50 Years of Research, and Counting

Congratulations to the Utah Water Research Lab, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last week. The oldest and biggest university water research facility in the country features a number of testing facilities, including two hydraulics laboratories and an environmental quality laboratory. UWRL’s test equipment includes a rainfall simulator for testing erosion control BMPs. The facility designs, builds, and tests physical models of structures ranging from sewer and stormwater systems to dams, spillways, and erosion control systems to test and improve their performance, and it has the capability to model various hydraulic systems as well. You can visit UWRL’s website at http://uwrl.usu.edu. [text_ad] “Designing Effective Construction Site
 Sediment Containment Systems” On a related note, an upcoming webinar from Forester University will address erosion and sediment control systems for construction sites. On September 17—this Thursday—presenters Jerald S. Fifield and Tina Wills of HydroDynamics Inc. will examine the 1992 EPA mandate that construction sites must have sediment containment systems with sufficient volume to capture runoff from a two-year, 24-hour storm event. They will challenge some of the assumptions behind this rule and explore design best practices, techniques, and analysis for designing effective construction site sediment containment systems. Jerry Fifield recently published a two-part article in Stormwater magazine on this topic; you can see part 1, from the May 2015 issue, here and part 2, from the July/August 2015 issue, here. For more information or to register for the webinar, click here. [text_ad use_post='27664'] Campus RainWorks Challenge Finally, a reminder that registration is open for EPA’s fourth annual Campus RainWorks Challenge. Teams of undergraduate and graduate students, working with a faculty advisor, can submit proposed green infrastructure projects for their own campuses. First-place winning teams will receive $2,000 to divide among the student team members and a faculty award of $3,000 to support green infrastructure research or training. Registration is open until September 30, entries must be submitted by December 18, and the winners will be announced April 22, 2016. See www.epa.gov/campusrainworks for details.