What is the STTC?

The STTC offers the following unique advantages for testing stormwater treatment technologies:

  • The STTC is a preapproved facility for verifying the pollutant removal performance of technologies in accordance with the Washington Department of Ecology’s Technology Assessment Protocol — Ecology (TAPE).
  • The STTC is the first center specifically designed to evaluate the maintenance requirements and life-cycle costs of treatment technologies.
  • Stormwater used for the testing can be delivered to a technology via gravity flow or using pumps; this allows controlled testing to be performed over a wide range of flow conditions for a more thorough assessment of technology performance.
  • The STTC has three Test Bays that are configured to allow different technologies to be rapidly installed and tested simultaneously.
  • Stormwater used for the testing comes 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) in urban stormwater runoff.
  • All required equipment for testing (e.g., samplers, flow meters, weather stations, data acquisition, and telemetry) is preinstalled at the center and receives regular maintenance and calibration.
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STTC Advantage

The STTC was designed to streamline and provide more control over the process for testing of stormwater treatment technologies compared to testing at a typical field site. This reduces the time and costs required to perform this testing. It also allows more reliable to be collected on system performance.

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Location

The STTC is located at the Oregon Department of Transportation East Portland Maintenance Yard at 5315 Northeast 101st Avenue near Interstate 205 (I-205) and the Columbia Slough in Portland, Oregon.

It occupies an approximately 30 foot by 160 foot fenced area on the western edge of the yard near the top of the highway embankment. This area was strategically selected because of its secure location on ODOT private property and proximity to a 7-foot diameter pipe that provides stormwater needed for testing at the STTC.

Visits available by appointment.