December 6, 2004

The Water Environment Research Foundation is collaborating with several other organizations to fund and manage the International Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP) Database, an important tool that will allow for continued improvement in design and implementation of BMPs.

This tool will prove critical as communities, departments of transportation, and private parties plan to spend potentially billions of dollars over the next several years implementing BMPs for compliance with regulatory programs for protecting water quality.

In addition to WERF, coalition partners include:

* American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) / Environmental and Water Resources Institute;

* U.S. Environmental Protection Agency;

* Federal Highway Administration; and

* American Public Works Association.

The formation of a diverse coalition of organizations jointly committed to improving the knowledge and understanding of BMPs represents a new phase in the evolution of the BMP Database," said Jeff Moeller, program director at WERF. "These organizations represent the combined interests of municipalities, stormwater agencies, highway agencies, regulatory authorities, and consulting firms among others all working together on a significant endeavor."

The coalition recently awarded a contract to Wright Water Engineers and GeoSyntec Consultants to operate the database, grow the database through the addition of new BMP data, and develop protocols for integrating low impact development (LID) techniques into the database.

The International Stormwater BMP Database was initially developed under grants from the US EPA under the guidance of the ASCE Urban Water Resources Research Council. The database provides a mechanism for scientifically based collection and management of data needed to evaluate the effectiveness of stormwater runoff BMPs.

Information on the database is currently accessible through the project's website http://www.bmpdatabase.org.

Source: WEF   December 6, 2004