Update

Here is the updated abstract !

Abstract

California State University Channel Islands (CI) is the youngest of the California State University campuses, and is planning to double its current student population by 2025. Located in Ventura County, CI is within the Calleguas Creek watershed, an impaired body of water listed under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act (CWA). During major storm events, CI’s runoff flows into the Calleguas Creek Reach 2. It is known that population increase leads to an increase in land development, pollution runoff, and higher surface area volume of impermeable surfaces causing harm to its surrounding environment (Davis 2005).  In order to protect the significant nexus that surrounds CI (Rapanos v. United States 2006), Best Management Practices (BMP) technologies have been tested for their ability to reduce the adverse effects of elevated runoff pollution from non-point sources on CI’s campus. We collected storm water runoff samples from identified outfalls, possible high risk MS4 sites, and a controlled study site location. We tested for 37 parameters, including California Title 22 metals and other organic materials during wet and dry weather events. We have found that certain parameters we tested for at our monitoring sites are higher than TMDLs considered safe, thus contributing to the impairment of the Calleguas Creek Watershed. By strategically placing BMPs across CI campus, these pollutants can be maintained below TMDLs and can help Calleguas Creek Watershed recover. Through our monitoring we have also benchmarked pollution runoff at these locations, which is necessary in further identifying high risk MS4 locations at CI. Though some pollutants were not detected over TMDLs, it is best to reduce storm water pollution as much as possible. The continuation of monitoring storm water runoff is essential and required for CI’s future plan to enforce a MS4 permit.