both with Derry Township Municipal Authority
Many authorities are cautious about adding stormwater management to their responsibilities because of uncertainty about the number and condition of assets they’ll be taking on and the resources and staffing required to manage them. Derry Township Municipal Authority’s example shows how open, collaborative communication with municipal staff and a holistic assessment of the municipality’s MS4 permit, stormwater program and assets can help an authority move beyond its concerns toward the opportunity stormwater acquisition presents.
3:00 – 3:30 pm: Break with Exhibitors
3:30 – 4:00 pm: How the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority is Cutting MS4 Compliance Costs with a Regional Approach to Stormwater Management and Watershed Planning
Adrienne Vicari, PE, Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc.,
Jim Tomaine, PE, Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority
Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority’s approach to regional stormwater management includes local, county, state, and federal partnerships that significantly reduce the cost of Pollution Reduction Planning and MS4 compliance. This presentation provides insight for how municipal personnel can implement similar strategies and yield cost savings that benefit their municipality’s bottom line.
4:00 – 4:30 pm: Stormwater Retrofits on School Properties: Going From Assessment to Construction, and Navigating Through Constraints
Mike Galvin and Jeremy Koser, both with Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson
This presentation will describe the process of assessing a parcel for stormwater management opportunities, maximizing treatment, ensuring the design intent is carried through during construction and navigating all the constraints along the way! This project included the construction of one rain garden, two bioswales, two bioretentions and eleven microbioretention facilities.
4:30 – 6:00 pm: Reception with Exhibitors
Tuesday, November 14
7:30 – 8:30 am: Breakfast with Exhibitors
8:30 – 9:00 am: Long Term Control Plan Affordability for Public ‘Buy-In’
Michael J. Hope and Jean Malafronte, both with Greeley and Hansen
Determining a Permittee’s and the rate payers’ financial capability are an integral part in implementing CSO controls and long term control measures that are affordable to all contributing parties. This presentation will discuss the elements of a Financial Capability Assessment and present three case studies as well as lessons learned for various size systems.
9:00 – 9:30 am: Integrated Watershed Management: The Challenges and Opportunities for Collaboration
Ruthann L. Omer, PE, Gateway Engineers, Inc.
Lisa Werder Brown, Saw Mill Run Watershed
This presentation focuses on creating an Integrated Watershed Management Plan for Stormwater in an urbanized watershed that includes 12 separate municipalities. In early 2015, the Saw Mill Run Watershed began to develop an Integrated Watershed Management Plan. Progress has been made but the IWMP has not been without challenges.
9:30 – 10:00 am: Major Regulatory Issues Arising with EPA/DEP Mandates on MS4 Permits
John C. Hall, Gary B. Cohen, and William T. Hall, all with Hall & Associates
DEP has recently begun issuing MS4 Permits to address TMDL requirements and/or downstream water quality impairments. Many permits have begun to include requirements that exceed regulatory authority, create unattainable/inappropriate pollution reduction mandates and cause ongoing non-compliance, limiting future growth. This presentation addresses legal concerns associated with such MS4 permit provisions.
10:00 – 10:30 am: Break with Exhibitors
10:30 – 11:00 am: Authorities Taking on Stormwater
Tim Dean, PE, Amec Foster Wheeler
Municipalities across Pennsylvania are looking to amend the structure of their existing water and wastewater authorities to take on growing stormwater responsibilities. What does this mean for you? Will it change staffing needs? Will it increase your exposure to growing water quality regulations? Learn about how four authorities in Pennsylvania are answering these questions and how they are gearing up to provide stormwater services to their ratepayers into the future.
11:00 – 11:30 am: The Role of Environmental Non-profits in Implementing Stormwater Management
Alice R. Baker, PennFuture, and Susan Myerov, Pennsylvania Environmental Council
This presentation will provide an overview of the ways in which nonprofits and watershed groups engage on stormwater management, the range of expertise these groups can bring to the table and can be leveraged to comply with regulatory requirements, and how municipalities can take advantage of these resources.
11:30 am – Noon: MS4 Pollutant Reduction Plan Implementation and How to Utilize Your GIS Asset Management Tools
Kevin A. Brett, PE, and Shawn R. Wingrove, EIT, both with Lennon, Smith, Souleret Engineering, Inc.
As municipalities begin implementation of their Pollution Reduction Plans (PRPs), a GIS and asset management program will be a critical tool in efficiently tracking PRP compliance, including locations, pollutant reductions, and maintenance of PRP BMPs. This presentation will focus on the usefulness of GIS tools in managing documentation of PRP compliance.
Noon – 12:15 pm - Closing Remarks
Current State and Future of Stormwater Management in Pennsylvania Hear from the leaders of PMAA, PWEA and PA AWWA on the state of stormwater management in Pennsylvania
12:15 pm: Adjourn
Registration Information:
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Registration Fee Per Person: Members ($250) / Non-Members ($300)
Exhibit Fee: Members ($500) / Non-Members ($650)
Sponsorship Fees:
Monday: Lunch ($400) / Break ($300) / Reception ($350)
Tuesday: Breakfast ($400) / Break ($300)