PART ONE: A Brief History of Oregon’s Environmental & Regulatory Advocacy

CRISIS ON THE WILLAMETTE RIVER

The Oregon State Sanitary Authority (OSSA) was the first agency in the United States charged with protecting the environment and it became the cornerstone for future national legislation including the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1948), and the national Clean Water Act (1972).

In 1938, Oregon voters, by a three-to-one margin, approved an initiative to regulate water pollution and to create an enforcement agency under the jurisdiction of the Oregon State Board of Health. Political pressure that led to the initiative had begun as early as the 1920s, when the Board of Health and others had expressed concerns about water pollution and its threats to human health. Rampant pollution had caused many devastating fish kills on the Willamette River the 1920s, and Portland often closed its part of the Willamette to swimming because of sewage in the water.

Since many of the biggest polluters were along the Willamette, OSSA focused its efforts there. Raw domestic sewage from cities and waste from pulp mills, paper mills and other industrial sites produced the greatest volumes of pollutants. By the late 1940s, OSSA had induced communities along the river to install sewage treatment plants. However, the agency had less success with mill owners, who resisted pollution controls on grounds of expense. Of particular concern were sulfite process mills that discharged plumes of waste that were deadly to many aquatic plants and animals. As late as 1969, low oxygen levels related to pollution were preventing upstream migration of salmon on the Willamette. Fish migration was able to continue only after Governor Tom McCall, the OSSA chairman, ordered the temporary closure of four sulfite mills along the river.

THE CREATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY (DEQ)

The Oregon legislature created the DEQ during Tom McCall’s second year as governor (1967-1975), one element of what some journalists called “the most extensive shake-up of state government” in Oregon history. For decades, the state had centralized its oversight of water and air quality and solid waste management. The Oregon State Sanitary Authority (1938) was responsible for water quality, and the Oregon Air Pollution Authority (1951) oversaw air quality; the Air Pollution Authority was made part of the OSSA in 1959. In 1967, McCall led efforts to strengthen the OSSA, and in early March 1969 his legislative allies, including Republican Senator Victor Atiyeh, proposed Senate Bill 396 to separate the Sanitary Authority from the State Board of Health and create a new agency. Overseeing the Department of Environmental Quality would be a five-member, governor-appointed citizen panel—the Environmental Quality Commission—which would establish policies and provide guidance for the agency’s day-to-day work. McCall agreed to the reorganization and signed the bill on June 16, 1969. The late 1960s in the United States was a time of increased public attention on environmental issues and the need to strengthen environmental laws, and the creation of the DEQ put Oregon at the forefront in translating public sentiment into an effective regulatory and administrative framework. In early 1969, President Richard Nixon named McCall, conservationist Laurance Rockefeller, and aviator Charles Lindbergh to his Citizens Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality to provide input on what became the National Environmental Policy Act. In October 1969, David D. Dominick of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration called Oregon’s water pollution program among the most progressive and effective in the nation. In effect, Oregon’s environmental laws provided examples for federal legislation such as the National Environmental Policy Act (1970) and the Clean Water Act (1972) and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (1970).

ABOUT CLEANWAY

With over 25 years of experience, CleanWay Environmental Partners is dedicated to providing clients with affordable stormwater runoff solutions. Located in Portland, OR, our skilled staff is committed to serving customers nationwide with first-rate catch basin filters, downspout filtration units, premium leachate treatments, and heavy metals extraction products. Call (800) 723-1373 to request a quote and to learn more about how we can help you comply with environmental regulations.

We attend a lot of trade shows, they’re a big investment of time, money and human resources — they’re also a vital part of our business. If you’re reading this, the same might be true for you and your company. To help, we developed an internal “Trade Show Best Management Practices” (TSBMPs) document to help us put our best foot forward at each show, in essence; to set a standard for our own performance. If you’re exhibiting at, or attending, trade shows this year, we encourage you to read this through. It might be helpful in your own preparation for your next show. Should we see you at our booth, we hope you’ll tell us how we’re doing and what we might do better or differently next time around. Whenever you visit us at a trade show, it’s our firm belief that you deserve a return on the investment of your valuable time. We welcome your feedback.

