Management of Non-Point Source Pollution CE 296B

Management of Non-Point Source PollutionCE 296B Department of Civil Engineering California State University, Sacramento Lecture #13, March 24, 1998 Monitoring - Part II

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program ? A. Recall some of the different aspects of a non-point source pollution program: • BMP effectiveness • BMP implementation • Effluent quality • Affect on water quality objectives • Affect on beneficial uses In each case, one would like to know how effective the money spent on the management of non-point source pollution has been.

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) B. What about monitoring BMP effectiveness? 1. The purpose is to evaluate how effective a particular BMP’s are at preventing pollution from reaching a receiving water under a given circumstance. The idea would be to optimize the allocation of resources ear-marked for the management of non-point source pollution. This sounds easy in theory, but in practice, nobody quite knows how to do this across the board.

Problems Associated with Monitoring BMP EffectivenessTreatment Type Systems - I • The removal efficiency of any treatment type system will be dependant simultaneously on several independent conditions, among them: • Flow rate • Pollutant concentration • Antecedent conditions • Statistical methods can help produce an aggregate removal efficiency based on data from several different scenarios, but as a predictive tool, it is an imperfect at best.

Problems Associated with Monitoring BMP EffectivenessTreatment Type Systems - II • Most treatment type systems do not remove all types of pollutants equally. Examples of differential pollutant removal include: • Detention basins may remove pollutants associated with particulate material (as long as that particulate material in not too fine) but not dissolved pollutants • Grassy swales might remove biostimulants well, but the removal of inorganics (metals) could be thought of a temporary.

Inlet Bypass Structure Overflow structure Trapped Sediment Inlet Outlet Outlet Overflow structure Side View Plan View Problems Associated with Monitoring BMP EffectivenessTreatment Type Systems - III • Establishing the system boundaries for the purpose of establishing a mass balance can be tricky. Take a detention basin:

Problems Associated with Monitoring BMP EffectivenessTreatment Type Systems - IV • How removal efficiency is evaluated at a basic level has different interpretations, among them: • Percentage of pollutant removed, concentration basis. • Mass of pollutant removed. Discussion Item: Who would prefer the former and why? Who would prefer the later and why?

Problems Associated with Monitoring BMP EffectivenessSource Control Type Systems - I • Often difficult to obtain a point of comparison. If the source control measure is proper storage of materials, what is the control group of improperly stored materials? • Many source control type measures are applied thousands of times with the hope that a small effect each time will add up to large benefits. Stenciling drain inlets comes under this category. The question is, how does one determine that this practice, which costs money, is having the desired effect?

Problems Associated with Monitoring BMP EffectivenessProviding Basis of Comparison • To make rational judgements about where to allocate resources to implement BMP’s, some basis of comparison between different BMP’s would be required. • One useful one, if it existed, would be the ratio of pounds of specific pollutant(s) removed per dollar spent on BMP implementation. To date a method for such a comparison has yet to be developed. • Of course, then one would have to establish a priority scheme for which pollutants are more important.

Discussion Break We will cover more of this later, but on what basis would a system of priorities be established with respect of removal of different pollutants?

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • B. What about monitoring BMP effectiveness? 2. One scheme for the beginning of a program to monitor BMP effectiveness. Establish categories of BMP’s and evaluate where a difference might be made. Possible categories: • Good idea to implement anyway and relatively inexpensive. Examples include covering borrow piles and inexpensive proper storage techniques. Save these for another day!

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • B. What about monitoring BMP effectiveness? • 2. One scheme for the beginning of a program to monitor BMP effectiveness. Establish categories of BMP’s and evaluate where a difference might be made. Possible categories: (cont.) • Good idea to implement anyway, but relatively relatively expensive. Examples include covering fueling areas that receive little use and expensive proper storage techniques. Good candidates to schedule for study!

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • B. What about monitoring BMP effectiveness? • 2. One scheme for the beginning of a program to monitor BMP effectiveness. Establish categories of BMP’s and evaluate where a difference might be made. Possible categories: (cont.) • Well entrenched, but poorly tested ideas. Examples include sandbagging inlets or use of straw bales as flow interrupters. Generally inexpensive, but can add up. Save these for another day!

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • B. What about monitoring BMP effectiveness? • 2. One scheme for the beginning of a program to monitor BMP effectiveness. Establish categories of BMP’s and evaluate where a difference might be made. Possible categories: (cont.) • Expensive, end-of-pipe treatment ideas. Important to evaluate these, see if you can get others in a similar circumstance to help!

