Employee training

MS4 staff being trained on MS4 General Permit requirements

Employee Training

An employee training program provides municipal staff the context and understanding of why stormwater management is important to your community. A training program increases the number of staff in your community who know how to spot stormwater issues, such as illicit discharges, and how to report them to the appropriate stormwater staff.

The training program must train staff commensurate with their job duties (MS4 General Permit Part III.D.6.g.). All staff that are involved in implementing aspects of the stormwater pollution prevention program (SWPPP) must be trained on the importance of protecting water quality and any MS4 General Permit requirements that are applicable to them (MS4 General Permit Part III.D.6.g.(1)&(2)). For all field staff, even part-time or temporary/seasonal employees, this means being trained to recognize and report illicit discharges to the MS4 (MS4 General Permit Part III.D.3.e.). Other examples of staff who need to be trained include construction site inspectors on how to conduct construction site inspections to evaluate for compliance with your construction site stormwater runoff control regulatory mechanism and site plan reviewers on how to conduct a site plan review to ensure the proposed construction activities suggest using proper sediment, erosion, and waste controls and appropriate post-construction stormwater management best management practices (BMPs).

In addition, the training program must include a schedule that establishes initial training for new and/or seasonal employees, and recurring training intervals for existing employees to address changes in procedures, practices, techniques, or requirements.

As part of the training program permittees must document the following: employee stormwater management training events, including a list of topics covered, names of employees in attendance, and date of each training event.

Resources

Employee training tools

• Parks Maintenance and Stormwater Protection employee training video - Training video on how to perform park maintenance activities, such as lawn mowing, and leaf management, fertilizer use, erosion control, and watering practices, to minimize impacts to stormwater.
• Rain Garden Care employee training video - Training video on how to properly care for rain gardens or bioinfiltration systems to maximize their effectiveness and minimize impacts to stormwater.
• Good Housekeeping employee training example - The City of Columbia Heights' employee training presentation
• City of Owatonna Annual MS4 Employee Training - City of Owatonna's employee training presentation

Documentation and tracking resources

• Employee training tracking template - MPCA template to document all required information related to employee training events
• Documentation that MS4 staff should retain - List of all the documentation requirements (what information to keep, how long to keep it, level of detail to keep, etc.) for compliance with the MS4 permit

Training schedule

• Employee training schedule example - City of Columbia Heights' employee training tracking system