Stormwater Monitoring

Question 1: I'd like to hear from other volunteer groups that have tried any kind of first flush or storm event sampling.

Question 2: I have been researching manual first flush and composite storm water sampling for volunteers but have been unable to find documents that pertain to an operating procedure to conduct the sampling.

Question 3: Does anyone have suggestions/experiences for storm event monitoring - specifically recruitment and commitment from volunteers on short notice. What has worked well? The challenges?

Question 1

April 2004
Eleanor Ely wrote:

Dear volunteer monitoring folks:

I am working on an article for the upcoming issue of The Volunteer Monitor about a first flush sampling event on the Russian River in California. Because of the Mediterranean climate here, we get a very big annual first flush event in the late fall when the first storm comes through after the dry summer. In the case of the Russian River, volunteers have been mobilized the past two years to go out and collect samples of this annual first flush. Teams of at least three visit each site and take three samples at half hour intervals. They make field measurements of stage and conductivity. Last year about 30 sites were sampled and the samples were analyzed for nutrients, turbidity and TSS, bacteria, metals, and the pesticide diazinon. It's quite an ambitious effort, but then again it only happens once a year.

To make the article as useful and relevant as possible, I'd like to hear from other volunteer groups that have tried any kind of first flush or storm event sampling. I'm especially interested in hearing from other regions of the country, where storm event sampling has a different character.

It's my impression that some groups have tried storm event sampling but have given it up because it was too hard to get volunteers to go out in bad weather, often at night, and there were safety considerations etc. I'd like to hear about problems people have had so that we can try to address them in the article. I would also like to hear about other successful efforts. And please let me know of any particular questions you would like to see covered in the article, whether about logistics, analytical procedures, or anything else.

You may contact me by e-mail at ellieely@earthlink.net or call 415-334-2284. Or, if you feel that your comments may be of broader interest, you might choose to respond to the whole list.

Thank you for your help,

Ellie

Eleanor Ely
Editor, The Volunteer Monitor Newsletter
50 Benton Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94112
415-334-2284
ellieely@earthlink.net

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 14:19:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: David J Wilson <djw1ls0n@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [volmonitor] Re: first flush and storm event sampling

Dear Ellie,

I was involved in a 2-year study of sediment in the Harpeth River watershed, Middle Tennessee that focussed on storm events. The study was carried out under the auspices of the Harpeth River Watershed Association and the Cumberland River Compact and used turbidity tubes. (A substantial number of TSS measurements were made as well.) Storm and first flush sampling are essential in sediment studies, as the overwhelming bulk of sediment mass is carried by the transient high flows resulting from storms. Volunteers were matched, as much as possible, to sites that were near their homes to facilitate sampling at odd hours, and I generally put out "heads up" e-mail messages to alert the volunteers when a storm was on the way. We had a good but not perfect batting average on the sampling. We observed that sediment concentrations and amounts of floating debris were much higher on the rising hydrograph than after the flo! od had crested; I understand that this is fairly typical.

Most of our sampling sites were at bridges. Safety concerns involved safe parking and close attention to traffic while on the bridge. We wore orange safety vests and at night carried large flashlights. Another safety concern is fouling of the sampling bucket by moving logs or other large debris; one must make sure one does not accidentally have a foot or arm tangled in or attached to the bucket line in case the bucket be swept away by a fast-moving log.

With best regards,
Dave
(David J. Wilson)

Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 16:06:08 -0700
From: "Shilling, Fraser" <fmshilling@ucdavis.edu>
Subject: [volmonitor] RE: volmonitor digest: April 16, 2004

Eleanor et al.

