News Brief

EPA Proposing New Stormwater Guidelines

As part of its management of the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed national stormwater guidelines for construction sites. Under the proposed regulations, all construction sites would be required to implement erosion and sediment-control best practices. In addition, construction projects disturbing over 10 acres (4 ha) would require sediment basins to treat stormwater runoff.

In areas with high rainfall intensity and clay soils, sites larger than 30 acres (12 ha) would be subject to a turbidity limit that would require the removal of fine-grained and slowly settling or non-settling particles from the stormwater. Such removal is not achieved by conventional stormwater management practices and would likely require chemical treatment or filtration of stormwater.

These guidelines would expand the state-administered requirement of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). EPA is accepting comments at www.regulations.gov through February 26, 2009; more information on the proposal is available at www.epa.gov/waterscience/guide/construction/proposed/index.html.

Published January 2, 2009

Wendt, A. (2009, January 2). EPA Proposing New Stormwater Guidelines. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/newsbrief/epa-proposing-new-stormwater-guidelines

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