A Primer on Storm Water Permits: What They Mean For Your School

Transcription

1 A Primer on Storm Water Permits: What They Mean For Your School Presented By Kathy Tanner, San Marcos Unified School District Ian Padilla, Coalition for Adequate School Housing Roger Chang, Los Angeles County Office of Education Steve Herrera, Herrera Engineering Consultants, Inc. How Did We Get Here: A Brief History of Storm Water Regulations and Schools The Construction, Industrial and Municipal (Small MS4) permits form the basis for the State Water Board s storm water regulation structure with respect to school districts The permits have five year terms Nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards enforce permit requirements 1

2 C.A.S.H. s Leadership on Storm Water Mitigation and Schools In 2002 the C.A.S.H. Board of Directors tasks the C.A.S.H. Environmental Committee with creating a subcommittee to focus exclusively on storm water mitigation and schools. After nearly a decade the C.A.S.H. Storm Water Subcommittee continues its work C.A.S.H s Advocacy Activity Construction Permit: Grandfather provisions for school construction projects Industrial Permit: projected cost impacts/water coalition Municipal Permit: nondesignation /exclusion of county offices of education 2

3 Presentation Overview Provides an update on each of the three permits according to the following criteria Application Status Issues Cost Will focus on particular attention to the Municipal permit Construction Permit Applicable to: Any construction project that disturbs one or more acres Includes construction, renovation and demolition activities, such as: clearing, grading, grubbing, and excavation 3

4 Status Construction Permit State Water Board adopted current permit Permit included four major compliance milestones: Effective date delayed until Existing permittees needed to re-apply. Need to comply with training requirements delayed to Need to comply with Risk Level requirements delayed to Need to implement post construction standards delayed to Construction Permit Issues Some permittees did not reapply Many school districts did not determine site Risk Levels by deadline Risk Level Determination will determine how stringent the permit requirements will be at each site Many school projects will not have included post construction design standards into uncompleted projects by deadline 4

5 Construction Permit Issues Coordination between OPSC, districts and Regional Water Boards for design review and scheduling Funding for Post Construction design standards and compliance with Risk Level requirements Bid and contract language re: who is responsible for above costs? Cost Construction Permit The LAUSD estimates the cost of implementing construction/post construction design standards at $1.00 to $3.00 per square foot Storm water costs related to new construction and modernization can be paid from local bond or grant funding 5

6 Questions? Application Industrial Permit Only applies to storm runoff from school bus maintenance and related equipment cleaning facilities Approximately 220 school district facilities in California are currently permitted 6

7 Status Industrial Permit Existing permit adopted in 1997 Draft permit released for public comment in January 2011 currently undergoing extensive revisions Revised draft permit expected March day comment period Reissued permit expected to be adopted in August 2012 Issues Industrial Permit Imposition of Numeric Action Levels (NALs) Corrective Action Triggers and Numeric Effluent Limits (NELs) Corrective action triggers allow for no off ramps Substantially increased monitoring requirements and frequencies - sampling and observations 7

8 Issues Industrial Permit Bureaucratic permit requiring over 300 inspections annually Many time-consuming requirements will not result in water quality improvement District maintenance staff must attend State certified training Industrial Permit Issues Automatic mandatory fines could be realized Group Monitoring Eliminated Many private companies (trucking, manufacturing) could leave California and further depress California economy 8

9 Industrial Permit Cost impacts per Facility Increased monitoring : $20,000+ per year Purchase of required monitoring equipment: $1,000 to $2,000 Additional District staff training: $1,000 to $2,000 Response to Corrective Action Triggers: $2,000 to $100,000+ Cost Industrial Permit Estimated average first year cost is $30,000 per bus maintenance facility Costs could escalate to over $100,000 if structural BMPs, treatment controls, additional reports or additional monitoring are required 9

10 Questions? Applicable to: Small MS4 Permit Over 2,000 municipal agencies including school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and community colleges Every municipal agency in California, however, three types of agencies will receive special treatment guess who? 10

11 Status Small MS4 Permit School districts and charter schools (and county offices in next draft) are granted an exclusion from automatic designation upon permit approval Exclusion does not mean exempt At any time, a Regional Water Board can designate a school district and require compliance Status Small MS4 Permit Of the 13 program segments contained in the current draft, K-12 has to comply with 11 (see attachment) The K-12 Stakeholders Committee is still meeting and conferring with Water Board staff and expects 2-3 additional program responsibility reductions Expect revised draft by June

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13 Small MS4 Permit Issues Some agencies do not believe K-12 should be granted special treatment The draft permit implements all of the Phase II water quality programs contained in the Federal Clean Water Act All costs associated with compliance are paid out of a district s general fund budget 12

14 Cost Small MS4 Permit Implementation costs are estimated to be: $30,000 to $50,000 to develop centralized school district plans and $5,000 to $10,000 per school site The range in cost is due to school size, proximately to sensitive bodies of water and existing site and pollutant concerns Cost Small MS4 Permit Estimated cost for a district with seven schools is $65,000 to $120,000 These estimates do not include any capital costs to resolve any pollution problems There are no State grants for these costs and districts cannot currently use bond funds to pay for these costs 13

15 Advocacy Small MS4 Costs Avoided: $125 million first year implementation $474 million years 2-5 The fight is not over until the final bell Still need your assistance Industrial permit Small MS4 permit Questions? 14

16 Contacts Kathy Tanner San Marcos Unified School District (760) Ian Padilla C.A.S.H. (916) Roger Chang Los Angeles County Office of Education (562) Steve Herrera Herrera Engineering Consultants, Inc. (530) K h T 15