Do you ever wonder what stormwater pollution is all about? Attend one of our upcoming Stormwater University Pollution Prevention for Your Business workshops and find out. During these workshops we will provide suggestions on how your business can prevent stormwater pollutions, examples of stormwater management best practices, and information about stormwater drainage in the immediate area. These workshops will also include a short tour of a local business that takes extra steps to keep their stormwater clean. Upcoming Stormwater University Workshops: When: November 10th What Time: 10am - 2pm Where: Puget Sound Energy (PSE) conference room - located at 1660 Park Lane in Burlington When: December 1st What Time: 10am - 2pm Where: Barron Heating conference room - located at 5100 Pacific Highway in Ferndale When: December 6th What Time: 10am - 2pm Where: Mt. Vernon Senior Center - located at 1401 Cleveland Street in Mt. Vernon
To register or get more information on these workshops, contact Lee First at leef@re-sources.org
or call (360) 733 8307. Registration is appreciated, but not required. What is Stormwater University? Stormwater University is a program of RE Sources North Sound Baykeeper Team that features a compliation of stormwater education resources for municipalities, detention pond managers, industrial businesses, and more. Resources include training videos, presentations, and best management practices (BMPs) fact sheets and checklists.
So what is stormwater? Stormwater runoff (or polluted runoff) is rain that falls on streets, parking areas, sports fields, gravel lots, rooftops or other developed land and flows directly into nearby lakes, rivers and Puget Sound. The drizzling or pounding rain picks up and mixes with what's on the ground, including oil, grease, metals, fertilizers, bacteria, soap, soil, and whatever else is on the ground. Stormwater management systems collect water from your rooftop, roads, and sidewalks and channel it into a system of ditches and pipes, which eventually empty out into a stormwater pond. We will explain the major components of these systems, how they function, and how to inspect and maintain them.  The Baykeeper Team is offering Stowmater University workshops to help citizens and managers save money, protect water quality, and
reduce flooding through proper maintenance of private stormwater
systems. Each workshop includes a presentation, tour, and question and
answer session.
Any citizen or stormwater facility manager interested in maintaining their stormwater system is encouraged to attend. These workshops will help you maintain facilities in your stormwater system to make sure they perform properly. By following these procedures, you will help safeguard water quality in your watershed and keep maintenance costs low by detecting problems early. Click here to download RE Sources and Whatcom County's Stormwater Facilities Inspection and Maintenance Handbook, which has detailed information about how to prevent stormwater pollution. Past Tours Over the past few years, the Baykeeper team has organized a
series of tours to view stormwater management practices at businesses in
Whatcom and Skagit counties. We offer these tours as a way for businesses
with good stormwater practices to showcase their operations, and to inspire
others to take the same steps. Past
tours have been held at Whatcom Transit Authority, Fairhaven Shipyards,
Ferndale Grain, Smith & Morrison Farms, and other locations. Two of these are highlighted below.
Gundies was a most interesting candidate for a tour as it has been in business since 1961, has over 85 employees at three facilities, and is the largest auto recycler in Whatcom County. But most of all, we wanted to see it because according to a local Department of Ecology stormwater inspector, auto recycling yards typically have a very high potential to pollute surface water. On June 1, 13 people gathered for a tour of Gundies Auto Recyclers. We were a diverse group, including government representatives, business owners, interested citizens, and RE Sources staff and interns.  What did we see? Inside this covered shed is an oily parts and engine wash system, which both recycles and reuses wash water. This is good because there is no discharge of dirty water from this process. Inside one of the tanks in this shed is a biological treatment unit - the staff adds a specially formulated bacteria once a month, and the bacteria digest the waste products. Throughout the yard, we also saw a series of drainage ditches, each ditch leading to an oil/water/sediment trap system, pictured here. All the stormwater drains through these units before it drains off site, and eventually into Squalicum Creek, a fish bearing stream.  Gundies' staff checks and changes the filters
and removes sediment from these systems every month. How long have they done this? Many years.
Why? They like to do things the
right way. And the best news is this: the
discharged stormwater from the site is regularly analyzed for hydrocarbons,
zinc, lead, and turbidity. The levels of
these contaminants have always been below the allowable limits. It was obvious to all of us on the tour that
the staff at Gundies is proud of these practices, as they should be. Thanks Gundies for taking these steps to protect our water! Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Smith and Morrison Potato Processing Facility, Mount Vernon In December, 21 people attended our tour of the Smith & Morrison Potato Processing Facility, south of Mount Vernon. This was one of an ongoing series of tours organized by RE Sources to exchange information about stormwater best management practices and water pollution issues. Why a potato washing facility? Because potato and bulb washing and processing are big business in the Skagit delta, and most of the time, the sediment-laden wash water is not recycled or treated, and has the potential to harm our streams and rivers. Sediment is a pollutant under state law - it clogs fish gills, blocks sunlight, traps heat, smothers fish eggs, and causes other problems.
There are ten potato processing facilities in the Skagit Delta. Only this facility has an NPDES permit (that's National Pollution Discharge and Elimination System), two are currently gaining coverage under the permit, and the rest don't have permits. We like these permits because they require the facility to collect regular samples of their discharge water, and follow best management practices.
The treatment system at Smith & Morrison Farms collects, recycles, and treats all the water used for potato washing. A series of sediment ponds has been created to allow the fine sediment to settle before clean water is discharged to a nearby fish bearing watercourse. This facility won the 2004 Environmental Stewardship Award from the National Potato Council.
Towards the end of the tour, Keith Morrison showed us one of his huge potato storage sheds, complete with sophisticated temperature and humidity controls, and a huge fan system. He told us "we're creating the same conditions as underground, so the potatoes think they're still underground." He went on to say "potatoes have brains, and they'll continue to think they're underground until about April." None of us had thought about potatoes with brains before. Everyone on the tour was very impressed, and we left knowing that Keith is in the right business, and he's setting an example that we hope the rest of the potato farmers follow. |  If you would like to learn more about stormwater click here to download RE Sources and Whatcom County's handbook. To stay in the know about events and stormwater issues subscribe to the North Sound Baykeeper's Industrial Stormwater Newsletter by clicking here. Be sure and check out the Baykeeper Blog! |
|
|
Join Us! RE Sources web site Directory
|
Events >
Stormwater Maintenance Workshops & ToursČ |
Sign in|Report Abuse|Print Page|Remove Access|Powered By Google Sites