The stormwater sector, like many other infrastructure sectors, suffers from underinvestment at all levels – Federal, state and local. NMSA strongly and consistently advocates for ways to increase funding at all of these levels. At the Federal level, NMSA has engaged with members of Congress to provide input on funding needs and potential pathways for increased funding. NMSA leadership meet consistently with EPA staff to encourage the Agency to find ways to drive more needed funds to local stormwater programs to enable increased investment in stormwater infrastructure as well as MS4 program products and engagement. At the state and local levels, NMSA advocates for greater freedom and capacity for MS4s to establish local sustainably-supported revenue sources and programs. NMSA will continue to push for greater funding at all levels.
The stormwater sector is relatively young in comparison to other infrastructure sectors both within and beyond the water sector. In 1972, when EPA was established, the Clean Water Act rightly focused on traditional point sources of pollution (wastewater and industrial processes discharges) when the NPDES program was initiated. This focus on point source pollution is reflected in the structure within the EPA Office of Water with the establishment of the Office of Wastewater Management (OWM) as the group within EPA who will lead on wastewater regulations. While EPA expanded the NPDES program in 1987 in response to the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1984 to include urban runoff in the definition of point source pollution, the unique nature of stormwater discharges were not considered when the MS4 program and other stormwater-related programs were organizationally located within OWM. NMSA advocates for the establishment of an EPA Office of Stormwater Management (OSM) that would operate at the same organizational level as OWM. This new office within the Agency will reflect the rise of urban runoff as a serious water quality issue across the country and provide a centralized organizational entity to ensure that the interests and needs of stormwater programs across the country are not limited or disregarded.
The definition of Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) has been a dynamic as well as a highly contentious regulatory and legal issue over the last decade and this continues currently. As this issue continues to evolve, a central concern to the stormwater sector is to retain the exclusion of stormwater infrastructure from the definition of the WOTUS – without this exclusionary language, MS4 program managers may not be able to access or maintain stormwater practices. NMSA will continue to retain this exclusion language as the WOTUS debate continues.
Stormwater runoff generates highly variable loads of pollutants delivered to receiving waters. This dynamic nature of urban runoff makes the challenge of water quality treatment through stormwater products and practices daunting. Understanding the performance of both proprietary stormwater products as well as public domain stormwater practices is still in its infancy. To support this understanding, NMSA is leading the Stormwater Testing and Evaluation of Products and Practices (STEPP) program, which provides unbiased and highly-qualified verification of performance testing of stormwater products and practices. NMSA advocates for funding to support this program as well as recognition by Federal and state regulators.
Millions of chemicals exist in our environment, the vast majority of which are not regulated and are not well understood. Efforts to treat stormwater-driven pollution must continue to address those pollutants that have been identified as most impactful to human and biota health and well-being with the understanding that concurrent efforts to remove these pollutants from the environment completely must be embraced as well. NMSA advocates for efforts and investments made to replace identified harmful pollutants in the water environment with alternatives that mitigate for pollutant impacts or completely eliminate these from the environment. Examples include the removal of Copper from brake pad lining and Zinc from tire materials.
<The list of pollutants in the environment continues to expand as new pollutants are realized. These emerging contaminants include PFAS/PFOA, microplastics and 6PPDQ, all of which were not issues in the stormwater sector as recently as a decade ago but are now driving significant interest in the regulatory world. NMSA regularly engages with EPA and Congress to advocate for the position of passive receivers of emerging contaminants to not be held liable as many of these sources of chemicals are from private industrial activities. NMSA will continue to advocate for a “polluter pays” structure to hold those accountable who generate emerging contaminants. In addition, NMSA will continue to engage with regulators and industry groups to seek solutions to address these pollutants of concerns.
2023 EPA rulemaking…..
Events
National Stormwater Policy Forum – Since 2016, NMSA has engaged with the Water Environment Federation (WEF) to host the National Stormwater Policy Forum, which is day-long event held in conjunction with Water Week focusing entirely on stormwater and MS4 issues. This event brings together policy makers and stormwater practitioners to exchange information on stormwater policies of the day, to disseminate updates on Federal regulatory and legislative actions impacting the stormwater sector, and to host facilitated discussions on how groups working at the national level should address these issues. The 2023 National Stormwater Policy Forum was hosted by the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties and included input from EPA stormwater program officials, Federal Congress member staff from both sides of the aisle, and leading researchers and NGOs in the stormwater sector discussing emerging contaminants. A regular feature of the Forum is the presentation of a handout document that outlines the legislative “asks” that stormwater professionals engaged in meetings with Congress member staff can use to concisely, consistently and effectively convey priority requests regarding stormwater-focused issues.
Fact Sheets