Analysis of stormwater ultra-urban vault BMPs, a work in progress

'Full text:' This presentation will describe the nature, scope, and initial findings of a third-party evaluation of four stormwater treatment devices. The test site includes real-world storm flow being split off and treated by four different proprietary stormwater treatment devices. All four vendors (Aquashield, BaySaver, Jensen Precast, and Stormwater Management) are participating in this testing effort with the Civil Engineering Research Foundation (CERF) and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). The technologies under evaluation are intended to manage ultra-urban stormwater runoff, removing oil, grease, adsorbed hydrocarbons, sediment, and other pollutants before they can be introduced into the soil. Each of the three products under evaluation targets a different set of primary pollutants and uses a different operating mechanism. The primary objective of the evaluation is to perform well-defined field and laboratory tests to provide data on each individual vendor's treatment performance. The evaluation process is overseen and coordinated by the Environmental Technology Evaluation Center (EvTEC), a program of the CERF, the research and technology transfer arm of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). EvTEC is a pilot program evaluating innovative environmental technologies under the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program. The test facility was constructed and tested underneath the north side of the Interstate 5 bridge crossing Lake Union in Seattle, Washington, starting in November 2001 and running for a complete year. The verification study was initiated by WSDOT to measure and verify the various vendors' claims for pollutant removal from stormwater. (author)