First & Foremost: Listen & Learn

Our primary goal at every tradeshow is to listen to, and learn from visitors to our booth. If we don’t learn about the challenges a prospective customer faces, we can’t possibly understand how our systems might help them solve their problems. To be sure, analyzing a stormwater facility can be a complex equation, taking into account atmospheric, fleet, rainwater and runoff disposition of pollutants, inbound/outbound (both forklift and vehicular) tracking of pollutants, and legacy material in the underground system. Add to this the challenge of accurate testing at mission critical points in the system, and one can appreciate how difficult it is to isolate a pollutant source, and treat stormwater effectively. That’s why we listen carefully, and ask questions (and follow-up questions) throughout our one-on-one interactions.

An “Earned Opportunity” To Inform & Educate

Only after listening carefully, and learning everything we can about our visitor’s challenge(s) have we “earned” the opportunity to share our perspective, and the unique features and competitive advantages of our products. People are often surprised to hear, for example, that all of our MTDs have patented testing ports; that our patented MetalZorb product is unique in the industry; and that we custom blend filtration media to solve specific filtration challenges. Every interaction is also an opportunity to anticipate future challenges a customer might face. For example, new permits increasingly call for lower bench-marking and higher water quality standards, so even if we help a permit holder achieve compliance under their current permit, we also anticipate how we can help them “up their game” in order to comply under the terms of a renewed permit.

“We send our best, most experience people to every trade show because we understand the value of the one-on-one interaction. We often learn about new and unique challenges from customers in our own “backyard” as well as challenges that might be unique to a different part of the country with ever changing and evolving regulatory and environmental conditions. When you visit us, you’ll find problem solving partners that approach each interaction with complete transparency and free sharing of knowledge and ideas. That’s a promise.”

Matthew Moulton, General Manager – CleanWay Environmental Partners, Inc.

The Trade Show Calendar

As you can see from the list below, our trade show schedule keeps us busy planning, producing, traveling or exhibiting virtually year-round. At the same time, we realize the commitment is vitally important. Trade shows give us the opportunity to learn, to network and to connect with our customers and prospects one-on-one.

If you attend any of the shows below, we look forward to seeing you. If you’ve thought about attending, and would like our perspective on the benefits of being an exhibitor or attendee, please click through to our contact page here, and we’ll be happy to relate our experiences and share our thoughts:

SWS CONFERENCE, TINLEY PARK, IL, NOVEMBER 13 – 15, 2018

NEBC OREGON, PORTLAND, OR, DECEMBER 11 – 12, 2018

NEBC WASHINGTON, TACOMA, WA, MARCH 6, 2019

WASTE EXPO, LAS VEGAS, NV, MAY 6 – 9, 2019

OHIO STORMWATER CONFERENCE, SHARONVILLE, OH, MAY 8 – 10, 2019

NEBC OREGON, SALEM, OR, JUNE 19, 2019

STORMCON, ATLANTA, GA, AUGUST 18 – 22, 2019

WEFTEC, CHICAGO, IL, SEPTEMBER 23 – 25, 2019

CASQA, MONTEREY, CA, OCTOBER 7 – 9, 2019

Opportunity Assessment

As you know from your own trade show experience, each show has its own focus each year, its own audience, its own personality, and its own opportunity set. WEFTEC, for example, is one of the largest trade shows in the world for the stormwater industry, with attendees exceeding 20,000 each year. When one considers that WEFTEC membership is almost double that number, marketing to the membership base through the show’s digital offerings (email blasts, social media announcements, etc.) makes a lot of sense.

When you reach potential customers through show channels, even if they won’t be attending the show, you are now on their “radar screen”, and you’ve created an opportunity for a future conversation. As an exhibitor, refining and adding to your booth keeps it fresh and creates unexpected opportunities. At WEFTEC18, we won the “Best Inline Booth” award for “clear messaging and benefit statement supported throughout the space”. The award was posted on the WEFTEC website and on their Twitter account, and that gave us an opportunity, post show, to engage in a social conversation. So while each show is an opportunity to engage one-on-one, in group settings and technical sessions in the physical space, it’s an opportunity to engage in the digital space as well — before, during and after the show. We take the time to look at the whole trade show mechanism, and discus internally the cost/benefit of investing in the communication channels offered by each show. In the case of digital opportunities, we look at how the show’s digital offerings (advertising, social media, email announcements, etc.) might tie into our own digital enterprise.

Our consistent attendance at the SWS Conference and our long standing relationship with Stormwater Solutions Magazine, both as an advertiser and a participant in their digital Storefront program is a good example of leveraging a long term relationship and linkage to digital opportunities associated with the Conference. We’ve found that it’s always a good idea to ask about existing customer programs, discounts and advertiser/show programs to leverage our advertising investment.

