Conservation Groups Petition EPA to Require Stormwater Permits at Existing New England Sites

The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and other environmental groups recently filed petitions urging EPA New England, along with other EPA offices in the Mid-Atlantic and Southwest, to use EPA’s Residual Designation Authority (RDA) under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to impose new stormwater management requirements for existing sources that are contributing to violations of state water quality standards. If granted, this would apply to stormwater discharges from commercial, industrial, and institutional sites that may have been developed years ago without National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits and that discharge to hundreds of impaired waters throughout New England.

Based in Section 1342(p)(2)(E) of the CWA, the RDA provisions allow EPA to require a permit for any previously unpermitted stormwater discharge that EPA or a state administrator determines “contributes to a violation of a water quality standard or is a significant contributor of pollutants to