Brandon Steets, PE
Brandon Steets, PE, is a Senior Principal Engineer based in California with more than 24 years of experience in National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) and Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) regulations, water quality modeling and monitoring, pollutant source investigation, and stormwater best management practices (BMP) planning and design.
Specialties
Risk Assessment and Applied Toxicology; Data Management, Visualization, and Analysis; Watershed and Stormwater Management; Water and Natural Resources Conservation and Restoration; Surface Water and Groundwater Supply Studies and Development
Practice Areas
Water and Natural Resources
Education
M.S., Environmental Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2000; B.S., Environmental Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1998
Registration
California Professional Engineer, CH6132
Client Service
Brandon serves clients as technical expert on NPDES-related litigation and enforcement response. A trusted resource to regulators, Brandon led modeling (e.g., for the Industrial General Permit [IGP] TMDL Amendment) and special studies (e.g., drywell guidance and instream flow criteria modeling) that will form the basis of new statewide regulations or policy.
A subject matter expert on bacteria/pathogen issues, Brandon’s experience with microbial source tracking (MST) includes serving as a member of California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) Clean Beaches Task Force, co-editor of the ASCE report Pathogens in Urban Stormwater Systems, and peer reviewer for the journal Water Research. He has published articles in Stormwater magazine and Water Research on bacteria treatment and modeling. He developed new MST guidance for Colorado and New England, performed training through ASCE and SWRCB webinar series, and led an MST study on Boston Water and Sewer Commission’s Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination (IDDE) program that received a 2018 award from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA).
Brandon is a California Stormwater Quality Association (CASQA)-certified IGP Trainer of Record (ToR) and Qualified Industrial Stormwater Practitioner (#121). He developed CASQA’s statewide guidance manual on non-industrial/background pollutant source demonstration and managed the Boeing Santa Susana Field Laboratory Biofilter, which won the 2013 CASQA award for outstanding BMP. He advised the National Academy of Sciences’ industrial stormwater committee on recommendations for U.S. EPA’s 2020 Multi-Sector General Permit renewal.
For municipal stormwater clients, Brandon has led watershed modeling to plan more than $6 billion in new green infrastructure and demonstrate compliance with TMDL limits (i.e., Reasonable Assurance Analysis [RAA]). He supported the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) Stormwater BMP Performance Evaluation Team to develop guidance and perform training on BMP performance for state regulators nationwide, and he currently supports ITRC’s Harmful Algal Bloom team. Brandon addresses per- and polyfluroroalkyl substances (PFAS) in stormwater for multiple precedent-setting sites, including an aqueous film forming foam-use site in California, by evaluating the fate and transport, source control, and treatment of PFAS in stormwater discharges.
Contact Brandon at BSteets@Geosyntec.com or +1-805-455-9591.
