|
Environment
Regulating Stormwater Runoff
(enr.com
10/10/01)
By Debra
K. Rubin and William
J. Angelo, with Paul Rosta
If construction projects have managed so far
to escape government scrutiny of their stormwater runoff, those
days may soon be over. By the end of 2002, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and state environmental authorities will begin
requiring owners and builders of even the smallest projects, as
small as 1 acre, to obtain stormwater discharge permits and develop
plans to curtail runoff. At the same time, EPA will be well on its
way to developing new "guidelines" that will possibly require jobsites
to have specific stormwater control remedies and discharge limits
during construction–and after. As regulators and construction lobbyists
sweat the new details, agencies are already stepping up the flow
of stormwater enforcement actions on projects, from custom homes
to department stores and state highway programs.
Stormwater runoff from urban, industrial,
agricultural and other sources is an environmental nemesis that
EPA and other regulators have been trying to control for more than
a decade. The agency claims that it is a "leading cause"
of impairment to nearly 40% of U.S. waterways and led to more than
1,500 beach closings and advisories at coastal and Great Lakes sites
in 1998. While construction site runoff may be less toxic than industrial
and agricultural discharges, its impact is equally worrisome, EPA
claims, noting that siltation is a key cause of impairment in 38%
of surveyed rivers and streams. "Construction produces dirt
as a suspended solid, and suspended solids are second to fecal coliform
as a contributor," says Taylor Sharpe, stormwater manager in
EPA's Dallas-based region.
EPA began cracking down on stormwater runoff
in 1990 by finalizing its "Phase 1" regulatory program
that has required permits for discharges by municipalities with
over 100,000 inhabitants and by construction sites disturbing at
least 5 acres of ground. In 1999, EPA ratcheted down the permit
rules in its "Phase 2" program to cover urban areas with
at least 10,000 inhabitants and 1-acre construction sites. The agency
and states authorized to run stormwater programs must set permit
parameters for these two groups by December 2002. Affected owners
and contractors then have three months to obtain the new permits.
Jonathan Deason, a stormwater consultant to the American Road and
Transportation Builders Association, claims the Phase 2 program
will require 120,000 new stormwater permits in construction alone.
"We get a lot of rain, from 40 to 60 in. per year, and stormwater
runoff is a serious issue," says David B. Mayes, stormwater
services manager for Wilmington, N.C. "We're a Phase 2 city
now, and we're already planning for it. We have an outfall mapping
effort and public outreach program in place. Shortly we'll start
an illicit discharge detection program."
Industrial sites must have individual stormwater
permits tailored to the type of facility and discharge but because
construction sites are so numerous and similar, regulators have
traditionally issued them a "general" permit that is less
detailed or prescriptive. "A construction general permit doesn't
say you have to have a silt fence," says Eric Strassler, an
EPA stormwater program official in Washington. Owners or contractors
need only to submit a "notice of intent" to be covered
by the general permit 48 hours before breaking ground on a site,
he says.
GUIDELINES. That approach is now changing.
For years, the Natural Resources Defense Council has pushed EPA
through legal action to toughen discharge control requirements for
certain industries through adoption of specified "best available
technologies." At least 50 industries now have such "effluent
limitation guidelines" (ELGs) in place, according to the Associated
General Contractors. Construction is now set to be next, based on
a 1992 consent decree, says Leah Wood, AGC's environmental counsel.
That settlement originally required EPA to issue construction ELGs
in 2000, but the agency negotiated a two-year extension. As such,
EPA must now officially propose the guidelines by next March and
finalize them two years later.
Strassler, who also is EPA's elg project manager,
says the guidelines will fill gaps in stormwater protection that
now exist with the patchwork of state-by-state requirements and
enforcement. Some states such as Maryland, Florida and Washington
have strong programs, but others are "on the low end,"
he says. That hodgepodge could get even more complicated when Phase
2 takes effect and more municipalities have regulatory oversight
of construction stormwater programs. In addition, EPA contends,
stormwater controls may be improperly or poorly specified, leading
to high failure rates. "We need a basic level of technology
performance," says Strassler.
Among other things, EPA is considering requiring
such methods as sediment basins designed to remove soil particles
larger than a certain size; chemical treatments in areas with a
high "erodibility index;" vegetated stream buffers; expanded
inspections of controls, particularly after runoff-producing events;
and monthly submittal of documentation to regulators. And in a new
twist, EPA will seek to regulate stormwater runoff even after projects
are finished. "All states monitor erosion control, but not
for post-construction," says Strassler. He claims stormwater
impacts can be just as significant after construction. "If
you don't have good controls, you'll have decades of sediment going
into streams, slowly eroding them and changing their hydrology,"
says Strassler.
LIMITS. AGC's Wood worries that the construction
guidelines, still more than two years from reality, could up-end
the Phase 2 permitting program now just a few months away from being
finalized. "When the new ELGs are finalized, they will be standards
that will have to be incorporated into all federal and state permits,"
she says. The guidelines "would pretty much dictate what controls
contractors would need to have, and could require that they guarantee
that silt and other stormwater pollutants leaving a site don't exceed
numeric limits." Coping with potentially large compliance costs
is also a concern, particularly for small firms. AGC says EPA may
not be adequately assessing the guidelines' economic impact. Although
the agency estimated that a recent ELG for metal finishers could
force 20% of firms to close, that industry estimated the figure
at closer to 50%, claims AGC. "AGC has already identified a
number of faulty EPA assumptions regarding possible costs of this
rule," says Wood.
