Total Suspended Solids: Is It for Real?

Stormwater treatment device selection is largely governed by regulatory compliance. Often stormwater management strategies are selected to comply with a regulatory performance requirement rather than being designed based upon actual performance characteristics of the systems. While technical performance evaluation of stormwater treatment devices is an evolving science, regulatory guidelines struggle to keep in step with regional demands for information. A discussion of the origin of a TSS performance standard and its potential limitations is presented against a comprehensive statistical analysis of pollutant relationship patterns of influent and effluent water quality across a range of stormwater management practices. Complex pollutant relationships, or lack-there-of, suggest that In the future we will need to integrate our stormwater designs into the building blocks of regional watershed improvement strategies with careful attention to altered hydrology. One effective means for addressing this is by implementing innovative BMPs employing some form of filtration or infiltration mechanisms. Selection criteria that possess a foundation in regional watershed protection objectives need to be advanced using standards of performance that examine the fundamental causes of watershed impairment, namely altered hydrology.