Stormwater | WEF Committees

Management Through WEF Comittees

National and state-level volunteers focus on water-quality issues.

By David Woelkers and Tad Slawecki

Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
–George Will

Have you ever wondered how to manage a watershed–or, worse yet, had to learn how to do it? The way planners work to protect our water resources has evolved since passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, and we now realize that our focus must go far beyond point sources, such as industrial outputs and wastewater treatment facilities. Surface-water professionals are focusing on the entire watershed and are accepting an old truth that no one person can know everything. It is only through input from a wide range of interests and stakeholders that we can achieve successful watershed planning. Within the watershed arena there have been some remarkable successes through the interactions of diverse participants working together to share ideas and provide educational outlets through committee structures. This article reviews how we have progressed into the process of watershed management and discusses the activities of some Water Environment Federation (WEF) committees.

By the late 1970s, many point sources of water pollution were beginning to reduce their pollutant loadings in order to comply with the Clean Water Act. However, surface-water planners became increasingly aware that another source of receiving-water impairments was nonpoint-source discharges, primarily from wet-weather events. This realization led to the National Urban Runoff Program (NURP) study that evaluated multiple sites across the United States to determine nonpoint-source impacts on water quality.

NURP results confirmed what many had suspected: The vast majority of surface-water contaminants in our receiving waters was a result of stormwater runoff. Congress amended the Clean Water Act in 1987 to include urban stormwater discharges as a "point source," requiring USEPA to develop National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit requirements for urban stormwater discharges. As a result of these regulatory changes, many new players from a variety of disciplines began entering the surface-water—quality arena. Fresh viewpoints combined with growing understanding of nonpoint impacts to move water-quality management toward a watershed perspective rather than the traditional jurisdictional model based on municipal, county, and state boundaries.

WEF has been an involved participant in this move. As the preeminent wastewater treatment organization for 75 years, WEF has worked to improve and coordinate water-quality treatment and enhancement. The expansion of WEF's mission to include the management and treatment of nonpoint-source discharges was a natural extension, and WEF has emerged as a leader in facilitating opportunities for dialogue and education in the watershed management arena. Several WEF technical committees have been developed to bring stakeholders together and help shape partnerships and strategies for watershed-related issues, including the Watershed, Non-Point Sources, and Ecology committees. Longstanding WEF committees, such as Water Re-use, Toxic Substances, Collections Systems, Industrial Wastes, Hazardous Wastes, and Groundwater, also incorporate activities involving watershed management and stormwater runoff issues, as do other more traditional wastewater treatment committees.

What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.
–Richard Harkness

The WEF Watershed Committee was established in 1996 when WEF identified a need for a centralized focus group for watershed issues. The committee has since grown to include several programs involving watershed planning and the sharing of information. The committee provides substantial input of the content for water-quality technical sessions at WEFTEC–the federation's annual conference–and provides the direction for WEF's biannual Watershed Specialty Conference. Other activities include:

providing forums for watershed issues and discussion;
coordinating the adoption of technical content for WEFTEC and the Watershed Specialty Conference;
providing liaison opportunities to WEF committees and to other national organizations, such as the American Public Works Association (APWA), the American Water Works Association, and the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies;
facilitating the exchange of information among watershed stakeholders;
encouraging the development of WEF Member Association (MA) watershed management committees and local liaisoning at the state level;
providing leadership in the ongoing discussion of how best to deal with water quality.

The WEF Watershed Committee has recognized that although watershed issues are global in nature, they vary dramatically from location to location depending on local conditions. As a result, there is a growing commitment by WEF and the WEF Watershed Committee to support developing MA committees at the state and local level in order to help accomplish its mission.

Committee - a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.
–Fred Allen

One such success is the Watershed Management Committee of the Michigan Water Environment Association (MWEA). This committee was established in 1994 and currently has more than 100 volunteers working in five subcommittees to enhance the water quality of Michigan and the Great Lakes basin through outreach, educational, and liaison activities. The committee currently holds five full committee meetings annually for the purpose of presenting and exchanging new ideas among a wide variety of various stakeholders. It is also active in planning and implementing seminars, reviewing and commenting on subcommittee activities, and ensuring that the committee is acting in concert with other state organizations, such as MI-APWA, the Michigan Association of County Drain Commissioners, the Michigan Municipal League, and numerous planning and watershed organizations. Other involved stakeholders include the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and other state and local officials.

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
–Barnett Cocks

Committee members at the federation and MA levels include consultants, suppliers, industry interests, and state, county, and local officials. Through the committees' work many issues are discussed and potential obstacles in developing policies and direction are avoided. In addition, by eliminating the need for multiple state and local committees all doing the same things through the development of federation and MA watershed management committees, WEF and its members have been able to remain leaders in providing information and knowledge on the water environment and improving our water quality.

A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.
–Milton Berle

To paraphrase George Will: Watershed management combines two of the best things in American life. It is responsibility for the environment learned and shared in committee meetings. The use of committees for exchanging ideas, providing forums for discussion among diverse stakeholders, and providing educational opportunities can be just one more effective tool in the ongoing task of working to improve the quality of our water.

David Woelkers is president of Hydro Compliance Management Inc. in Whitmore Lake, MI; a member of WEF and the MWEA; and chair of the MWEA Watershed Management Committee. Tad Slawecki is with Limno-Tech Inc. in Ann Arbor, MI; a longtime member of WEF; a member of the MWEA Executive Board; and past chair of the MWEA Watershed Management Committee.

SW - November/December 2002

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