PUYALLUP, Wash. – Western Washington businesses will soon have a new resource for help in navigating new regulations concerning stormwater management on their job sites.
An $85,000 grant to the Washington Stormwater Center from The Boeing Company’s Global Corporate Citizenship Northwest organization will help launch Washington State University’s efforts to develop a Business Resource Program within the newly established Washington Stormwater Center. The center is a joint program developed by WSU Puyallup and the University of Washington, Tacoma, Urban Waters Center.
”The collaborative efforts in this arena tie to Boeing’s charitable environmental strategy to support organizations that focus on restoring and protecting Puget Sound and the waterways that flow into it,” said Liz Warman, director for Global Corporate Citizenship in the Northwest region.
Professor John Stark, an ecotoxicologist, director of WSU’s Puyallup Research and Extension Center, and co-director of the new Washington Stormwater Center, said the grant would kick start an area-wide resource and outreach program. “This generous funding from The Boeing Company will enable the Washington Stormwater Center to meet a major part of its mission to help educate business stormwater permit holders so that they can meet their NPDES permit requirements.” NPDES stands for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a program of the Environmental Protection Agency authorized by the Clean Water Act.
As new stormwater regulations have developed over the past year, businesses and industries in the Puget Sound region are now required to create effective stormwater management programs for their job sites. The Boeing grant will help to fund a variety of training, publications, workshops, webinars and other educational programs developed by Stark and Washington Stormwater Center Manager Tanyalee Erwin to help them do that. There are approximately 2,500 businesses in more than 25 different industries in western Washington required to obtain stormwater permits under the new regulations.
The Washington Legislature established the Washington Stormwater Center in December 2010 to improve stormwater quality through education, information sharing, and research on new technologies and to assist municipal, business and industry stormwater permit applicants and other affected by stormwater management regulations.
-30-