My WebLink
|
Help
|
About
|
Sign Out
Home
Browse
Search
The Water Report: Water Rights, Water Quality and Water Solutions in the West Issue 17
CWCB
>
Water Supply Protection
>
DayForward
>
5001-6000
>
The Water Report: Water Rights, Water Quality and Water Solutions in the West Issue 17
Metadata
Thumbnails
Annotations
Entry Properties
Last modified
8/13/2012 3:52:50 PM
Creation date
8/13/2012 2:11:46 PM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
Water Supply Protection
Description
The Water Report: Water Rights, Water Quality and Water Solutions in the West Issue 17
State
CO
Date
7/15/2005
Title
The Water Report: Water Rights, Water Quality and Water Solutions in the West Issue 17
Water Supply Pro - Doc Type
Publication
There are no annotations on this page.
Document management portal powered by Laserfiche WebLink 9 © 1998-2015
Laserfiche.
All rights reserved.
/
32
PDF
Print
Pages to print
Enter page numbers and/or page ranges separated by commas. For example, 1,3,5-12.
After downloading, print the document using a PDF reader (e.g. Adobe Reader).
Show annotations
View images
View plain text
Issue #17 The Water Report <br />Each of these aspects of the current situation make it unwise to measure compliance with MS4 <br />Urban permits against water quality standards, as no municipality has a reasonable opportunity to render all <br />urban runoff compliant with these standards, nor is it necessarily a wise policy choice to require <br />Stormwater stormwater in the public storm drain itself — at times far upstream of open waters — to meet these <br />"Reasonable" standards. Under these circumstances, the more prudent approach is to demand reasonable improvement <br />in the quality of urban runoff, by requiring municipalities to make MEP efforts. This alternative provides <br />municipalities with a compliance opportunity and an incentive for running good stormwater programs. <br />Urban Runoff: Witch's Brew? <br />Significant <br />Pollution <br />Large Runoff <br />Events <br />The Water Report <br />(ISSN pending) is <br />published monthly by <br />Envirotech Publications, <br />Inc. <br />260 North Polk Street, <br />Eugene, OR 97402 <br />Editors: David Light & <br />David Moon <br />Phone: 5411 343 -8504 <br />Cellular: 541/ 517 -5608 <br />Fax: 541/ 683 -8279 <br />email: <br />thewateneport @houykU.com <br />website: <br />www.thewaterrepon.com <br />Subscription Rates: <br />$249 per year; Multiple <br />subscription rates <br />available. <br />Postmaster: Please send <br />address corrections to The <br />Water Report, 260 North <br />Polk Street, Eugene, OR <br />97402 <br />Copyright© 2005 <br />Envirotech Publications, <br />h1c. <br />Urban runoff in Southern California frequently is characterized in press reports as a "witch's brew" <br />of various pollutants. It has been identified by the Natural Resources Defense Council as "the biggest <br />source of pollution in California's coastal waters, rivers, streams and lakes "(see endnote: (1)). There is <br />little doubt that runoff from this massive, urbanized region (home to 20.7 million people) transports a <br />significant pollutant load to receiving waters. <br />In fact, stormwater runoff from built -out urban areas in Southern California consistently fails to meet <br />water quality standards. Even stormwater runoff from undeveloped, natural land adjacent to urban areas <br />often fails to meet the standards due to pollutant contributions both from natural sources (e.g., indicator <br />bacteria from wildlife and sediments, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and metals from forest <br />fires) and from other sources (e.g., atmospheric deposition of metals, PAHs, and other pollutants). In <br />many cases, pollutant concentrations measured in stormwater runoff (and even some drinking water) in <br />Southern California are far higher than the levels specified by water quality standards. <br />Southern California is an and region with steep topography. Storms in this region often release large <br />amounts of water in a very short period of time, which combine with the topography to produce very <br />large, episodic runoff events. Treatment methods and Best Management Practices (BMPs) can be used to <br />reduce the concentrations of pollutants released by these events. However, both the high volume and high <br />flow rate of many storm flows make it extremely unlikely that storm flows will ever meet water quality <br />standards at all times, in all receiving waters. The fiscal constraints are considerable; at present, no city <br />or county in a heavily urbanized area has available to it the technology or the resources to ensure that all <br />stormwater consistently meets all water quality standards. <br />The San Diego permitting agency acknowledges that it will require decades to close the gap between <br />existing urban runoff quality, on the one hand, and water quality standards on the other. The agency <br />concluded that urban runoff from each jurisdiction subject to the permit (except for one it had not <br />studied), "[c]ontributes to a violation of a water quality standard or is a significant contributor of <br />pollutants. "(2) The San Diego permit promised "to slow down the ongoing degradation of our receiving <br />waters. "(3) However, actual improvement in water quality (which was not guaranteed) would require "at <br />least 10 to 20 years. "(4) Clearly the agency understood that, even with the myriad of programs imposed <br />on municipalities pursuant to MS4 permits, excursions of water quality standards will persist for decades. <br />However, for reasons explained below, the San Diego permit does not reflect that reality. <br />The Public Storm Drain: Waters of the US? <br />Rendering urban runoff compliant with <br />water quality standards is complicated by the fact <br />that the permitting agencies frequently treat public <br />storm drains as "navigable waters of the United <br />States." This designation can result in the <br />application of water quality standards in surprising <br />places. The definition of "waters of the United <br />States" contained in the San Diego permit states <br />that: "a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System <br />(MS4) is always considered a Waters of the United <br />States. "(5) The San Diego agency defines MS4s <br />to include all "roads with drainage systems, <br />municipal streets, catch basins, curbs, gutters, <br />ditches, natural drainage features or channels, <br />modified natural channels, man -made channels, or <br />storm drains. "(6) Thus, under this agency's view, <br />the entire municipal storm drain starting at the <br />curb and gutter should be regulated as "navigable <br />waters of the United States. "(7) <br />Copyright© 2005 Envirotech Publications; Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. <br />
The URL can be used to link to this page
Your browser does not support the video tag.