Why Best Management Practice
Doesn't Always Work

© 2000 Wendy Dager

I don't know what happened. I followed the BMP!

In August 1993, the City of Newport Beach, California hired a private consultant to do a comprehensive study of its tree maintenance program. The consultant learned that rather than using a city crew to trim trees, it would be cheaper to employ an outside contractor, effectively saving Newport Beach $211,000 per year.

The city of Indianapolis, Indiana didn't go to the trouble of hiring a private consultant to determine why they were receiving so many complaints about the height of the grass in the areas public parks. The outside company they used to mow the parks lawns simply began taking random measurements of the grass using a ruler. Grass height of more than four inches indicated that it was time for it to be mowed.

These are two examples of successful Best Management Practices (BMP). For residents of Newport Beach, a BMP was established because it became too expensive to use city workers to trim the trees that are the focal point of their upscale community. In Indianapolis, BMP came into play when it was determined that the city's landscape contractor forgo the routine of cutting grass every six weeks, since seasonal weather variations made that criterion useless. But are these practices really the best?

"What happens with BMPs is that you eliminate thinking about the problem and coming up with the best solution or series of solutions or alternatives for that particular problem," said Paul Albright. "The term BMP undermines the evaluation of the process, particularly since Webster's defines best as the most advantageous, suitable or desirable. Sometimes, the BMP is good, but it isn't really the best."

"There are many government BMPs that have been established to regulate a number of industries, including horticulture, landscaping, pest eradication, and erosion control."

"By 'Best Management Practice,' what they're really saying is that they are mitigation practices that mitigate or eliminate the adverse impact of whatevers being done—in our case, it's revegetation or erosion control," said Paul.

The problem with this is the implication that there is one best method, while each case should be reviewed on an individual basis. Instead, the government-listed specification for a Best Management Practice is generally accepted without question, no matter the circumstances.

"BMP subtly erodes the intention of management practices by implying there's a best," said Paul. "An example is when the government implies something like they did in Northern California—where they said straw is a good method of erosion control. Now they're using straw everywhere. And, while it is good in some cases, it's not necessarily the best for every project. It has to be taken in context with the site-specific nature of the project."

Sometimes, the effect of a poorly worded BMP can be environmentally devastating.

"Right here in Camarillo, they had an erosion control plan that a high school kid could've drawn up," said Paul. "They put a sandbag berm all the way around the project, about two sandbags high—and that was their erosion control BMP. The project is on a 30-degree angle, so all it did was focus the water to a low spot. That type of solution should've been on contour lines. What should've happened instead is that the water be diverted to a detention basin, but, in this case, an existing detention basin was covered over by the sandbags."

Luckily for the people responsible for devising this plan, the city of Camarillo didn't have much rain that year. A potentially huge problem was minimized by the grace of Mother Nature.

"Even the rains we did have put much of the silt in the storm drain—where it's not supposed to go," said Paul.

What Paul is hoping for is that management practices will ultimately give way to a more performance-oriented code—where governmental regulators step aside so that landscape contractors and on-site specifiers can use their expertise to determine what each site really needs.

"When you use a term that has an inaccuracy in it," said Paul, "then it gives permission to be inaccurate."

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