Cadmus Identifies ERP Solution for Stormwater Management and TMDLs

The Environmental Results Program (ERP) is a cost-effective, successful strategy that helps states and other regulatory agencies improve environmental performance in sectors characterized by hundreds or thousands of small or diffuse pollution sources.  ERP combines the proven tools of plain-language compliance assistance, facility self-audits and certifications, agency-led audits and, when necessary, enforcement.  ERP’s sophisticated, statistically-based performance measurement system allows states to track and report progress toward pre-determined performance goals.

By invitation, Cadmus’ Michael Crow, Laura Blake and G. Tracy Mehan have briefed senior EPA staff and state regulators on a conceptual roadmap for implementing ERPs to effectively address surface water quality impairments due to stormwater runoff, as well as to help implement Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs).  Potential applications include:

• Strengthening Implementation Strategies for Stormwater Permitting and TMDLs – Implemented in conjunction with the renewal or reissue of the next round of stormwater permits, a stormwater ERP would provide the ability to track and measure the performance of best management practices (BMPs) for stormwater.  Further, a stormwater ERP would provide a well-established implementation strategy for facilitating existing stormwater TMDL approaches.  At the same time, ERP's robust measurement system could both inform the science of TMDLs and help provide reasonable assurance that a stormwater TMDL would result in attainment of water quality standards.
• Addressing Unregulated and Regulated Stormwater Discharges Through Voluntary Approaches - Regulators could decide to encourage unregulated sources of stormwater discharge, such as commercial operations with large parking lots, to undertake a voluntary ERP approach.  Dischargers would, on an annual basis, certify to the implementation of a certain set of BMPs.  A potentially powerful incentive to encourage participation in such a voluntary program would include the ability for regulators to utilize their residual designation authority to require individual or general permits for those unregulated sources that refuse to participate in the voluntary program.  Similarly, current permit holders might be drawn to a voluntary certification approach in lieu of more stringent, numeric permit requirements.
• Establishing Control Strategies to Support Alternatives to TMDLs - The implementation of a stormwater ERP by a state could represent an “other pollution control requirement” designed to meet water quality standards within a reasonable period of time.  Such an approach would reduce stormwater runoff, document implementation of BMPs, and quantify improvements to water quality.  Under this approach, states could place stormwater-impaired waterbodies onto Category “4b” of the Clean Water Act Section 303(d) List of Impaired Waterbodies.  Alternatively, states might choose to leave these waterbodies on their Section 303(d) Lists, but still delay the development of a TMDL pending an assessment of the impacts of ERP control strategies on waterbody impairments.

The potential to apply ERP in successfully achieving or avoiding TMDLs extends beyond stormwater impairments, to potentially include impairments caused by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), septic systems, industrial discharges, and other sources.

For More Information on using ERP to improve surface water quality, including a full copy of Cadmus' "stormwater ERP" concept paper, please contact us.