(October 19, 2011) The executive director of the State Water Resources Control Board recently announced that the board will take back controversial proposed storm water runoff regulations for review because the requirements are not functional.
Executive Director Thomas Howard said the board has agreed to revisit the regulations and significantly amend them, with plans to rerelease them in the next three to four months.
Ever since the proposed industrial regulations were first released in January, and the municipal regulations in July, the California Chamber of Commerce and members of a coalition of business, taxpayers and local governments had expressed concerns about the high cost and jobs impact of the proposed changes in how cities and businesses manage storm water runoff.
Most recently, coalition representatives explained to the Senate Select Committee on California Job Creation and Retention earlier this month that the hundreds of millions of dollars in added costs for businesses and municipalities would yield no proven environmental benefits.
The CalChamber is on the steering committee for the coalition, united under the name WATER (Workable Approach to Environmental Regulation).
The CalChamber and coalition actively opposed the new proposed requirements because they would have boosted costs as much as tenfold for any facility required to have a storm water permit and expanded the types of facilities that must obtain the permits. If adopted, the changes could have increased costs by tens of thousands of dollars for small businesses and schools to hundreds of millions of dollars for large facilities, the CalChamber had pointed out.
The CalChamber submitted comments to the state water board objecting to the process used in drafting the regulations and pointing out that the new rules go beyond what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates. The water board needs to adopt a more transparent public process and complete a thorough and realistic analysis of water quality benefits balanced against costs to permit holders, the CalChamber stated.
“There is no justification for California to exceed federal Clean Water Act requirements,” says CalChamber Policy Advocate Valerie Nera. “Economic recovery has a fragile hold in the state. The aggressive draft storm water permit proposals add another burdensome layer of regulation that will harm the state’s business and employer community, taxpayers and local governments at a time when they can least afford it. Further, there is no proof that these new regulations will improve water quality.”
CalChamber comment letters on the proposed storm water regulations provide further detail on the problems with the now-withdrawn draft requirements:
Staff Contact: Valerie Nera