TO:
Honorable Mayor Powell and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
David N. Carmany, City Manager
FROM:
Jim Arndt, Public Works Director
SUBJECT: Title
Update regarding the Recently Adopted Los Angeles County Municipal Stormwater Permit
RECEIVE AND FILE
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council receive and file this report.
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Significant, but not yet quantifiable.
BACKGROUND:
On November 8, 2012, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted a new National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit under the Federal Clean Water Act for discharges from the municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) within Los Angeles County. The new permit identifies conditions, requirements and programs that municipalities must comply with to protect regional water resources from adverse impacts associated with pollutants in stormwater and urban runoff; the new requirements have been significantly expanded over the previous permit which had been in effect since 2001. It incorporates water quality based stormwater discharge limits and receiving water limits translated into the permit from previously developed water body/pollutant-specific total maximum daily loads (TMDLs). Accordingly the City must now assess the scope of the new permit and plan for the fiscal and staff resources that will be required to comply.
DISCUSSION:
The new permit represents a paradigm shift in the approach to permitting of municipal stormwater. The new permit is designed to be water quality performance-based such that continuous improvements must be made until water quality standards are met, thus the scope may continue to expand over the term of the permit based on water quality monitoring results. Table 1 compares some of the significant aspects of the new permit with those in the previous 2001 permit to give a sense of the change in ...
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