The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold two public listening sessions on potential changes to the water quality standards regulation before proposing a national rule.

Tuesday, August 24 and Thursday, August 26, 2010

1:00 PM - 2:30 pm EDT, Audio Teleconference

The current regulation, which has been in place since 1983, governs how states and authorized tribes adopt standards needed under the Clean Water Act to protect the quality of their rivers, streams, lakes, and estuaries. Potential revisions include strengthening protection for water bodies with water quality that already exceeds or meet the interim goals of the Clean Water Act; ensuring that standards reflect a continued commitment to these goals wherever attainable improving transparency of regulatory decisions; and strengthening federal oversight.

At the sessions, EPA will provide a review of the current regulation and a summary of the revisions the agency is considering. Clarifying questions and brief oral comments (three minutes or less) from the public will be accepted at the sessions, as time permits. EPA will consider the comments received as it develops the proposed rulemaking.

EPA will also hold separate listening sessions for state, tribal and local governments.   EPA expects to publish the proposed revisions to the water quality standards regulation in summer 2011.

More information can be found here>>

admin Events, National clean water, Clean Water Act, rulemaking, US EPA, water quality, water quality standards, watershed protection

Congress for the New Urbanism and Partners Submit Stormwater Regulation Reform Letter to EPA

StormwaterPA’s Editors have commented often on EPA’s NPDES Phase II MS4 program, as administered by PADEP here in Pennsylvania.  After much agonizing with much public input, major changes in MS4 have been adopted by PADEP - some of them controversial.  We have argued that the need for an MS4 program here and in other states is real, although the reality of these MS4 programs with their various requirements, including these new changes, is open to question.  It’s not at all clear that, as an unfunded mandate, this is all making the sense that it should be making - and resulting in the water resource benefits intended by the Clean Water Act.

In June, a group of Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) members helped form a Rainwater Initiative aimed at reforming regulations that encourage sprawl.  One goal of this group is to intervene in the ongoing reform of the EPA’s stormwater regulations National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) process.

The group — whose leaders include national stormwater leaders Paul Crabtree, Lisa Nisenson, Tom Low, and John Jacob — is concerned that the EPA “has been issuing and promoting new source- and volume-control regulations that are site-based, not watershed-based, and thus have the unintended consequence of promoting sprawl rather than fixing it.”

On July 15, in an effort initiated by this group, CNU and a set of partners (the Local Government Commission, Center for Neighborhood Technology, Coastal Conservation League, City of Madison, Wisconsin, and the National Town Builders Association) submitted a letter to the EPA. Referencing EPA’s participation in the historic Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities with HUD and US DOT, the signers address some of these MS4 problems and suggest ways to make the program better. They wrote:

As the federal agencies take a holistic look at how they work together to support sustainable development, we would like to discuss a similarly holistic approach for the EPA Office of Water’s efforts as it revises the current National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). As US DOT, HUD and EPA strive to break down silos, we urge you to continue this effort with stormwater regulations and make them complement broader environmental objectives.

The letter addresses the shortcomings with the current and proposed rainwater/stormwater management approach:

• Current regulations focus on individual site mitigation not larger-scale prevention.
• Current regulations hinder shared practices.
• Current regulations are silent on a site’s context and location within the watershed and weak on larger watershed scale.
• Current regulations assume costs are equal for different development environments.
• Current regulations depend on development to cure waterways.

The letter also offers suggestions for advancing an effort that makes regulatory reform more meaningful through making redevelopment a priority, establishing separate regulatory tracks for new development and redevelopment within NPDES, placing watershed and sub-watershed analysis at the forefront, and updating best management practices with solutions appropriate to their urban context.

We agree.

