How Great a Burden Is Phase II?
We’re quickly coming up on the end of the first permit term for Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). By the March 10, 2003, deadline, Phase II communities were supposed to have basic stormwater plans in place. The EPA’s intent was that these stormwater management programs would be fully developed and implemented during the first five-year permit term—so, in theory, most of us should be almost there by now.
Although the end of the permit term might not have as much fanfare leading up to it as did the Phase II permit deadline, it’s a good time to assess how far we’ve come. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) decided to do exactly that, and in May it published a report on the progress of implementing both Phase I and Phase II of NPDES.
The news isn’t all good; as of last fall, 809 of the more than 5,000 Phase II communities did not yet have permits. (Of the 220 larger Phase I communities, whose permit deadline was 1993, 11 did not have permits.) These 809 aren’t evenly distributed; some regions such as Washington state and states in the EPA’s Region 6 have not yet issued, or are just starting to issue, permits because of legal and other challenges. Overall, fewer than 50% of federal and state permitting authorities have issued all their permits.
One way to look at the statistics would be to see these numbers as a tremendous accomplishment: In the roughly three and a half years between the permit deadline and the time these data were compiled, about 83% of the smaller communities—many of which had no stormwater program to speak of, or which had flood control protections but few or no water-quality measures in place—have successfully dealt with this unfunded mandate and made headway toward stormwater management. The GAO report doesn’t look at the numbers quite that optimistically, though.
The report also tried to evaluate the extent to which these programs burden local communities and what can be done to make compliance easier. Some of the report’s suggestions, although they might allow a municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4), strictly speaking, to comply with the regulations, don’t take into account why an activity is being done or how information will eventually be used. For example, the report states “MS4s could be in compliance with permit requirements if they … map their storm sewer systems by purchasing a map from a gas station and asking volunteers to place dots where the storm water outfalls are located rather than creating a sophisticated geographic information system map.” True enough—but how useful will those dots be in maintaining a record of the condition of the outfall or in helping workers schedule maintenance of the various parts of the storm sewer system?
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The report concludes that it’s difficult to determine just how much stormwater programs burden local communities, because the EPA has not been collecting consistent data on each community’s activities and costs. (In its response, the EPA points out that comparison is difficult in part because of Phase II’s flexibility, allowing communities to implement programs best suited to their own environmental issues.) However, the EPA is slated to fully evaluate Phase II regulations in 2012, and it has supported the GAO’s recommendation to develop some sort of template that communities can use to help provide more consistent information.
You can see the full GAO report and the EPA’s response online at www.gao.gov/new.items/d07479.pdf.
September 2007
How Great a Burden Is Phase II?
We’re quickly coming up on the end of the first permit term for Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). By the March 10, 2003, deadline, Phase II communities were supposed to have basic stormwater plans in place. The EPA’s intent was that these stormwater management programs would be fully developed and implemented during the first five-year permit term—so, in theory, most of us should be almost there by now.
Although the end of the permit term might not have as much fanfare leading up to it as did the Phase II permit deadline, it’s a good time to assess how far we’ve come. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) decided to do exactly that, and in May it published a report on the progress of implementing both Phase I and Phase II of NPDES.
The news isn’t all good; as of last fall, 809 of the more than 5,000 Phase II communities did not yet have permits. (Of the 220 larger Phase I communities, whose permit deadline was 1993, 11 did not have permits.) These 809 aren’t evenly distributed; some regions such as Washington state and states in the EPA’s Region 6 have not yet issued, or are just starting to issue, permits because of legal and other challenges. Overall, fewer than 50% of federal and state permitting authorities have issued all their permits.
One way to look at the statistics would be to see these numbers as a tremendous accomplishment: In the roughly three and a half years between the permit deadline and the time these data were compiled, about 83% of the smaller communities—many of which had no stormwater program to speak of, or which had flood control protections but few or no water-quality measures in place—have successfully dealt with this unfunded mandate and made headway toward stormwater management. The GAO report doesn’t look at the numbers quite that optimistically, though.
The report also tried to evaluate the extent to which these programs burden local communities and what can be done to make compliance easier. Some of the report’s suggestions, although they might allow a municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4), strictly speaking, to comply with the regulations, don’t take into account why an activity is being done or how information will eventually be used. For example, the report states “MS4s could be in compliance with permit requirements if they … map their storm sewer systems by purchasing a map from a gas station and asking volunteers to place dots where the storm water outfalls are located rather than creating a sophisticated geographic information system map.” True enough—but how useful will those dots be in maintaining a record of the condition of the outfall or in helping workers schedule maintenance of the various parts of the storm sewer system?
The report concludes that it’s difficult to determine just how much stormwater programs burden local communities, because the EPA has not been collecting consistent data on each community’s activities and costs. (In its response, the EPA points out that comparison is difficult in part because of Phase II’s flexibility, allowing communities to implement programs best suited to their own environmental issues.) However, the EPA is slated to fully evaluate Phase II regulations in 2012, and it has supported the GAO’s recommendation to develop some sort of template that communities can use to help provide more consistent information.
You can see the full GAO report and the EPA’s response online at www.gao.gov/new.items/d07479.pdf.