Municipal stormwater permit guidance

Guidance

• Stormwater Management Action Planning Guidance (publication 24-10-027)
  • Guidance to assist western Washington permittees in implementing the Stormwater Planning requirement to develop a Stormwater Management Action Plan (See Phase I permit section S5.C.6.d. and Western WA Phase II S5.C.1.d).
• Building Cities in the Rain
  • Department of Commerce’s guidance document describes a process for prioritizing watersheds for stormwater retrofits
• Ecology’s Watershed Characterization Project
  • The Puget Sound watershed characterization project covers the entire Puget Sound drainage area — from the Olympic Mountains to the Cascades. It identifies the most important areas, across the entire Sound and within each of the 19 Water Resource Inventory Areas (WRIAs), to protect and restore, and those areas more suitable for development.
• Regional landscape data
  • Stormwater Action Monitoring (SAM) conducts status and trend monitoring in Western Washington streams and nearshore marine waters.
  • Western Washington NPDES Phase 1 Stormwater Permit: Final S8.D Data Characterization, 2009-2013 (Publication Number: 15-03-001)
  • Ecology’s GIS data

Watershed-scale stormwater plans

Phase I counties and participating permittees developed watershed-scale stormwater plans during the 2013-2019 permit term. Information may be useful for Stormwater Management Action Planning.

Clark County

• Whipple Creek Watershed-scale Stormwater Plan with Appendices

Pierce County

• Spanaway Lake Watershed-Scale Plan
• Appendix A Scope of Work and Schedule
• Appendix B Quality Assurance Project Plan
• Appendix C Watershed Characterization

Snohomish County

• Little Bear Creek Basin Plan and Appendices D, E, and F
• Appendix A Current Conditions Assessment Report
• Appendix B Watershed Modeling Report
• Appendix C Stormwater Strategies Report

King County

• Bear Creek Watershed Management Study
• Bear Creek Watershed Management Study - Watershed Modeling
  • Appendix A: Prioritization: Water Quality and Quantity Strategies
• Stormwater Regulations History and Existing Stormwater Infrastructure in the Bear Creek Watershed
• Assessment of Bear Creek Watershed Wetlands
• Bear Creek Watershed-Scale Stormwater Plan: Existing Water Quality Conditions
• Assessment of Bear Creek Watershed Riparian Areas
• Analysis of Long-term Trends in Bear Creek Water Quality
• Bear Creek Watershed Juvenile Salmon Habitat Use
• Benthic Macroinvertebrate Status and Trends in the Bear Creek Study Area

National and regional social marketing tools, reports, and research

• Tools & Resources for Behavior Change Programs - Complilation of behavior change campaigns in stormwater andwater quality around the country.
• Community Based Social Marketing: Based on the book by Doug McKenzie-Mohr.
• Tools of Change: Offers specific tools, case studies, and a planning guide for helping people take actions and adopt habits that promote health and/or are more environmentally-friendly.

Resources

• STORM education resource public library. This website contains education and outreach resources that have been developed across the state and includes information for social marketing campaigns, evaluations, and additional outreach topics.
• Carpet Cleaning Tip Sheet
• Vehicle and Equipment Washwater Discharges/Best Management Practices Manual. This guidance manual discusses the environmental concerns over discharges from washing the exterior surfaces of vehicles and equipment such as cars and/or trucks, and light or heavy equipment.
• Natural Yard Care: Five steps to make your piece of the planet a healthier place to live. Provides simple, natural yard care techniques that help reduce stormwater pollution.
• Residential Car Washing and Stormwater

U.S. EPA and NOAA resources

• EPA Municipal Stormwater Resources
• EPA Nonpoint Source Outreach Toolbox. A variety of resources to help educate the public on non-point source pollution and stormwater runoff.
• EPA: Getting In Step Training Module. This module offers advice on how local governments, watershed organizations, and others can maximize the effectiveness of public outreach campaigns to reduce source pollution and protect waterways.

K-12 Stormwater Curriculum

• Drain Rangers – Elementary Stormwater Curriculum. Students will be introduced to a problem solving model where they think like an engineer and explore ways to solve the problem of polluted stormwater runoff.

Evaluation tools:

• Evaluating Environmental Education and Outreach Programs​. Workshop Materials Developed for the Ecology Coordinated Prevention Grant recipients. This is a helpful tool for designing education and outreach programs with evaluation in mind written by Pamela M.M. Jull, Ph.D. of Applied Research Northwest.
• EPA Nonpoint Source Outreach Toolbox Surveys and Evaluations. Evaluation materials from watershed education campaigns across the United States.