On a related note, PA DEP recently announced delays in the implementing the MS4 program changes discussed above.  It needs to be understood that delays in implementation are just that - delays.  Program requirements will still need to be addressed by affected municipalities (more than 900 of Pennsylvania’s 2500+ municipalities, certainly comprising the bulk of state population and economic development activity). Get more details here>>

admin NPDES / MS4, National Add new tag, BMPs, clean water, Clean Water Act, development, holistic, MS4, NPDES, PA DEP, redevelopment, runoff prevention, source control, sprawl, sustainable development, volume control, watershed protection, watershed scale

Contact Information: David Deegan, (617) 918-1017

(Boston, Mass. - July 21, 2010) - Subject to court approval, three related real estate development, construction and engineering companies will pay a $150,000 penalty for illegally discharging polluted stormwater from multiple Mass. construction sites. In addition the companies will perform a Supplemental Environmental Project (”SEP”) valued at approximately $300,000 which will further reduce stormwater pollution to the environment.

Several EPA inspections revealed that Fafard Real Estate and Development Corporation, FRE Building Company, Inc., and Benchmark Engineering Corp. (collectively referred to as “Fafard”) had engaged in construction activities at approximately 13 construction sites in eastern Massachusetts in towns such as Holliston, Natick, Uxbridge, Milford, Marlborough, and others, without having, or without fully complying with federal stormwater permits. Of particular concern were sites where Best Management Practices (”BMPs”) were not being implemented to reduce the impact of stormwater discharges on the environment from these construction sites.

For more information, see the complete article from EPA>>

admin National BMPs, construction sites, federal stormwater permit, SEP, stormwater discharge, stormwater pollution, US EPA

Contact Stacy Kika, Kika.stacy@epa.gov, 202-564-0906, 202-564-4355

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is inviting small businesses and municipalities to nominate representatives to provide input on a proposed stormwater rule. The rule would strengthen the national stormwater program under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and focus on stormwater discharges from developed sites, such as subdivisions, roadways, industrial facilities, and commercial buildings or shopping centers.

Selected participants would provide input to a Small Business Advocacy Review panel, which will consist of officials from EPA, the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Office of Management and Budget. As required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act, EPA is establishing this panel because the rule could have a significant economic impact on small entities. The representatives will provide input on how EPA can minimize the potential burden on small entities of the proposed regulation. Nominations must be received by August 4, 2010.

More information about participating in the panel can be found here>>
More information about the rulemaking can be found here>>

admin National Clean Water Act, stormwater best management practices, stormwater legislation, stormwater runoff, US EPA

From Stormwater, The Journal for Surface Water Quality Professionals…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing minor amendments to its Clean Water Act (CWA) regulations to codify that under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program, only “sufficiently sensitive” analytical test methods, i.e., those that are capable of detecting and measuring the pollutants at, or below, the respective water quality criteria or permit limits, can be used when completing an NPDES permit application and when performing sampling and analysis pursuant to monitoring requirements in an NPDES permit.

This proposal is based on requirements in the CWA and existing EPA regulations. It also would codify existing EPA guidance on the use of sufficiently sensitive analytical methods with respect to measurement of mercury and extend the approach outlined in that guidance to the NPDES program more generally. Specifically, EPA is proposing to clarify the existing NPDES application, compliance monitoring, and analytical methods regulations. The amendments in this proposed rulemaking affect only chemical-specific methods; they do not apply to the Whole Effluent Toxicity methods or their use.

EPA and state permitting authorities use data from the permit application to determine whether pollutants are present in an applicants discharge and to quantify the levels of all detected pollutants.  These pollutant data enable the director of the permitting authority to make a sound reasonable potential determination and, if necessary, establish appropriate permit limits. It is critical, therefore, that applicants provide data that are measured with a precision and accuracy that will be meaningful to the decision making process.  The same holds true for monitoring and reporting relative to permit limits established for regulated parameters.

The public will have 45 days to comment on the proposed rulemaking after publication in the Federal Register.

More information is available here>>

admin NPDES / MS4, National clean water, Clean Water Act, NPDES, stormwater legislation, stormwater standards, US EPA, water quality, water quality criteria, water quality monitoring