WE&RF Awards Research Contract To Standardize Tracking And Reporting Of International Stormwater BMP Database

The Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF) recently awarded a research contract to Wright Water Engineers, Inc., in association with Geosyntec Consultants, for Standardized BMP Maintenance Tracking and Report Protocols (SIWM22T17), in support of the “Data Analysis and Standardization” task of the CLASIC (Community-Enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs) project. The analysis will support the mutually beneficial objectives of Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) and WE&RF to advance understanding of the whole life cycle costs of green and gray infrastructure, with emphasis on operations and maintenance (O&M). CLASIC will develop resources and tools to help decision-makers consider the costs associated with planning, designing, operating, maintaining, or replacing stormwater infrastructure. The tools help comparisons of benefits and costs of stormwater infrastructure alternatives by providing supporting information related to stormwater best management practice and operation and maintenance costs.

This research will leverage recently completed work by EWRI's Municipal Water Infrastructure Council. That project included a review and compilation of green infrastructure maintenance studies to provide recommendations for more consistent maintenance information reporting. The resulting recommendations will be used as the foundation for developing BMP operation and maintenance activities and associated cost data fields for the cost database component of CLASIC.

The three technical tasks for this project are:

• Develop a technical memorandum with recommended maintenance variables to track for each BMP type.
• Develop checklists on onsite maintenance activities for each BMP type.
• Complete spreadsheets/database tables for maintenance tracking and reporting protocols.

The final product will be a building block for creation of a maintenance cost module or table associated with the International Stormwater BMP Database and to support WE&RF’s CLASIC project.

The project is anticipated to be completed at the end of 2017.

About The Water Environment & Reuse Foundation
The Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF) is a nonprofit (501c3) organization officially formed in July 2016 as the result of the merger of the Water Environment Research Foundation and the WateReuse Research Foundation. The merged research foundation, with a combined research portfolio representing over $200 million, conducts research to treat and recover beneficial materials from wastewater, stormwater, and seawater including water, nutrients, energy, and biosolids.