PA Environment Digest Blog: DEP Working With Villanova University On Update To Stormwater BMP Manual

Thursday, January 31, 2019

DEP Working With Villanova University On Update To Stormwater BMP Manual

The Department of Environmental Protection is working with Villanova University to update and modernize its 13-year-old Stormwater Best Management Practices Manual.

Ramez Ziadeh, DEP’s Executive Deputy Secretary for Programs, mentioned the update at the January 16 meeting of the PA Chesapeake Bay Watershed Planning Steering Committee. Reducing pollution from stormwater is a key part of what Pennsylvania must do to meet its Chesapeake Bay cleanup obligations.

Since December of 2006, the Stormwater BMP Manual has served as a technical reference guide containing planning concepts and design standards that developers, communities and project planners can use to satisfy Pennsylvania’s stormwater management requirements.

DEP has contracted with Villanova University and a team headed by Dr. Robert Traver, Director of Villanova’s Urban Stormwater Partnership and faculty researcher of Villanova’s Center for Resilient Water Systems who is currently working to provide the Department of Environmental Protection with a draft updated Stormwater BMP Manual.

The first goal of the update is to first evaluate the existing BMP’s in the Manual in terms of the latest science and in-field experience on their effectiveness, water pollution reduction potential and ongoing maintenance and costs.

The second is to organize the BMPs into a menu of practices emphasizing first in a hierarchy those practices that use a natural systems approach in their design and function while at the same time are the most effective at achieving stormwater flow and rate objectives as well as water pollution reductions.

Nearly 20 years of experience with building and operating green infrastructure projects under the Growing Greener Program and recent research presented to the PA Chesapeake Bay Watershed Planning Steering Committee demonstrates stormwater practices based on natural system functions are more effective at reducing flooding and water pollution.

Third, the Villanova team will recommend new best management practices developed or perfected since the 2006 Manual was adopted to achieve stormwater and pollution reduction objectives.

DEP hopes to have a draft Manual available for public review during the third quarter of this year and would look to formalize it as a technical guidance document.

The agency will be looking to engage a broad set of stakeholders in the review of the draft Manual, including the Water Resources Advisory Committee, to provide input into the practices and the proposed prioritization of BMP.