The Education Center

Learn what you can and can't discharge with an NPDES stormwater permit.

Many of our clients are covered by some sort of NPDES permit at their facility. Throughout the years we've heard from them, and others from all over the US that the language in their permit is confusing, or that regulators have given conflicting or incorrect information, so they turn to us for help. It makes sense since NPDES stormwater permits can be weighed down in regulatory language that often comes across as gibberish. Some states have a specific permit for specific industries, some state's permits are easy to handle, while other permits are downright archaic and confusing.

We cover how to put together an effective pH kit for stormwater sampling for under $300.

If you're up to speed on your NPDES stormwater permit, stay ahead of required annual stormwater training, and have a basic competency of technology and your permit, you can easily take the pH of your stormwater sample from a relatively inexpensive pH kit. This is great news for businesses with smaller budgets or folks without close access to a certified lab.

Learn when you can use melting snow, or snowmelt, as a stormwater sample.

Living in New Jersey, I've gotten used to cold winters. Snow, nor'easters, the sun setting early, you name it. It's just a fact of life living here in the North East. One thing that rings true for my clients here in New Jersey, over in Pennsylvania, up in New York, and all throughout the region is that when it gets cold out, certain aspects of the business change.

One thing that many clients have to deal with is frozen water, which can be an issue when it comes to dealing with NPDES stormwater permits. Pipes get clogged with ice, the ground gets covered in snow, and life under your stormwater permit can get pretty tricky.

We cover tips on taking stormwater samples for facilities covered under the PAG-03 stormwater permit.

I'm sure by now you know there's a new PAG-03 stormwater permit in Pennsylvania. Many people are already ahead of the game and have gotten to where they need to be paperwork wise, but we're finding that some folks aren't entirely sure what to do about the new stormwater sampling requirements.

Stormwater training is almost always required, but when and how often should you conduct SWPPP training?

We frequently get asked "why do we need training again, nothing's changed?" Well, all environmental training is sort of like going to the gym. You need to keep going, and keep practicing, because like anything else in this world, practice makes perfect.

We explain the differences between biological oxygen demand & chemical oxygen demand.

Yesterday afternoon I finished up some stormwater training with an old client of ours who changed some staff recently. I was brought in for some basic environmental training, and one of the topics we covered was their NPDES stormwater permit. No big deal. Everything went smooth. The new staff members were a pretty sharp bunch, and I think they'll have no trouble staying in compliance at all.

We discuss the reasons so many organizations end up with bad stormwater samples, or failing stormwater test results.

We do stormwater work all over the United States, and one common element we run into are facilities getting bad stormwater samples. NPDES stormwater permits often require that stormwater discharges be sampled, and that the results be compared to benchmarks or limits in the permit. Yet far too regularly, facilities get poor results, which are often very difficult to diagnose the cause of the bad results.

Now here's a situation I truly wish I had a dollar for every time I hear about it. Someone who holds an NPDES stormwater discharge permit calls us, and they want to discuss the bad sample results they got. They've been doing their BMPs, keeping their site neat and clean, updating their SWPPP, yet they still are getting bad sample results. They all want to know why are our stormwater samples so bad? Why are our stormwater results failing?