Clean Water Act Regulations Do Not Require Numeric Testing Of Individual Pollutants Or Numeric Effluent Limitations For Industrial Stormwater Discharges
Divers’ Environmental Conservation Organization v. State Water Resources Control Board (Nov. 29, 2006, D046112) __ Cal.App.4th __ http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions
The Court of Appeals held that a permitting agency under the Clean Water Act is not required to conduct a numeric analysis of individual pollutants in industrial stormwater discharges in order to comply with federal regulations. In addition, even if a discharge will cause the receiving body of water to violate State water quality standards, the agency is not required to impose numeric “water-quality based effluent limitations” (WQBELs) in a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Rather, to comply with the regulations, the agency may conduct more general, non-numeric tests of stormwater discharges and, if necessary, impose Best Management Practices (BMPs) on the discharger. This decision is significant because the environmental community has recently pressured permitting agencies to impose numeric limitations on industrial discharges, which include construction discharges. These numeric limitations, if required, would have presented a huge challenge and risk to permittees, who could violate their permits despite the fact that stormwater pollutants are highly variable and may be beyond their control. Thus, this decision helps protect permittees by clarifying that permitting agencies are not required to use numeric limitations to regulate industrial stormwater discharges.
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