—Mike Hines, England-Thims & Miller, Inc.
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Since 1972, the Clean Water Act and its amendments have prohibited the discharge of any pollutant to a water of the United States unless it has been authorized by a national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit. The NPDES program is designed to track point sources that discharge pollutants into the environment and the implementation of controls to minimize the discharge of pollutants. In 1987 Congress amended the Water Quality Act requiring increased monitoring and the assessment of water bodies to ensure that water quality standards were not just on paper, but were actually being realized in the nation's waters. The City of Jacksonville Environmental Quality Division's Water Quality Branch is responsible for water quality monitoring and related sampling of the St. Johns River and its tributaries within the Duval County. The Water Branch routinely receives calls from the public and other agencies regarding Potential Illicit Connections (PICs) to the City's Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4). Existing PIC investigation workflow and databases were developed over time and as a result did not optimally address NPDES and newly required Lower St. Johns River Management Action Plan reporting and water quality monitoring requirements. It was determined that the City's NPDES GIS coupled with GPS based field inspection tools would enable Water Quality Branch inspectors to more quickly locate, investigate, report, take enforcement actions (if required), monitor ongoing compliance and analyze illicit connection trends related information. In 2007 the City authorized England-Thims & Miller, Inc. (ETM), under the firm's existing NPDES Program Support Services contract, to review current workflow, recommend improvements thereto, and develop a PIC Inspection and Reporting Tool. This presentation opens with an overview of the City's NPDES Program and how the GIS database is being applied to support PIC inspection and reporting requirements. It will then shift focus to discuss ETM's use of Esri's ArcGIS and ArcPad software to develop the PIC inspection toolset and how the NPDES GIS and PIC Inspection toolset is serving as the framework for development of additional inspection tools and reports required by NPDES and the Lower St. Johns River Tributaries Management Action Plan.