Title
Contracts for Development of a Pollutant Load Reduction Tool (B)
This item is a request for the City Commission to approve two (2) contracts needed for the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Pollutant Load Reduction Tool Initiative, one with the University of Florida (UF) and the second with the Florida Stormwater Association Educational Foundation (FSAEF).
Explanation
Since Florida's enactment of the Watershed Restoration Act of 1999, the Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) has adopted an Impaired Waters Rule that establishes the process for determining if excess pollutants need to be removed from impaired water body(ies). More recently in April 2008 FDEP published the Orange Creek Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP) that identifies impaired water bodies, the cause of the impairment and steps to reduce the impairment. Hogtown Creek, Sweetwater Branch, Tumblin Creek and Alachua Sink are some of the impaired water bodies included in the document. The document identifies each measure, whether used or planned to be used, by the MS4 operators to reduce the excess of the targeted pollutant to acceptable levels.
Analysts working with the processes of the Impaired Water Rule and the following BMAP note that while the standard tool box (i.e. structural, administrative, regulatory or guideline measures) are versatile and allow a wide range of responses, there are other measures that should be included in the tool box, if they are quantified. The development of a Pollutant Load Reduction Tool is an initiative to expand the measures to be included in the tool box.
Florida's MS4 operators, including Gainesville, practice many Best Management Practices (BMP's) when capturing and properly disposing of the sediments associated with stormwater. This activity intercepts pollutants and removes them from the waste stream that is presumptively creating the impaired water body. However, there is not a means to quantify the amount o...
Click here for full text