2019 Winter Conference Agenda

Wednesday  -  Thursday  -  Friday
Schedule subject to change 


 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2019 --- PRE-CONFERENCE (additional fee applies)

12:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Registration Desk Open

 

1:00 PM – 3:30 PM

[PRE-CONFERENCE] Tour of Local Stormwater Projects 
Join us for a tour of innovative stormwater projects in the Tampa area coordinated by the City of Tampa and local partners.  Register early as a limited number of seats are available and we anticipate the tour filling up quickly.  Transportation will leave the hotel lobby promptly at 1:00 p.m. and will return no later than 3:30 p.m. Please dress casually and wear comfortable walking shoes.

 

1:00 PM – 3:30 PM

[PRE-CONFERENCE] Improving Water Quality with Green Infrastructure and Low Impact Development
This session will review the use and benefit of Low Impact Development (LID) and Green Infrastructure (GI).  LID and GI are approaches to stormwater management that mimic a site's natural hydrology as the landscape is developed.  For new development and redevelopment, LID seeks to manage stormwater on-site. LID principles complement, and sometimes replace, traditional stormwater management systems in a cost-effective, sustainable, and environmentally friendly manner.

Eban Bean, PhD, PE, Asst Professor & Extension Specialist, Urban Water Resources Eng, Dept of Agricultural and Biological Eng, UF/IFAS

Mark Ellard, PE, CFM, DWRE, ENV SP, Senior Principal
Geosyntec Consultants

Justin Gregory, PE, Department Manager/Vice President
Jones Edmunds & Associates 

Shane Williams, PhD, PE, Stormwater Engineer
Alachua County


THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019 --- REGULAR CONFERENCE

8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Registration Desk Open

 

8:00 AM – 8:30 AM

Continental Breakfast by Registration Desk

 

8:30 AM – 8:45 AM

Welcome and Announcements

Kelli Hammer Levy, President
Florida Stormwater Association

 

8:45 AM – 9:45 AM

What’s Ahead for 2020?
Recent initiatives to improve water quality have been undertaken by both the legislative and executive branches of government but much more remains to be done.  This session will review the status of recent water quality restoration initiatives, and likely legislation and regulatory programs to watch for in 2020.  Audience participation will be encouraged. 

Noah Valenstein, Secretary
Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Kelli Hammer Levy, President
Florida Stormwater Association

Chris Pettit, Director
FDACS Agricultural Water Policy

 

9:45 AM – 10:15 AM

Coffee Break in Exhibit Hall (Exhibit Hall Open 9:45 AM – 6:20 PM)

 

10:15 AM – 10:50 AM

Green Infrastructure as an Effective Pollutant Load Reduction Strategy
Pinellas County is facing the challenge of identifying effective pollutant load reductions strategies to address TMDLs and other water quality regulatory requirements. As the most densely populated county in Florida, Pinellas is focusing on small footprint, Green Infrastructure strategies to meet these challenges. To identify locations conducive to implementing Green Infrastructure, the County developed a GIS based screening tool whereby these sites can be easily identified and assessed with new ICPR model functionality. This presentation will review the background and goals of the project, discuss details of GIS tool development and execution, and introduce the new ICPR model pollutant load functionality.

Josie Benwell, ENV SP, Project Coordinator
Pinellas County 

Mark Ellard, PE, CFM, DWRE, ENV SP, Senior Principal
Geosyntec Consultants

Pete Singhofen, PE, President
Streamline Technologies

 

10:50 AM – 11:25 AM

Reducing Urban Flooding in the Face of Sea Level Rise
Miami faces tremendous challenges with dense development vulnerable to sea level rise. The Stormwater Master Plan is a holistic plan that accounts for changes in tidal, groundwater, and rainfall patterns to reduce flooding. A multi-faceted approach to modeling current and future conditions allows the City to provide for future stormwater needs. This presentation will provide insight on the data gathered and modeling outputs that are currently being generated. It will also detail issues with the existing infrastructure as it is performing in today’s climate, as well as the anticipated difficulties of implementing recommended infrastructure improvements in such a dense urban environment that is nearly built out.

