Stormwater | StormCon 2004

Stormcon 2004

StormCon, the North American Surface Water Quality Conference & Exposition, took place July 26–29, 2004, at the Desert Springs Marriott in Palm Desert, CA. The third annual event brought together 1,000 attendees and more than 150 exhibitors, making it the largest one yet.

The conference and exhibition brings together professionals who are concerned with stormwater management, offering full-day classes, technical sessions, and product exhibits focused exclusively on stormwater and surface-water quality.

Technical Sessions

From Tuesday through Thursday 40 different technical sessions took place, each consisting of three presentations on a related topic. The topics fell into four conference tracks: best management practices (BMPs), stormwater regulations, water-quality monitoring, and stormwater program management. Attendees could pick and choose the mix of courses most relevant to their jobs and interests.

"In the management courses I learned some of the different ways to go about establishing a utility and what other places have done," comments Lisa McArthur, an engineering technician with Collin County, TX.

Sharing technologies and ideas is one purpose of the sessions, including concepts that have been proven in one area of the country. Neal Shapiro, urban runoff management coordinator for the City of Santa Monica, CA, notes, "The Western Carwash Association talked about what you can do to have a fund-raiser but also protect the environment, by doing it at a car wash location instead of a parking lot."

In addition to the sessions, two preconference courses were offered on Monday: Stormwater Program Management, taught by Scott Bryant, the stormwater manager for the City of Greensboro, NC, and a two-part course led by members of the California Stormwater Quality Association on the organization's municipal BMP handbooks. A review course for the Certified Professional in Stormwater Quality (CPSWQ) exam and the full-day exam itself also were offered before the conference began.

Exhibit Hall

The exhibit hall contained the largest-ever collection of products, technologies, and services related to stormwater management and surface-water quality. Vendors were on hand to answer questions and demonstrate their systems, and some included an added measure of showmanship. SI Geosolutions brought a slot machine (to introduce the company's X3 fiber, used in turf reinforcement mats, it gave visitors to the booth the chance to spin for a BMW X3), and UltraTech International used an unconventional product demonstration. "The gentleman poured oil into a cup and used one of their products to filter out the oil. Then he drank the filtered water. I was shocked at that, so it stood out in my mind!" recalls June Moser, an environmental specialist in the Division of Environmental Storm Water Management with the City of Norfolk, VA.

Even companies from outside North America found an enthusiastic reception. "The response to our products and systems was incredible," says Oscar Larach of Atlantis Water Management in Chatswood, Australia. "The show was fantastic for us as principals and for all of our distributors and agents in the USA. I am a firm believer that this is a growing show; it will get bigger and bigger year after year. The problems are too big—they need solutions that work, and shows like this will lead the way to get creators, marketers, and decision-makers together."

"There was a good amount of vendors—enough to cover in the few days we had to cover them and still enjoy the scenery of California," Moser says. "I also liked the machine to allow vendors to scan your professional information. This saved handing out a ton of business cards."

"It's a good opportunity for me to see what's come out since last year," Shapiro adds. "Can I find new products to work better here?"

This year, for the first time, the exhibit hall included a cybercafe, sponsored by Vortechnics, where attendees could get coffee, tea, or espresso drinks and use one of several computers set up in the area. "That was actually a very excellent addition to the conference," Shapiro remarks. "I didn't have to rush back to my room to get e-mail."

Cousteau's Keynote Speech

A highlight of the conference was the keynote speech by Jean-Michel Cousteau, president of the Ocean Futures Society—a nonprofit marine conservation and education organization—and son of the late Jacques Cousteau. He made the point, through examples and clips from his organization's documentaries, that what we do on land very much affects what happens in the oceans, and that untreated stormwater runoff is the carrier of much that ends up where it shouldn't.

During his various expeditions, he noted, he has found tons of manmade debris on sandy beaches, including many items that haven't been manufactured since the 1960s; they have been floating in the ocean or buried under layers of sand for decades. In carcasses of dead birds, members of the organization have found light bulbs, golf balls, mascara wands, and countless other small plastic items—identifiable, on one island, from 52 different countries of manufacture—that were discarded and eventually washed into the ocean.

"Nature needs to be looked upon as a business. Like a business, it needs management," he said. "We need to convince our decision-makers at the highest levels that rather than undermining our environmental regulations, we need to strengthen them."

When introducing Cousteau, Glenn Rink of AbTech Industries, which sponsored the opening general session, made reference to last year's keynote speaker, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Cousteau also cited Kennedy and echoed one of his points: We need technology to help us solve our current environmental problems. Like Kennedy, he noted that environmental issues can't be viewed in isolation from human activities. He described a November 2002 incident in which an oil tanker carrying more than 20 million gallons of oil broke apart and sank off the northwest coast of Spain, near Galicia. "We're not just concerned with the little fish and the birds and the sea otters," he emphasized, but also with the people whose livelihoods, businesses, and lives were affected.

"We don't even know what's there," Cousteau said of the ocean. "We don't even know how it works. We know more about the dead sea on Mars than we do about our own oceans."

"That was awesome," McArthur says. "His speech was inspirational in terms of environment—what we do affects the environment globally."

On the other hand, "I was a bit disappointed," comments Atlantis' Larach. "I think he was too focused in his area of expertise and did not give a broad view of the problem like [Kennedy] the year before."

Looking Toward 2005

Next year's conference will be held in Orlando, FL, at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes. The conference tracks have changed slightly to accommodate the tremendous and growing interest in new technologies and best management practices: BMPs at Work will feature presentations showing examples of how structural and nonstructural BMPs are being used in real-world situations. Research and Testing will focus on methods for testing the effectiveness of BMPs and on how stormwater managers can compare different types of devices and technologies. The tracks on Monitoring Water Quality and Managing the Stormwater Program will also be included in next year's program.

A full-day preconference class and the CPSWQ exam-review course and exam again be offered will once in Orlando. In addition, the review course and exam for the Certified Professional in Erosion and Sediment Control certification will be offered.

General information about the conference, as well as the call for papers, is available on-line at www.StormCon.com. For information about exhibit space and sponsorships, contact StormCon Director Steve Di Giorgi at SteveDG@forester.net.

SW November/December 2004

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