By Chris Wilke, Puget Soundkeeper and Executive Director

As we emerge from another long, wet Northwest winter, look out at the first signs of spring and celebrate another Earth Day, I am reminded that correcting our course on one of our biggest environmental challenges is a long slog… punctuated by some bright moments that will hopefully yield to a bright spring in our future.

Just like the winter months that seem to drag on with endless rain and short days, so goes the fight on Puget Sound’s top toxic threat- polluted stormwater runoff.  Polluted stormwater runoff is an enormous problem for Puget Sound.  It contributes more toxic loading to the waters of the Sound than any other source. This nasty cocktail of heavy metals, petroleum, pesticides and bacteria kills salmon, closes shellfish beaches and introduces highly toxic chemicals that travel through the food web – affecting everything from fish to eagles, orcas and even people. The sheer volume of water can also be destructive-  peak flows generated by hard impervious surfaces like parking lots, roadways and rooftops scour stream beds, release sediments and may even cause urban flooding which can be a serious safety risk.  Fortunately the solutions are at hand, we just need the political will to pursue and implement them.

Since 2000, your Puget Soundkeeper has pursued a dual approach on polluted stormwater runoff: improving regulations and enforcing those regulations to protect water quality.  Lately Soundkeeper has been focusing on some pretty big fish – in the stormwater sense.

Municipal Stormwater Permits issued under the Clean Water Act NPDES program are the main vehicle to regulate polluted stormwater runoff from approximately 90 cities and counties around our state. Roughly speaking, this includes most jurisdictions over 10,000 people. In terms of sheer volume of toxic pollution, these permits are our most important priority (industrial stormwater can be more acutely toxic but is regulated separately under several sector-specific permits). These Municipal Stormwater Permits regulate what cities and counties must do to manage stormwater and comply with the Clean Water Act. Unfortunately the current permits, issued back in 2007, do not go far enough to protect our aquatic resources.

The Courts agreed with us.  Through two landmark orders in 2008 and 2009, the Pollution Control Hearings Board ruled in Soundkeeper’s favor in its appeals of the Municipal Stormwater Permits, confirming we need to do much more to protect water quality, salmon and human health.  A key element of the court decisions was that implementing Low Impact Development (LID, or Green Stormwater Infrastructure) must be part of the regulatory framework moving forward.  Last fall, Department of Ecology issued draft permits on its normal five-year permit renewal cycle that attempted to satisfy this ruling. These drafts however fell well short of what is needed to make a sweeping change.  Chief concerns include too many loopholes, a lack of a meaningful vegetation retention requirement, and the lack of an actual performance standard for LID.

The Bright Side
As I mentioned, even in the dead of winter there a moments of sunshine. In this case it was that this issue became a top priority for the environmental movement in Washington State.  It seemed every day another group was signing-on or writing their own letter.  The groundswell of support helped not only to defend the permits that were falling under attack, but build the case for strengthening them. Soundkeeper and its key partners People for Puget Sound, Earthjustice and Washington Environmental Council submitted detailed comments to show how Ecology needed to improve these permits. These comments were backed up by a sign-on letter from another 52 organizations including other environmental groups, community associations, green builders, shellfish growers, Indian tribes, and fishing guides. This in turn was bolstered by dozens of other letters from citizens, businesses and organizations.  Finally, over 2000 individuals signed on to activist letters organized by Soundkeeper’s partners.  All urging Ecology to do the right thing- close the loopholes and move forward with a strong policy on the way we develop our landscape to better manage polluted stormwater runoff.

If you helped in any way to this effort- thank you. Your comments were heard loud and clear at Ecology.

The Other Side
Apparently many of our local municipal leaders and their lobbyists don’t see it that way.  Over eighty municipalities submitted letters. With a few exceptions most asked for more time, more exemptions, or urged Ecology to slow down this process.  Some even objected to the whole regulatory framework of the Clean Water Act!

Now our State Legislature has acted to muddy the water further. A new bill passed at the 11th hour as a budget compromise in the special session sets the timetable back an additional one to two years behind the generous timetable already included in the draft 2012 Permits. This is additional to the one-year delay already agreed to as a compromise last year.

Although the bill that passed (SB6406) was improved from the earlier versions that were far more destructive (and vigorously opposed by Soundkeeper and its allies), it should be noted that many of the permit shortfalls will now not begin to be addressed until as late as 2017- ten years after they were first identified in 2007.  The crazy thing about this is that on a project level, developing land with green LID technologies is at once more protective and more cost effective than traditional “grey” stormwater infrastructure. Much of the bottleneck appears to be in the process of reviewing and changing local building codes.

What’s Next?
Now it is up to Ecology to weigh the public comments on their merit, incorporate the new legislation and issue final permits by July 2012. Under the negotiated compromise last year, the permits will become effective August 2013, (unfortunately Eastern Washington gets booted back an extra year under the new bill – their permits become effective in August 2014, apparently to appease conservative lawmakers there).
 
Even though the draft permits have always included a phase-in schedule for the new regulations, Ecology should now consider that this new extra time given to the regulated community will also allow them extra time to prepare for the strongest possible protections with the fewest number of loopholes. If we have more time then we also have more time to get it right.

The Bright Side (Again)
Through all of this hand wringing several great things happened: The issue of LID as a permit requirement for new development and redevelopment projects is now settled in the Legislature and it will soon be codified in State law.  The implementation deadlines are not as soon as we hoped for, but these new requirements will go into effect and our developed landscape will begin to show signs of change – we will soon notice more engineered systems like rain gardens, green roofs and permeable pavement being put in place to manage stormwater runoff on-site, with plants and natural drainage like it is in nature. Indeed, it has already begun on a voluntary basis by individual developers and within some forward-thinking municipalities.

Retrofitting existing development will of course be the next step. With the first signs of Spring upon us, now might be a good time for any of us to consider installing a rain garden at our homes.