Christopher Bennett, PE, Assistant Director
City of Miami

Alan Dodd, PE, Director
City of Miami

Michael Schmidt, PE, BCEE, DWRE, Senior Vice President
CDM Smith

 

11:25 AM – 12:00 PM

Lake Tohopekaliga Water Restoration Project
Osceola County in a partnership with Toho Water Authority is constructing one of  the largest active municipal stormwater treatment projects in the area. This project is a leading example of sustainability and best management practices for the protection of the environment, floodplain protection, nutrient reduction, and protection of groundwater.  This presentation will detail the genesis of the project, its challenges, and the guiding principles.

Linette Matheny, PE, Assistant County Engineer
Osceola County

Susan Gosselin, Natural Resources Manager
Osceola County

 

12:00 PM – 1:20 PM

Luncheon
Presentation of FSA Educational Foundation’s Scholarship Award

 

1:20 PM – 1:55 PM

A Modern Hydrologic Monitoring System In an Urban Environment
The City of Orlando has upgraded its hydrologic monitoring system to include more than 65 stage monitoring sites, rainfall recording, and flow measurement. The system features flood warning, real-time monitoring, and user-friendly access to the public. This presentation includes the design considerations, implementation, and capabilities of the system.

Richard Copenhaver, EIT, Environmental Specialist II
City of Orlando

Lisa Lotti, Stormwater Compliance Program Manager
City of Orlando

Hensley Henry, Instrument Technician III
City of Orlando

 

1:55 PM – 2:30 PM

What is Driving  Increasing Nitrogen Trends in Sarasota County?
Despite the efforts of stakeholders from the watersheds draining into Sarasota County’s bays, recent analyses of water quality indicate increasing trends in nitrogen within the watersheds and receiving waters.  To identify the source of the increasing trends, a pollutant loading model was employed. The model provides estimates for runoff, baseflow, septic, point source, non-compliant effluent, and irrigation.  This presentation will show how the results of this analysis will provide insight into which loading source should be targeted to mitigate the increase in nitrogen.

Jon Perry, GISP, Scientist
Janicki Environmental

Michael Wessel, MS, Vice President
Janicki Environmental

Anthony Janicki, PhD, President
Janicki Environmental

 

2:30 PM – 3:05 PM

Measuring Internal Nutrient Loads and Effective Treatment Options
Before conducting a large scale and costly restoration project, it’s important to understand the magnitude and distribution of nutrient loads from all potential sources; especially what’s coming from the sediments. Most water quality models and nutrient budgets simply assume the balance of the nutrient budget to represent sediment loads, but measuring sediment flux rates and loads allows for better budgeting and resource management. This presentation will review case studies that can assist with watershed restoration planning.

Mary Szafraniec, PhD, Associate Scientist
Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions

 

3:05 PM – 3:35 PM

Soda Break in Exhibit Hall

 

3:35 PM – 4:10 PM

Incentivizing Green Infrastructure Uptake with User Fee Credits
This presentation will explore alternative stormwater user fee credit criteria that would allow more flexible and rewarding financial incentives for Green Infrastructure facilities that can demonstrate beneficial downstream impacts related to flood protection, stream stability, ecological diversity and health. A methodology is presented for quantifying the level of flow, duration control and average annual on-site retention compared to pre-development conditions using the EPA Stormwater Management Model.

Mike Gregory, PE, Engineering Director
Computational Hydraulics International

 

4:10 PM – 4:45 PM

Optimize Stormwater Resiliency: Right Budget, Right Time, Right Assets
Florida’s stormwater utilities face extreme weather conditions posing short and long term impacts to their infrastructure. The City of Fort Lauderdale is improving its stormwater systems resiliency through use of new long-range asset management budget forecast tools to proactively prepare for these conditions. This approach will allow the City to add new stormwater assets under the existing Stormwater Master Plan while fixing annual operation costs over the next five years, yielding long-term savings while simultaneously improving the level of stormwater service provided.

Bob Munro, MBA, PMP, CMRP, Executive Advisor
GHD

Elkin Diaz, MBA, PE, PMP, Senior Project Manager
City of Fort Lauderdale

 

4:45 PM – 5:20 PM

Leaky Laterals: A Social Marketing Approach
This presentation will review the development of a community-based social marketing campaign focused on private citizen behaviors that can reduce the occurrence of sanitary sewer overflows and improve water quality in Tampa Bay. The primary goal of the campaign is to encourage the repair/replacement of failing private sewer laterals.