With over 25 years of experience, CleanWay Environmental Partners is dedicated to providing clients with affordable stormwater runoff solutions. Located in Portland, OR, our skilled staff is committed to serving customers nationwide with first-rate catch basin filters, downspout filtration units, and heavy metals extraction products. Call (800) 723-1373 to request a quote and to learn more about how we can help you comply with environmental regulations.

STORMWATER MAINTENANCE BIG PICTURE

Maintenance of stormwater Manufactured Treatments Devices (MTDs) is fundamental to the success of your Best Management Practices (BMP) plan. The good news is that effective stormwater filtration device maintenance is not difficult to do, and not difficult to teach. It is, however, critically important that if the work is done “in-house” by an employee, that the employee is not only properly trained, but understands what is at stake for the company in terms of compliance, perception of neighbors, workplace pride, safety and other considerations. This excerpt from the EPA’s NPDES website sums up the scope of an otherwise straightforward, but mission critical activity:

“All stormwater management systems, whether gray or green, require maintenance. Appropriate operation and maintenance activities ensure that stormwater practices will continue to function properly and yield expected water quality and environmental benefits, protect public safety, meet legal standards, and protect communities’ financial investment.”

If you choose to work with a stormwater filtration MTD maintenance contractor, Be sure that your contractor is ATT (Alternative Treatment Technologies) and O&M (Operations and Maintenance) certified. Ideally, your contractor will have experience maintaining the devices currently installed at your facility, and have a long lasting and close working relationship with the manufacturer of those devices. In the Northwest, CleanWay has worked with River City Environmental, Inc. for many years. To view the full scope of River City’s stormwater services, you can click through to that section of their website here. If you are outside of the northwest, River City is a good example of the kind of company you want to work with. It’s important to note that your stormwater filtration MTDs are named in your Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP), so your maintenance logs should name the manufacturer, and the type of MTD (catch basin, curb inlet, downspout, etc.) used at each facility location. Maintenance should include keeping a log of the amount of sediment collected and the date of removal.

“We work with industrial stormwater permit holders, in addition to engineering and environmental consulting firms, in all 50 states. If you have a question about stormwater filtration maintenance, we welcome the opportunity to speak to you, even if you’re not currently a CleanWay customer. Our highly credentialed staff has almost a century of stormwater management and filtration experience and we’re here to help.”

Matthew Moulton, General Manager – CleanWay Environmental Partners

IN-HOUSE EMPLOYEE ORIENTATION & TRAINING

Assigning a trusted employee to perform stormwater filtration device (MTD) maintenance is a great opportunity for that employee to learn about an important, but often invisible aspect of facility operation, contribute to the company and position themselves for greater responsibility through exemplary performance. At CleanWay, we’ve gone to great lengths to make maintenance of our stormwater filtration systems simple and easy for one person. Proper maintenance ensures compliance, makes the facility look better, smell better and engenders a sense of pride in ownership and workmanship. It also makes for a good neighbor, which is an important consideration. Employee awareness of the “big picture” should impress upon them the importance of the task they’re assigned. Naturally, it’s up to management to decide how much information to share, but it may be useful to share with your dedicated maintenance employee or team the purpose and requirements of the applicable NPDES parameters, an overview of your SWPPP and your BMP so they understand how their assignments fit into overall compliance. When it comes to training, CleanWay provides materials lists for each of our filtration devices, and we have a series of videos on our stormwater filtration device maintenance. To view the videos on our website, please click here.

WHAT IS THE RECOMMENDED FREQUENCY FOR MAINTENANCE?

We recommend monthly inspections, which are required for most permit holders. Visual inspections provide the clues so you know when it’s time for maintenance:

• The strainer insert is dirty and debris has accumulated in the strainer

• The water level in the strainer rises above normal levels—which is seen during rain events

• Water sampling shows water quality decay or degradation

HOW IS STORMWATER MAINTENANCE DONE?

Cleaning your CleanWay catch basin can be done with a Vactor® truck or manually, completed by one person.

• First, remove the grate to access the catch basin

• Second, remove the strainer using the handle. Empty and clean the strainer in an approved receptacle. 

