Just beginning

I recently subscribed to help my mom who's the chairperson of the planning board in a small town. I can see right away that this is all over her head and most of mine. Can anyone recommend some simple documents and/or software to get us started? I have a technical background but my mom and the rest of the planning board have none. The primary issue seems to be determining the impact of runoff from new developments into the watershed for the town water supply lake.

Thanks

Judith A. White
Environmental Engineer
SSCC, Stevenson Mill
JAWHITE@SMURFIT.COM

Judi --

For introductory info for the planning board, try these:

For watersheds:
http://www.epa.gov/watertrain/
<http://www.epa.gov/watertrain/>
http://www.cwp.org/
<http://www.cwp.org/>

For nonpoint source pollution (runoff)
http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/eduinfo.html
<http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/eduinfo.html>

To get the info you need to be an expert yourself:
http://www.stormwatercenter.net/
<http://www.stormwatercenter.net/>

SWMM may be a much more complex method of doing your calculations than you need. The basic approach of calculating pollutant loads from runoff is called the "Simple Method". Here's a description:
http://www.stormwatercenter.net/monitoring
<http://www.stormwatercenter.net/monitoring>
and assessment/simple meth/simple.htm

If you really want to get started in SWMM, the SWMM manuals and software available from http://www.computationalhydraulics.com/ <http://www.computationalhydraulics.com/> are reasonably priced and as good a resource as you'll be able to find anywhere else. The EPA version of SWMM is downloadable from the same site at no cost.

My advice on learning SWMM is to start with RUNOFF on one catchment. Once you've been back and forth with your input files and the manual you should be able to understand obscure topics like depression storage and subcatchment width, and better, to get a feel for how their variations affect the flows from your watershed. Next, try building a model with 5 or 6 catchments. Once you're done with RUNOFF, build an EXTRAN or TRANSPORT file for the drainage network and go on from there. These blocks will let you model almost anything you should encounter. If you get around to modeling things like groundwater and snowmelt, you'll be giving the rest of us advice. :-)

Keep coming back to the list for any help you need. It's a great resource and the modelers here have bailed me out several times.

Hope this helps

Bill Frost, PE
KCI Technologies, Inc.
wfrost@kci.com