Key problems in stormwater management: 

• High costs of managing jurisdictional compliance programs and reporting requirements
• Focus on permit compliance, less on effectiveness of outcomes: Perpetuates mis-allocation of budgets
• Litigation and regulatory risk exposure that can turn catastrophic 

Contributing Factors

A combination of factors contributes to the problems facing MS4 departments. Key categories include:

Spatial and Non-spatial Information Management is Fragmented 

• Silos of data: Excel, paper, Access, SQL, GIS files and servers, web sites
• Lack of data consistency between different compliance and monitoring programs 

Lack of Decision Support Tools for Use, Visualization, Analysis, and Interpretation of Information 

• Need to manually consolidate different types of information from different sources, which increases turn-around time, costs, and errors
• Interpretation and analysis are manually intensive tasks, limiting the depth and breadth to which data can be analyzed easily.
• Handling and analyzing spatial information, particularly with data across multiple programs, is cumbersome using traditional GIS.  Staff also ends up spending lot of time with GIS departments, requiring several iterations and long turn-around times. 

Interactions with External Organizations 

• MS4 compliance currently involves manual interaction with several external groups, e.g., inspections, issuance and handling violations for BMP maintenance, facilities, construction sites; regulatory agencies; consultants; attorneys; other agencies or departments (WWTP) , etc. 
• Information management, interpretation, analysis and reporting for these inter-organizational tasks are  also manually handled today

How EcoLayers Can Help 

• Consolidate information from many MS4 compliance programs and data sources for single-point access
• Permissions-based sharing of data to improve collaboration and coordination between program managers, departments, consultants, public, and others
• Standardize methods, processes, and people interactions across multiple MS4 and TMDL programs to improve overall efficiencies and outcomes 
• Significantly reduce staff and consultant time and costs that go into creating compliance reports and handling tasks like construction, facilities, and BMP inspections
• Use customized online tools for the analysis, interpretation, and visualization of water quality data for continuous assessments of compliance programs
• Increase adoption of decentralized solutions such as trees, landscapes, and green infrastructure BMPs
• Plan, track, and manage all aspects of stormwater offset and fees-in-lieu programs. Assess cumulative impacts by type of offsets and other criteria
• Approach structural and non-structural BMPs, construction site permitting, industrial stormwater permits, facilities inspections, etc. from an overall jurisdictional and/or watershed perspective
• Meet third party information requests (public, city council, Board members, developers) quickly and efficiently
• Reduce chargeback from other internal departments
• Create a knowledge base to expedite transition of new staff  and consultants
• Better assess integration of stormwater with planning for local water resources and flood control
• Use the EcoLayers Asset Management module to integrate maintenance with planning and operations