Two stories hit my desk on the same day that I found interesting for construction companies. First, California adopted stricter pollution discharge rules that will require more aggressive monitoring of construction projects. The California State Water Resources Control Board’s new General Permit for Storm Water Discharges from Construction imposes a significantly different permitting framework from the Current General Permit that has been in place for the last 10 years. As reported by Morrison Foerster back in May, when still in draft form, the “new framework includes mandatory BMPs, two forms of numeric discharge limitations, and onerous monitoring requirements that could be costly for developers in California and raise a significantly higher risk of encountering enforcement actions and citizens’ lawsuits in the future.”
Highlighting the risk of enforcement actions is the second story I encountered. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection fined a construction contractor $1,700,000 for alleged violations of its Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan. During construction of the Panama City-Bay County International Airport in Florida, there were heavy rains this spring. Temporary soil stabilization methods (covering the soil with a synthetic covering or hydroseeding, in this case) should have been employed per the SWPPP, but were not, according to DEP and reported by The News Herald. The DEP estimated that the contractor saved about $950,000 by not installing the erosion matting – the contractor is disputing the violations. The contractor claims that drainage problems elsewhere on the site are contributing to the failure of the designed runoff prevention system.
If you are trying to run a sustainable or green construction business, you probably already know that nonpoint source pollution is one of the leading causes of water quality problems and that these pollutants can have harmful effects on drinking water supplies, recreation, fisheries, and wildlife. It is a good thing to protect the green around our jobsites but also rewarding to protect the green in your wallet by following your stormwater pollution prevention plans.
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