Stormwater Management

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The Clean Water Act focuses on controlling the discharge of pollutants in to the nation's waterways. Recent regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and state pollution control authorities require that some industrial and commercial facilities prepare storm water management plans and sample their stormwater runoff.

Stormwater management plans delineate a facility's procedures aimed toward minimizing the contaminants in storm water runoff from the facility.

Facilities required to monitor their stormwater runoff are frequently held to a toxicity limit of their stormwater discharge. Test organisms such as daphnia pulex and "fat head minnows" are exposed to varying dilutions of the facility's stormwater runoff. The toxicity limits that vary from state to state are based on the survival rate (LC₅₀) in the various stormwater dilutions. Facilities that fail their toxicity tests must identify the source of toxicity and then modify their stormwater pollution prevention plans with the goal of reducing stormwater toxicity.

At complex industrial facilities, investigations of the cause of toxicity can entail complex operations and subsurface investigations. Mr. Lewis is currently conducting such an investigation for a Connecticut manufacturer. This investigation is being conducted under the aegis of the State Department of Environmental Protection.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has recently issued a stormwater management policy which will be administered by the local wetlands protection regulatory bodies "conservation commissions" that focuses on stormwater from current and proposed land use.