StormCon, the North American Surface Water Quality Conference & Expo, is now accepting abstracts for presentation at the 2011 conference. The conference will be held in Anaheim, CA, August 21 – 25, 2011. Abstracts are due December 14, 2010, and can be submitted online at www.StormCon.com.
The conference has two new tracks this year: Erosion and Sediment Control and Industrial Stormwater Management. The Erosion and Sediment Control track includes construction-site sediment control techniques, creating and maintaining SWPPPs, inspection and maintenance of BMPs, slope-stabilization and streambank techniques, and more. The Industrial Stormwater Management track deals with public and private facilities covered by industrial stormwater permits or EPA’s stormwater multi-sector general permit, including manufacturing operations, mining operations, landfills, oil and gas facilities, and transportation facilities.
In addition, the Green Infrastructure track (previously called Low-Impact Development) emphasizes more comprehensive community- and watershed-scale water-quality protection strategies. The other tracks are BMP Case Studies, Water-Quality Monitoring, Stormwater Program Management, and Advanced Research Topics. You can find descriptions of each track and information on the presentations at www.StormCon.com.
Much has changed in almost a decade since the first StormCon took place, back before Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System had even taken effect. And it’s still changing: EPA has issued the long-awaited effluent limitation guidelines for construction sites, which it is once again revising. Meeting the ELG, as well as the future direction of the national stormwater program, will be a focus of the 2011 conference.