Located in Portland, Oregon, the Stormwater Treatment Technology Center (STTC) is a state-of-the-art testing facility for evaluating the pollutant removal performance, maintenance requirements, and life-cycle costs of emerging stormwater treatment technologies. This innovative facility was constructed by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) in collaboration with several public stakeholders across Washington and Oregon.
Over the past five years, Herrera has collaborated with ODOT to design and oversee the technical operations of the STTC. The facility is the first center in the nation specifically designed to evaluate the maintenance requirements and life-cycle costs of stormwater treatment technologies. Additionally, the STTC is pre-approved by the Washington State Department of Ecology for certifying the pollutant removal performance of technologies in accordance with the Technology Assessment Protocol — Ecology (TAPE).
Through Herrera and ODOT’s innovative design, the facility receives stormwater runoff from 1,000 acres of highway and urban streets and has been confirmed to contain representative concentrations of common pollutants (e.g., suspended sediment, nutrients, heavy metals, oil), making it ideal for testing pollutant removal efficiencies.
Collected runoff is delivered through gravity flow or air-controlled pumps to as many as three test bays, simultaneously. This allows controlled testing to be performed over a wide range of flow conditions for a more thorough assessment of technology performance.
Samples are collected by vacuum-pump automated samplers to characterize pollutant concentrations in stormwater before and after treatment by each technology. Data collected from samples are used to quantify the pollutant removal effectiveness of the technology.
Through its cutting-edge design, the STTC streamlines the testing of stormwater treatment technologies, providing a more efficient and cost-effective alternative to testing in the field. For more information on this project, please contact John Lenth or Dylan Ahearn, PhD.