Maya Burke, Science Policy Coordinator
Tampa Bay Estuary Program

 

5:20 PM – 6:20 PM

Reception in Exhibit Hall


FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2019 --- REGULAR CONFERENCE

8:00 AM – 10:45 AM

Registration Desk Open

 

8:00 AM – 8:30 AM

Continental Breakfast in Exhibit Hall (Exhibit Hall Open 8:00 AM – 10:45 AM)

 

8:30 AM – 9:05 AM

How to Determine Soil Water Tables for Simulating Flood Levels
Better achievement for calibration and verification of a watershed’s runoff and infiltration from historical storms can be facilitated with the advanced Southwest Florida Water Management District’s new physically based “Soil Data Retrieving and Processing Tool.”  This tool allows for soil layering and adjustments in the water table to better predict runoff processes for single event storms. This presentation will provide, in a condensed version, a step-by-step methodology to achieve calibration and verification of resulting floodplains from historical rainfall events for a watershed.

Harry Downing, PE, MS, Senior Engineer
Applied Sciences Consulting

Nam Nguyen, PE, Professional Engineer
SWFWMD

 

9:05 AM – 9:40 AM

Open Science - Bringing Water Quality to the Masses
The Tampa Bay Estuary Program and its partners have translated an annual water quality assessment which began in the 1970s into a web-based, Open Science platform. The platform boasts interactive graphics of water quality trends that can be adapted and reproduced, demonstrating the value of open science processes for management and restoration activities.  This presentation will discuss the transition of Tampa Bay’s long-term water quality data analysis from static reports to interactive graphic representations that can be manipulated by end users to examine trends at different time frames and geographical scales, highlighting the value of applying open science principles to produce better science in less time.

Gary Raulerson, PhD, Ecologist
Tampa Bay Estuary Program

 

9:40 AM – 10:15 AM

Re-Inventing Canals: Stream Restoration for Transformative Benefits
Urban drainage ditches are critical for flood protection, but many are deteriorating with increased maintenance costs. Stream restoration retrofits within the available right of way provide a strong return-on-investment with improved drainage, water quality, fishery, recreation, and property resiliency benefits. The applicability and constraints of stream restoration in urban Florida and the biophysical and regulatory criteria necessary to achieve sustainable solutions with positive economics will be discussed. This presentation will also include the results of a detailed biophysical and economic assessment of the eroding canals in Sarasota County’s Phillippi Creek watershed, with some related ditch retrofit projects conducted elsewhere in Florida.

John Kiefer, PhD, PE, PWS, Principal Water Resources Engineer
Wood Environment and Infrastructrure Solutions

Julie Espy, Program Administrator - Water Quality Assessment Program
Florida Department of Environmental Protection

John Ryan, Environmental Manager - Stormwater Environmental Utility
Sarasota County

 

10:15 AM – 10:45 AM

Coffee Break in Exhibit Hall (Last chance to talk to Exhibitors!)

 

10:45 AM – 11:20 AM

Rethinking Ridiculously Wide Roads: A Stormwater Perspective
The right-sizing of roads can lead to additional benefits from a stormwater perspective, namely reduced impervious area and additional opportunities for stormwater treatment within the right of way. The City of Casselberry will present case studies on so-called “road-diets” with a particular focus on the Casselton Drive Improvements Project. This project took a pavement section over 50 feet wide and converted it to a 22 foot wide typical pavement section thereby freeing significant space for pedestrian improvements and stormwater treatment.

Kelly Brock, PhD, PE, CFM, LEED AP, ENV SP,
Deputy Public Works Director/City Engineer
, City of Casselberry

 

11:20 AM – 11:55 AM

Status of the Triennial Review
The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires states to review their surface water quality standards for possible revision every three years.  FDEP initiated the current Triennial Review in May 2019.  While all surface water quality standards are subject to examination and may be revised as part of the Triennial Review process, the Department typically focuses on selected standards or criteria.  This session will discuss the status of the current Review and what subsets of standards or criteria will be the focus of the Triennial Review process. 

Daryll Joyner, Administrator Water Quality Standards Program
Florida Department of Environmental Protection

 

11:55 AM

Adjourn