water quality
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)
The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of a "pollutant" from a "point source" to a "water of the United States" without a permit. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program was created to issue these discharge permits. NEIWPCC monitors NPDES policy issues on behalf of our member states, disseminating information and coordinating the writing of comment letters to EPA and Congress. (These letters spell out our states' views on EPA and Congressional actions or proposals.) NEIWPCC also facilitates communication and information exchange among NPDES staff in our member states.
A clear example of our commitment to fostering collaboration on NPDES issues occurred in December 2002. NEIWPCC held a regional meeting of state and EPA NPDES staff at the EPA Region 1 Lab in Chelmsford, Mass. Participants included 14 US EPA staff, 20 state staff (from Conn., Mass., Maine, N.H., and R.I.), and three NEIWPCC staff. Topics discussed included current NPDES program policy issues, enforcement, sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs), combined sewer overflows (CSOs), flow, metals, nutrients, cooling water intake, CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), and innovative permitting.
Additional NPDES topics currently of interest to NEIWPCC's member states include Stormwater Phase II, EPA's "Permitting for Environmental Results" initiative, the Permit Compliance System, TMDLs, water quality trading, and watershed-based permitting. Of these topics, NEIWPCC has been particularly involved with helping our member states implement EPA's Stormwater Phase II rule. NEIWPCC's Stormwater Phase II Workgroup meets on a regular basis, and we have published a manual that helps municipalities comply with a key requirement of EPA's latest stormwater regulations.
For more information, please contact Laura Chan, coordinator of stormwater programs.