Stormwater360 attends the 2017 NZPI Environmental Compliance Conference

28 November 2017

The New Zealand Planning Institute (NZPI) recently held their annual Environmental Compliance Conference in Auckland, New Zealand. The conference was held over two days and involved presentations, practical learning, field trip, exhibition and workshops from renowned experts, focused on practical and tactical solutions to compliance problems and opportunities in New Zealand.

This year our Managing Director, Michael Hannah, and Design Manager, Troy Brockbank, co-authored a presentation on “Stormwater pollutant monitoring – How to do it and how to interpret it”.

 The presentation summarised existing national and international stormwater monitoring guidance for stormwater discharges and discussed how to establish an appropriate cost-effective monitoring plan for a site / receiving environment that provides meaningful data and achieves environmental outcomes.

 Resource consents for stormwater discharge often include conditions that require the stormwater discharge permit holder to monitor the quality of their stormwater discharge to demonstrate that environmental effects are mitigated. However, because of the variable nature of stormwater runoff pollution, the monitoring methodology can largely influence the results achieved.

 Typically, no guidance on “how to” monitor is included in these conditions. Whilst the conditions often give reference to effluent limits and targets that may be inappropriate for the location, land use activity, or contaminants of concern. A lot of time and money may be spent in gaining meaningless data.

 

The full abstract for this presentation is available at https://www.environmentalcomplianceconference.org/mike-hannah-and-troy-brockbank

 A copy of the presentation is available at https://www.planning.org.nz/Attachment?Action=Download&Attachment_id=4623