Riverkeeper Calls Virginia's New Stormwater Permit 'Inadequate'

The Construction Stormwater General Permit, was drafted by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, DCR, and is going to be reviewed for approval or denial by the Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Board on Thursday.

"This permit is wholly inadequate to protect water quality in Virginia's rivers and the Chesapeake Bay,” said Jeff Kelble, the Shenandoah Riverkeeper. "It's essentially the same permit we've had for the past five years, and one we can't afford to have for another five years.”

This general permit regulates the discharge of stormwater from construction sites that disturb one acre or more of land, and from smaller sites that are part of a larger, common plan of development. This permit requires operators of such construction sites to implement stormwater controls and develop stormwater pollution prevention plans to prevent sediment and other pollutants associated with construction sites from being discharged in stormwater runoff.

Dusk falls over the Shenandoah River. (Photo courtesy Shenandoah Riverkeeper)

The previous five-year permit will expire on June 30 and state is required to have a new permit in place by July 1.

Kelble sent a letter to the Department of Conservation and Recreation late last week outlining the worst aspects of the permit. The letter is the last in a series of actions that he has taken over the last year to improve the permit.

Other actions include enforcing citizens provisions of the permit on construction sites, suggesting "miles of new language” that would protect state waters, making public comments and encouraging the public to do the same, and getting legal review of the permit.

"We provided new permit language and procedures to DCR for fixing this permit,” Kelble said. "Despite all the information and assistance we provided to DCR, they still produced a permit that fails to comply with the Clean Water Act and is really a blank check to pollute Virginia rivers."

Another aspect of the proposed permit that troubles Kelble is a provision that makes compliance information unavailable to the public.

Under the Clean Water Act, the public must be given access to the terms of any permit to discharge pollutants into a water body.

The proposed permit requires construction site operators to make their initial pollution control plan available to the public, but it allows them to keep secret information about whether that plan is working and what improvements, if any, have been made to the original plan. Developers do not have to submit that information to the state or make it available to the public under the permit.

"The Board might be tempted to approve this new permit just because it has taken so long to get to this point, but I urge them to put their duty to protect water quality in Virginia ahead of anything else," he said.

Kelble says if the the board does approve the permit, doing so for two years would be better than five and would allow state water officials to take into account new national effluent guidelines now being developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA is in the process of developing a national regulation called an Effluent Limitations Guideline for the construction and development industry. When the Guideline is completed, the EPA will develop and issue an updated Construction General Permit that incorporates its provisions. This process is due for completion by July 2010.

The EPA's pollution standard for Chesapeake Bay, known as the Total Maximum Daily Load, TMDL, is due out by May 2011 although Bay partner states, including Virginia, have indicated their desire to have it prepared by the end of 2010.

The Shenandoah River is the principal tributary of the Potomac River, which empties into Chesapeake Bay. The river and its tributaries drain the central and lower Shenandoah Valley and the Page Valley in the Appalachians on the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia and West Virginia.

Kelble has been patrolling the waters of the Shenandoah River since the beginning of the Shenandoah Riverkeeper program in June of 2006. Before that, for seven years, he owned and operated a fishing guide service in the Shenandoah Valley. After a second year of heavy fish kills on the Shenandoah Keble took on the task of advocating for clean water in the river.

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