Project Description

The main objective of this proposal is to develop the tools needed for consistent and statistically comparable BMP monitoring and assessment. This will build upon preliminary work already in progress for the Tahoe Basin Stormwater Monitoring Network, funded through an EPA grant to the University of California Tahoe Environmental Research Center and the Desert Research Institute. As part of that program, the project team has assembled substantial data on stormwater runoff characteristics at Tahoe and has established preliminary field collection procedures, data management and reporting formats. This proposal will extend that effort to develop a similar set of tools adapted for high resolution BMP performance monitoring and reporting. Furthermore, this proposal will support the integration of those tools directly into the TIIMS EIP/BMP toolkit. This will contribute to the utility of TIIMS as a TMDL load reduction tracking system by providing effectiveness information on individual BMPs as well as load reduction information on a watershed scale. The tools developed here shall help ensure the consistency and quality of results, such that data generated by various agencies, institutions, jurisdictions and consultants will be suitable for direct uploading into the basin-wide TIIMS database.