NPDES Permit Management System

PBS&J developed Pinellas County's NPDES Permit Tracking System to collect, analyze, and compile vast amounts of data.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit to Pinellas County and 22 co-permittees, which requires submission of an overall Annual Permit Compliance Summary Report detailing the task accomplish­ments, and compliance status of each co-permittee. Pinellas County contracted PBS&J to develop the NPDES Permit Tracking System to facilitate the collection, analysis, and compilation of the vast amount of data from these co-permittees, as well as produce the required annual report.

After reviewing the MS4 permit requirements, PBS&J developed suggested performance measures that met EPA’s permit compliance requirements, and which formed the basis for the development of the user-friendly data management system. Implementation was complicated as the requirements of each co-permittee varied significantly; no common data collection, storage or analysis methodology existed; and the GIS/database system of the county was not used by all of the co-permittees.

The system was developed using the MS Access database environment providing an intuitive graphical user interface that requires minimal training. It was designed for use in both a multi-user network environment and a single-user desktop setting. Each co-permittee has the ability to specify performance measures without affecting the performance of other departments or co-permittees. The development of this tool allows for the efficient tracking of the permit compliance activities of the 23 co-permittees, and has completely automated the task of generating the annual permit compliance summary reports. The database can be expanded in the future to incorporate spatial intelligence using GIS.