I have worked for several years with a citizens monitoring program in the Sierra Nevada -- the Yuba River Monitoring Program, run by the South Yuba River Citizens League. I helped develop protocols, sites, parameters, SYRCL carries out logistics and "owns" the program. In this case, a decision to conduct storm event sampling is tied to objective consideration of rate of rainfall (>0.5"/24 hr) while also being a bit seat of the pants about it. First flush is the event that gets the most attention, with successively less attention for similar storms as the winter goes on. A team of about 10 or 12 (out of 100 volunters) goes out in pairs (usually) to 5 or 6 sites that have been pre-selected and that are near their homes. Sampling is usually a one time thing at or soon after storm peak. A couple of times there has been time series at particular sites (e.g., Humbug Creek, originating from the Malakoff Diggins abandoned mine). Measurements are taken of temperature, conductivity, DO, and pH. Samples are always taken for sediment and, depending on the site, metals, E. coli, Enterococcus sp., oil and grease. The storm-event volunteers are a combination of storm-only and regular river monitors (those who go out monthly). All have gone through extensive monitoring training, including river safety. Often the storm samplers are avid water people who enjoy dark, cold, blowing conditions. The program coordinators are cc'd here.

Fraser shilling
UC Davis

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 09:20:33 -0700
From: tita.lucia@juno.com
Subject: [volmonitor] volunteer monitoring during storm
events-experiences/suggestions?

Does anyone have suggestions/experiences for storm event monitoring - specifically recruitment and commitment from volunteers on short notice. What has worked well? The challenges? Suggestions to get sampling done in a timely manner during/after a storm event? We, at the Yamhill Basin Council, in Oregon will soon be doing monitoring
for pesticides and other water quality parameters and face the challenge of getting our samples during storm events. Any advice or suggestions and stories of your experience would be greaty appreciated.

Thanks!
Denise Schmit
Water Quality Monitoring Tech
Yamhill Basin Council
McMinnville, OR
schmitd@co.yamhill.or.us
503.434.7447

Responses

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 09:58:47 -0700
From: Eleanor Ely <ellieely@earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: [volmonitor] volunteer monitoring during storm events experiences/suggestions?

Denise (and others on the listserv):

There is a good article about storm event sampling in the Russian Riverwatershed (Northern California) in the Summer 2004 issue of the Volunteer
Monitor newsletter (article starts on page 8). You can find this and otherback issues of the newsletter in PDF format at http:// www.epa.gov/owow/volunteer/vm_index.html.

People with experience in stormwater monitoring include Don McEnhill,Russian Riverkeeper, gbtc@aol.com, and Bridget Hoover, Monterey Bay National
Marine Sanctuary, bhoover@monitoring network.org. They would probably be happy to help you out.

Ellie

Eleanor Ely
Editor, The Volunteer Monitor Newsletter
50 Benton Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94112
415-334-2284
ellieely@earthlink.net
The Volunteer Monitor is available online at
www.EPA.gov/OWOW/volunteer/vm_index.html

Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 11:47:32 -0400
From: Carolyn Sibner <hvama.carolyn@adelphia.net>
Subject: [volmonitor] volunteer monitoring during storm
events-experiences/suggestions?
To: Volunteer water monitoring <volmonitor@lists.epa.gov>

Depending on how far you are from the sites where you will be monitoring, I would also recommend you find people near those sites who can give you a call when it starts raining and the conditions are right for monitoring.

I found being even a relatively close distance of 10 miles away was far enough of a distance away that when it was raining at my office it wasn't necessarily raining at the monitoring sites, and vice versa, (unless of course it was a large, wide-spread, storm of some duration).

We found it very difficult to find 72 hours of dry weather before sampling, plus a storm of sufficient size and duration, that also occurred early enough in the day that we could get samples collected and to the lab before 5p.m.

However, if you don't include parameters that need to be analyzed within 4-6 hours like our bacteria samples, then that should open up your window of sampling opportunity quite a bit.

Here in New England I found the storms that were the residuals from hurricanes down south provided good rainstorms up here that were long and steady and didn't necessarily have the lightning that accompanies our typical afternoon summer thunderstorms.

I also found that people who are retired often are the ones most able to help on short notice. They can be real gems for volunteer monitoring!

Hope this helps,

Carolyn W. Sibner
Housatonic Valley Association
South Lee, MA 01260
413-394-9796
csibner@hvatoday.org