Smart, Integrated Stormwater Management Systems Anacostia River Watershed Water Quality Study

The goal of the Smart, Integrated Stormwater Management Systems (SISMS) Water QualityStudy was to evaluate the use of continuous monitoring and adaptive controls (CMAC) forimproving the performance of structural stormwater best management practices (BMPs) in theAnacostia River Watershed. The Anacostia River is a tributary to the Potomac River, whicheventually discharges to Chesapeake Bay, and is impaired for nutrients and sediments, amongother pollutants (MDE 2008). CMAC utilizes information directly from field deployed sensors andthe real-time local NOAA weather forecast to directly monitor facilities and make predictive andautomated decisions for stormwater control. This study was performed and documented byOptiRTC and was managed by Geosyntec Consultants, Inc.The scope of this study involved installation of CMAC at three BMP facilities, located in thehighly urban Anacostia watershed, converting the sites from passive systems to active, real-timecontrol systems, along with monitoring the performance of these sites for at least one year. Thepassive system refers to the site without automated controls, the active site is deployed withCMAC technology. Additionally, the monitoring program sought to:

● Demonstrate that existing stormwater BMPs in the Anacostia River watershed can easilybe retrofitted with real-time controls;
● Quantify whether there was an increase in average stormwater retention time within theretrofit facilities using CMAC;
● Demonstrate whether there was increased removal of solids through enhanced settlingover longer retention times;
● Demonstrate whether there was increased removal of particulate-bound phosphorus andnitrogen through enhanced settling over longer retention times;
● Demonstrate the potential utility of real-time controls in increasing the removal ofnitrogen from tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay; and
● Demonstrate the cost-saving benefits of using previously developed CMAC platforms inretrofit projects.

This report provides an overview of the CMAC installations and data collected at two studysites: University wet pond and Frost dry pond. Water quality samples were not collected at thethird site, Nannie Hellen Burroughs bioswale.