Water Environment Federation Releases New Wet Weather Guidance

Alexandria, VA · The Water Environment Federation (WEF) announces the release of its new electronic publication, Guide to Managing Peak Wet Weather Flows in Municipal Wastewater Collection and Treatment Systems. Developed under a Water Quality Cooperative Agreement between WEF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the 117-page document is designed to help owners, planners, designers, and operators of wastewater collection and treatment systems improve and maximize performance during peak wet weather events.

Publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) - often faced with a limited ability to control highly variable wet weather flows - must propose alternatives, assess impacts, and proactively communicate with regulators and the community during wet weather events. To help address these issues, WEF's guide provides a method for POTWs to be more proactive in planning for these events and outlines a process that can be used to build support for real-world solutions to improve overall water quality.

In addition, the guide supports implementation of EPA's proposed Peak Wet Weather Discharge Policy. Announced in December 2005, the policy applies the bypass standard of "no feasible alternatives" to wet weather diversions at POTWs serving sanitary sewers. If finalized, it will require a comprehensive utility analysis to identify and assess alternatives to discharges and restrict diversions when peak flows are largely due to poor collection system maintenance or lack of investment in capacity.

“The Federation appreciates EPA’s efforts to issue a sound and workable peak wet weather policy, said Robert Matthews, chair of the Regulatory Subcommittee of WEF's Government Affairs Committee and senior vice president of CDM, Inc. “WEF's guide outlines the steps and analysis required to reach an environmentally-protective solution that combines stakeholder input, community values, and technical approaches to compare alternatives for each wet weather situation.” 

Prepared by CH2M HILL, Inc. and Water Resources Strategies, the document underwent a year-long review process by a project steering committee of WEF members, technical review group of Federation and individual technical experts, and volunteer stakeholders.

Presented in three sections, Guide to Managing Peak Wet Weather Flows in Municipal Wastewater Collection and Treatment Systems ($10 members/$25 non-members) is available for download or print-on-demand in WEF's online Marketplace at www.wef.org/Marketplace. 

About WEF
Founded in 1928, the Water Environment Federation (WEF) is a not-for-profit technical and educational organization with members from varied disciplines who work toward the WEF vision of preservation and enhancement of the global water environment. The WEF network includes water quality professionals from 76 Member Associations in 30 countries.