To perform maintenance on the filter element, a Vactor truck, vacuum truck street sweeper or large shop vac can all be used to remove accumulated pollutants and debris. Once the pollutants are removed, dispose the used filter element and install a new replacement element. Re-install the cleaned ridged strainer and place the grate back over the complete filter assembly taking care not to damage the gasket or dislodge the sample port plug. Check with your local disposal company for the best disposal options of accumulated pollutants.

HOW OFTEN DOES THE FILTRATION FABRIC ELEMENT NEED TO BE REPLACED?

We recommend installing a new Filtration Fabric element at the start of your rainy season. For example, a new element in the northwest is installed in early October. Once the leaves have fallen around the end of November, we replace the element again. This second element may last through the remainder of the rainy season. The life of the filter element depends on the condition of the pavement, volume and type of traffic, the area of pavement that the filter serves and the weather conditions. To perform at its best, the filter element should be replaced regularly if exposed to oily grit. Filtration Fabric elements are very inexpensive and easy to replace. Simple visual inspection of the filters on a monthly basis is all that is usually required to determine if the element needs to be replaced. We encourage replacing the element at the first indication it’s becoming clogged. To view our high-efficiency filtration element options, please click here.

With over 25 years of experience, CleanWay Environmental Partners is dedicated to providing clients with affordable stormwater runoff solutions. Located in Portland, OR, our skilled staff is committed to serving customers nationwide with first-rate catch basin filters, downspout filtration units, premium leachate treatments, and heavy metals extraction products. Call (800) 723-1373 to request a quote and to learn more about how we can help you comply with environmental regulations.

HIGH CAPACITY, DRY/WET CONFIGURATION AND VERIFIABLE PERFORMANCE

CleanWay recognized the need for rooftop stormwater and downspout filtration over 20 years ago. As a result, we’ve continuously refined our downspout filtration system (also referred to as roof drain filters, gutter drain filters or rainwater filters) to meet the evolving needs of our customers. Unlike inline options, which require cutting and fitting of the existing downspout, our units are free standing, easily accessible for maintenance and cleaning and incorporate a patented water sampling port for verifiable filtration performance. Two levels of outlet openings allow the unit to be run in either a dry (where vector control is a concern) or wet configuration (to increase removal rates with additional contact time).

“ALL SURFACE FILTRATION”, MAXIMUM VOLUME AND DUAL FILTRATION SETS CLEANWAY APART

When you’re investigating a downspout filtration system, consider that our filtration vessel is six (6) to eight (8) times larger in volume than inline systems. Then take into account that our rigid strainer is completely covered by a site-specific absorption media envelop to maximize contact with stormwater runoff — virtually eliminating unfiltered water in high volume bypass scenarios: Here’s how it works: Our absorption media section incorporates a flexible open mesh fabric envelope with a specialized media blend suspended from the support assembly and fitted into the basin so all influent passes through both strainer and filtration media before exiting to the downstream conduit. The combination of gross solids removal via the strainer and the absorption / filtration in the media section virtually eliminates heavy metals, suspended solids, turbidity and other pollutants. Our site-specific filtration elements include:

1. Rigid Strainer: Trash & Debris (sized to capture particles down to 3.2 mm)
2. Geotextile Element: Sediment & TSS
3. Adsorb-It Element: Oil & Hydrocarbons
4. Vermiculite Media: Dissolved Zinc Only
5. MetalZorb Media: Dissolved Heavy Metals

“We named our company advisedly; CleanWay Environmental Partners is all about the partnership between the industrial site permit holder, their engineering firm or specifier and CleanWay Environmental. We offer our clients a deep reservoir of applied technology across a wide spectrum of water treatment solutions. If you have a unique water treatment of filtration challenge, we invite your inquiry.”

Steve McInnis, President, CleanWay Environmental Partners

EASE OF INSTALLATION, CONFIGURATION, MAINTENANCE & TESTING

Our attractive, non-obtrusive downspout filtration systems are easy to install, simply place it next to your downspout and “plug it in.” Available in standard or custom configurations, our downspout filters fit the side of any building, and can be connected on the right or left side, depending on your site configuration. Because rooftop runoff can contain many different pollutants of concern, we help you to determine the best media blend for your application. For ease of cleaning and filter replacement, the top lid can be locked in an open position so a single operator can service the unit by hand or by Vactor truck. Applications include:

1. Industrial roofs (including permitted Industrial Users (IU), Significant Industrial Users (SIU), Categorical Industrial Users (CIU)
2. Commercial roofs
3. High rise buildings
4. Parking structures
5. Mixed use buildings