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) C. What about monitoring BMP implementation? 1. Monitoring the level of BMP implementation is important for two principle reasons: • As it is generally assumed that widespread and continuos implementation of a comprehensive program of BMP’s will yield improved water quality, assuring that they were indeed implemented would be a good thing. • When outside parties notice unimplemented BMP’s bad things can happen.

Measure of Progress Goal is these to match up • III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • C. What about monitoring BMP implementation? 2. A possible scheme for monitoring the level of implementation of each BMP: • Estimate the number of locations BMP should be implemented. • Estimate the number of locations an attempt has been made to implement BMP. • Estimate the number of locations BMP has been implemented correctly part of the time. • Estimate the number of locations BMP has been correctly implemented all of the time.

Discussion Break Note that to monitor BMP implementation, no collection and analysis of samples is involved. This makes it difficult to successfully substitute a program of monitoring BMP implementation for one of monitoring effluent quality. What sales tactics could be use to win acceptance for such a program?

Discussion Break Any system to monitor the implementation of BMP’s will yield the following question: How does one enforce compliance? With: Contractors? Municipal employees? Private industry? Homeowners? Landlords?

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) D. How about the monitoring of effluent quality? 1. Either one, or both of two questions are to be answered by monitoring effluent quality: • Does the effluent have the potential to have an negative impact on receiving waters? • Is the program of BMP implementation having the desired effect in terms of reducing pollutant concentration and load?

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • D. How about the monitoring of effluent quality? 2. If one is trying to answer the first question, the location of collecting the sample should entail as large a watershed as possible, with an outfall as close to the receiving water as possible. Discussion Break Why this choice?

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • D. How about the monitoring of effluent quality? 3. If one is trying to answer the second question, is the program of BMP’s effective, the approach is more complicated. Possible schemes include: • If they exist, comparison to historical records. • Analysis of identical watersheds, one without program of BMP’s and one with program of BMP’s. Very difficult to make this work. • The “Armand Ruby” approach.

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) E. How about monitoring effect on water quality objectives of non-point source discharges? 1. This if a difficult task. But ultimately one that would give clear direction on where a program should put it greatest effort. 2. At this time, what most programs are doing is to compare the qualitative contents of discharge with regional board assessments of what the pollutants of greatest concern are.

Discussion Break This is an area of substantial contention. What a regional board staff might say in private with respect to the list of constituents that genuinely are a problem often conflicts with public pronouncements. Is it a dischargers place to investigate what constituents are genuinely a problem in the receiving water they are discharging to?

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) F. How about monitoring effect on beneficial uses of non-point source discharges? 1. An early step in such a process is to evaluate how extensively a water body is used. The best part is, others often collect the information. Examples: • The number of people that have gone swimming. • How many fishing licenses have been sold in the area.

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • F. How about monitoring effect on beneficial uses of non-point source discharges? • 1. An early step in such a process is to evaluate how extensively a water body is used. The best part is, others often collect the information. Examples: • The amount of habitat, often spelled out in EIR and EIS reports • Irrigation district record on water withdrawals. • Water district record on drinking water use and treatment levels.

Discussion Break Other ideas for sources of information of the extent of beneficial uses, clever or otherwise?

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • F. How about monitoring effect on beneficial uses of non-point source discharges? (cont.) 2. An intermediate step in the process is to gather the information others have collected in one place and to organize it. 3. A late step in the process is to start the process of evaluating the economic value of the beneficial uses.

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • F. How about monitoring effect on beneficial uses of non-point source discharges? (cont.) 4. Another late step in the process is to monitor whether or not beneficial uses are not being realized because of non-point source pollution. If other information is being gathered from other places efficiently, this should not be a terribly expensive process.

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) G. What are other things that can be done to monitor the effectiveness of a non-point source pollution management program? 1. Monitoring the sales records of materials that might be of concern in the area. Examples include: • Diazanon sales • Copper containing compounds sales 2. It is expensive and not always appropriate, but polling the public as to levels of awareness is often valuable information.

Discussion Break What questions would you pose to the public in the areas of: Their understanding of the problem? What larger institutions might be doing to contribute to the problem? What they might be doing at home to contribute to the problem? Others?

III. What might be done to meet overall goals of a monitoring program? (cont.) • G. What are other things that can be done to monitor the effectiveness of a non-point source pollution management program?(cont.) 3. Compare notes with the programs that similar dischargers employ. Information could include: • How much is being spent on the non-point source pollution program. • How effective different BMP’s are. • Effluent characterization from different land use types.

Management of Non-Point Source Pollution CE 296B