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Southland Stormwater Lessons
In the Southland they're called SUSMPs - standardized urban stormwater mitigation plans - and their adoption in Los Angeles and San Diego caused quite a stir among local officials, developers and environmentalists. Bay Area proponents favor a less succinct moniker, like "new and redevelopment requirements," but the issue is causing a big fuss around here as well.
The S.F. Regional Water Quality Control Board is in the process of bringing the gist of SUSMP to the Bay Area, as part of the reissuance of Santa Clara County's five year stormwater discharge permit (NPDES). Enhanced permit requirements will mean cities throughout the county will have to follow the same rules for managing runoff flows.
Previous requirements were more generic, "do what you can where you can," according to Geoff Brosseau of the Bay Area Stormwater Management Agencies Association. The new requirements get more specific about how much runoff must be captured, filtered (through soils, vegetation or actual fabric filters) or treated on a project site - the "start at the source approach" - before it can flow into creeks, bays and ultimately the ocean. This way, says the S.F. Board's Dale Bowyer, "You get the benefits for the life of the project."
The new requirements also define for the first time what kinds of projects must comply. They don't, however, mandate specific technology, leaving that to a developer's architects and engineers. Some designers incorporate more permeable surface area, such as grassy swales, into their projects: at other times catch basin filters are more appropriate.
Bowyer says this isn't a "shocking new evolution" in regulation, but it does provide more backbone to existing 1990s regulatory guidance. "Rather than use that guidance, some Bay Area cities have pretty much let developers do things that were easy and inexpensive, just enough so they say could say 'we checked off that box'," he says. "This raises the bar for performance and compliance with stormwater permits," says Brosseau. "It forces municipalities to get more serious about stormwater, and to integrate stormwater management more fully into city infrastructure and procedures."
The new Santa Clara requirements build on previous performance standards established in the city's1997 permit, but also embrace some lessons from Los Angeles County - where the L.A. Regional Board adopted the state's first SUSMP in March 2000. Though 30 of 85 L.A. county cities appealed the new SUSMP regs, the State Board recently upheld most of the L.A. rules.
As a result, some Southland developers are now going all out on stormwater control, according to Jeff Okamoto with the Orange County office of RBF Consulting, a regional engineering firm laying out major subdivisions. Before the local SUSMP came along, everyone just let all the runoff head straight down the storm drain, he says. Now, RBF's projects include dozens of runoff pollution reduction measures, among them streetsweeping; catch basins equipped with special "trash baskets" and filters to clean up the first flush of urban runoff and something Okamoto calls "summer slobber" - soaps, brake dust and fertilizer from car washing, driving and lawn watering; and other stormwater collection units with holding tanks cleaned out by trucks similar to the "honey wagons" serving portable toilets.
Okamoto says several of his firm's clients have directed him to go beyond the minimum requirements and do better on recent projects. "In the current political atmosphere, some of our builders wanted to show the city and interest groups they're willing to do what's right," he says. (Full disclosure: Jeff Okamoto is the editor's brother in law). Of course doing all these things can cost more. Adding bioswales or detention basins can take up significant amounts of land, which can be a precious commodity, and some treatment measures are expensive to build and maintain, say developers. City officials worry that the new requirements will make it more difficult to do infill projects and build low income housing. They also argue that the proposed performance standards, which call for catching 85% of peak storm runoff, are too confusing, even for engineers, and they want the board to delay implementation, particularly for smaller projects. Board chief Loretta Barsamian says she "got an earful" from city managers when she met with them earlier this summer, and over thirty speakers lined up at a July public hearing, objecting to various aspects of the permit changes.
BayKeeper's Jonathan Kaplan says he's disappointed with the city officials lobbying. "What's being proposed is in a lot of respects weaker than what was approved in Los Angeles and San Diego." He wants to see a strong regional approach.
Amy Glad of the Home Builders Association of Northern California says that a one size fits all approach won't work because of localized variations in terrain and rainfall. "Some standardization is useful, but you need to recognize regional differences." That issue will loom large in the near future. The NPDES permits of several other Bay Area counties, including Alameda, will likely be amended to include similar new stormwater provisions soon, says Bowyer.
At press time, the staff was putting the final touches on a revised version of the requirements, aiming for an August 15 release. That will begin a five week comment period, during which the Board will hold multiple meetings with stakeholders and tweak the permit details one more time. The full Board is scheduled to vote on the issue at its October meeting (see calendar). "I'm sure we'll be going through a painful and protracted process of denial about SUSMP," says Brosseau, "But the reward is getting credit for good front end site design, and then not having to treat so much stormwater."
Contact: Jan O'Hara (510)622-5681 OB & ARO
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