Puyallup, Washington: Mapping Out Success with NPDESPro

Introduction

Just 35 miles south of Seattle and home to The Washington State Fair, Puyallup is a bustling city of over 42,000 residents. The vast majority of stormwater runoff goes directly into the city's major water body, The Puyallup River, and the city has experienced some unique challenges in their stormwater management efforts, leading them to use NPDESPro to stay on top of their compliance goals.

Challenges

Before implementing NPDESPro, Puyallup struggled with several issues:

• Data Disorganization: The tracking for private stormwater inspections was done manually through word documents, leading to confusion and inefficiency. Inspection reports were typed up, mailed, and often returned due to incorrect addresses.

• Lack of Mapping: Puyallup did not have maps for their private stormwater infrastructure to send with reports. This caused issues with tracking inspections and made it difficult for recipients to follow the inspection reports.

• Inefficient Follow-Ups: The manual and paper-based system led to lost track of inspection follow-ups, making it hard to stay on top of ongoing issues.

Puyallup Stormwater Engineer Kelton Parker elaborated on the challenges Puyallup faced before NPDESPro; “We knew that the new source control requirements were coming up, and we needed some sort of database to track all that information. So, the options were to either create our own access database and go that route or do something like NPDESPro. Our tracking for our private stormwater inspections was basically a word document, you type up your inspection report, fold it up, mail it, you have the wrong address and get sent back, and once we did a demo with NPDESPro, we just felt like since we didn’t have another database started for either of those programs, it was an easy decision for us because all of our data is kept in one place.”

Implementation

• Centralized Database: Puyallup transitioned to using NPDESPro’s centralized system, which provided a single repository for all stormwater management data. This eliminated the need for separate databases or manual record-keeping.

• Enhanced Mapping: NPDESPro enabled Puyallup to have a map of each private stormwater system to include with the inspection report for reference.

• Automated Communication: With NPDESPro, Puyallup could use pre-set email templates for sending inspection reports, ensuring consistent and clear communication with recipients as well as records of correspondence.

Results

• Improved Efficiency: The centralized database helped Puyallup organize their stormwater data more efficiently, reducing confusion and errors in tracking inspections.

• Better Follow-Up: The ability to track and follow up on inspections improved significantly. Parker noted, "We've had a lot more success, I think, with going out initially and follow up visits and just being able to stay on top of it because in the past we would do the inspection and then because it was all paper, everything was kind of a mess and stuff would get returned, we would kind of lose track of where we were at in that process."

• Streamlined Mapping: The use of NPDESPro’s mapping features simplified the creation and use of maps for inspections which can be seen by all inspectors, making it easier for both the city and inspection report recipients to understand and act on the data provided.

Conclusion

By centralizing data, enhancing mapping capabilities, and streamlining communication with NPDESPro, Puyallup has overcome many of the challenges they previously faced. Said Parker, “It’s been an overall improvement, which has helped us tackle and follow up on these issues that maybe in the past may have been forgotten about.” The city can now efficiently track, report, and follow up on stormwater inspections, ensuring better management and compliance with regulatory requirements.