Under federal law, EPA must assess the small
business impact. This past summer, Strassler invited small contractors
to testify. Elizabeth Brockway, vice president of Engineered Structures
Inc., a $10-million-a-year building contractor in Tigard, Ore.,
"attended" one hearing by teleconference, listening in
by phone for more than five hours. "EPA is willing to listen,
but is unrealistic. They don't understand the needs of a small firm,"
says Tigard, who represented the Associated Builders and Contractors.
"The new rules aren't bad in theory, but there's also a price
to pay. We're not the big Kiewits and Bechtels."
EPA officials say there will still be leeway
in stormwater controls and insist many are already in place on construction
sites. "What's frustrating to me is that of all industries,
construction has the fewest stormwater treatment requirements, and
they're easy and inexpensive," says Sharpe. EPA is now compiling
a best management practices database on its Website, www.bmpdatabase.org,
that includes peer-reviewed case studies from universities and individual
vendors. The effort, co-funded by the American Society of Civil
Engineers, now includes "datasets" on 156 technologies
(see table). A stormwater BMP manual is also to be released by the
end of the year. But EPA's Strassler emphasizes that the agency
is not evaluating or recommending specific practices. "There's
no Consumer's Report on this," he says.
Even so, researchers report some successes.
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, is now looking at porous
concrete to reduce pollutant and stormwater water load, says Jonathan
T. Smith, university extension engineer. The technology has been
around for decades but is gaining new interest from the EPA stormwater
initiative. nc State researchers are also looking into bioretention–using
sand filters in landscaped areas that pond the first inch of runoff
and then percolate it through a sandy loam soil filter. Mayes experimented
with a pervious concrete mix to pave a 5,000-sq-ft parking lot.
"There is no sand and no large aggregates," he says. "The
surface is very rough and ends up with 20% void space that allows
water to soak through into our sandy ground." Mayes says the
site is graded to capture all runoff into a catch basin that contains
a V-notched weir with a dipstick to calculate runoff.
Advanced Drainage Systems Inc., a Columbus,
Ohio, manufacturer of high-density polyethylene pipe, recently installed
a completely underground stormwater control system for a 42-acre
shopping center in Cranston, R.I. "Many commercial property
owners don't have the space or the desire to put a retention pond
on their property," says the firm's chief engineer, James B.
Goddard. The company says the retention system will provide 1.2
million cu ft of runoff storage inside 15,000 ft of 48-in.-dia pipe.
"When you've got 42 acres of land and 35 of it is going to
be paved, there is going to be a tremendous rush of water coming
off during and after a storm," says George Mellow, superintendent
of project contractor Fleet Construction, Smithfield, R.I. "This
system will take 70% of that runoff and reroute it into the water
table." But ADS' Goddard worries how its current stormwater
control techniques will fare in EPA's new framework. "We're
running tests on some things we designed and we need to know if
they are BMPs," he says. "If they're ok, we'll build and
sell them. If not, tell us what to do."
California officials are already taking a
proactive approach to education. "We want to teach [contractors]
the proper methods to prevent this pollution ahead of time,"
says Fred Zinchiak, a spokesman for the state Water Resources Control
Board. In the last year, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality
Control Board has held four two-day seminars for contractors and
developers, each drawing about 100 participants, says Ejigu Solomon,
a senior engineering geologist for the region. Attendees are then
equipped to train other members of their construction teams.
ENFORCEMENT. But ramped-up enforcement is
also part of stormwater control in construction. "We are becoming
more active and doing more site inspections," says Kevin Magerr,
EPA's stormwater manager in Philadelphia. "These regulations
should not generate additional costs to developers or contractors.
They simply mimic what is already in place." Some local authorities
are doing likewise. Since construction sites in Los Angeles vary
widely, the regional water board is considering adding a separate
permit category for some larger developments. There is also talk
about specific numeric limits rather than simply requiring runoff
from construction sites to be reduced to the "maximum extent
practicable," as regulations now require, Solomon says.
Observers say owners must be part of any effective
stormwater control plan, but many are not requiring site controls
or are even aware of the regulations. That makes for an uneven bidding
environment among contractors that are paying attention to the rules
and those that aren't. "They are rolling the dice and hoping
they don't get caught," says Si McHugh, director of government
affairs for AGC's Quoin chapter in Dallas.
EPA raised the profile of its construction
enforcement program this past summer by citing discount retail giant
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and 10 of its contractors for a host of stormwater
violations at 17 store sites in four states (ENR 6/18 p. 17). McHugh
cites the owner's "arrogance" and some zealous investigation
by EPA's Dallas region. But EPA's Sharpe claims that the agency
was forced to obtain a warrant to enter one Wal-Mart store site
under investigation. Under its $5.5-million consent decree, the
retailer has agreed to improve stormwater controls and site scrutiny,
but still insists its violations were not deliberate. "There
was never any unwillingness to cooperate," says Wal-Mart spokesman
Bill Wertz. "But there was a sense that these paperwork violations
could have been resolved more cooperatively before enforcement started.
We are committed to following the law." Wertz claims requirements
are "stringent" for contractors who will be building the
nearly 400 stores and related facilities Wal-Mart announced Oct.
2 for its next fiscal year, starting Feb. 1.
While the beefed-up rules may be a headache
in some construction quarters, design firms see a booming market
in more engineered controls, says Robert A. Goober, spokesman for
Weston & Sampson Engineers Inc., Peabody, Mass. "Engineers
supporting the design and construction of new facilities will benefit
because stronger enforcement will be in place requiring installation
and maintenance of best management practices, which were not always
implemented," he says. "As of March 2003, permits will
have teeth."
|
