Last September, we discussed the forthcoming Municipal Separate Stormwater System (MS4) Phase II requirements for smaller communities (those with populations of less than 100,000).
On January 6, 2016, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the proposed rule for the MS4 Phase II. The comment period recently ended, and the final rule will be published on November 17, 2016.
The bottom line is that those communities which have a municipal separate stormwater system will have to develop stormwater management programs (SWMP) to reduce pollutants to the Maximum Extent Possible (MEP). There are three options that the communities can consider to achieve this:
- Option 1: Traditional General Permit Approach
- Option 2: Procedural Approach
- Option 3: State Choice/Hybrid Approach.
In the final Phase II rule preamble, the EPA stated that they have intentionally not provided “…a precise definition of MEP to allow maximum flexibility in MS4 permitting. MS4s need the flexibility to optimize reductions in storm water pollutants on a location-by-location basis… ”
Each permittee will determine appropriate Best Management Practices to satisfy each of the six minimum control measures through an evaluative process.
The six measures include the following:
- Public education and outreach
- Public participation and involvement
- Illicit discharge detection and elimination
- Construction site runoff control
- Post-construction runoff control
- Pollution prevention
- Good housekeeping
The Water Environment Federation recorded a more detailed webcast on the MS4 Phase II program that is available to view on line.
It is also worth noting that this, like many new environmental regulatory developments, is the result of activist groups taking legal action against the EPA to require the agency to take action. For this reason, it may be beneficial to monitor the activity of some of the various activist groups.
If you have questions relating to environmental compliance issues, please contact either Jeffrey Bolin, M.S., CHMM (jbolin@dragun.com) or Matthew Schroeder, M.S., PE (mschroeder@dragun.com).