• Guidance for GIS standards
• Washington Stormwater Center maintains helpful mapping information.
• 2019 Mapping Guidance for Municipal Stormwater Permittees (November 2019, publication # 19-10-041) provides guidance for Western and Eastern Washington permits.

IDDE Program Guidance

• Illicit Connection and Illicit Discharge Field Screening and Source Tracking Guidance Manual (May 2020)
• Frequently Asked Questions: Reporting Discharges and Spills under the Municipal Stormwater NPDES Permits (November 2019)
• Frequently Asked Questions: Municipal Stormwater Permits and Compliance with Standards
• Center for Watershed Protection Manual: Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination (EPA website)
• IDDE Data Compilation Report and Fact Sheet. This Stormwater Action Monitoring (SAM) project analyzed permittees’ reporting on IDDE incidents during 2014 and identified the most common types of IDDE problems across the region.
• Frequently Asked Questions About Residential Car Washing and Stormwater
• Vehicle and Equipment Washwater Discharges/Best Management Practices Manual is our guidance on the collection, treatment, and discharge of water that has been used for washing cars, trucks, and equipment.
• Video on Finding and Fixing Illicit Discharges. Across our urban and suburban watersheds, hidden culprits are polluting our waterways. Watch this Center for Watershed Protection video to find out more about Illicit Discharge Detection & Elimination (IDDE) — the process of finding and fixing these hidden stream polluters. 

IDDE regulations guidance

• Guidance for Cities and Counties: Writing Regulations to Prohibit Illicit Discharges and Connections
• Focus on Illicit Discharge Policies for Secondary Permittees

IDDE Annual Reporting

See guidance under Annual Reporting section.

IDDE materials from permittees

The following materials were prepared by Washington state municipal stormwater permittees to support their permit implementation. The permittees have made these materials available for others to modify for their own use. Ecology has not formally reviewed and approved these materials.

• The City of Pullman's IDDE Success Story "Stormwater Sleuths Solve the Mystery of the Putrid Pipe" describes an IDDE investigation by the city's stormwater staff.
• Seattle Public Utilities created this short and simple video to help businesses learn how to respond to small spills using a standard spill kit.
• Snohomish County IDDE Staff Training. Contact Arthur Lee at Snohomish County if you are interested in PowerPoint versions of this two-part training presentation.
• Resource Venture is the Seattle Public Utilities business education and assistance program with materials on best practices for a variety of small businesses.

Guidance

• Catch Basin Inspection Alternatives for Phase I and II Municipal Stormwater Permittees (April 2013)

Resources

• EPA's Industrial Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan Guide. Note that the guidance for an industrial facility differs in some ways from a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan under the municipal permit.
• EPA National Menu of Best Management Practices
• Ecology Shop Guide for Dangerous Waste Management (June 2014)
• Ecology Hazardous Waste Generator checklist (November 2006). This checklist helps determine if a facility or business produces hazardous wastes and summarizes the responsibilities for those who do.
• Ecology Best Management Practices for Mosquito Control (May 2004)

Training resources

• Preventing Stormwater Pollution: Municipal Employee Training Resources, from the North Central Texas Council of Governments 

Pollution prevention and Operations & Maintenance materials from permittees

Pierce County's Stormwater Maintenance Manual for Private Facilities 

This manual provides descriptions and maintenance checklists for 32 common stormwater facilities/components. These checklists are consistent with the maintenance standards specified in Chapter 4 of Volume V of the 2005 Stormwater Management Manual for Western Washington. It also provides guidance on vegetation management and information for private facility owners on developing a maintenance program and working with contractors.

Port of Seattle video: Dock Scrubbing, An Environmental Approach

This video shows and discusses the Port of Seattle's tool and procedure for cleaning docks over water.

Flow control

• Implementing the Flow Control Standard in Ecology's Western Washington Municipal Stormwater Permits

Runoff controls for construction and post-construction 

• Stormwater management and design manuals
• EPA National Menu of Best Management Practices

We haven't formally reviewed and approved these materials:

• King County Juanita Creek study of retrofit strategies

Runoff treatment requirements for Sound Transit Light Rail projects

• Ecology and Sound Transit have a Memorandum of Understanding regarding Sound Transit's existing and future capital expansion projects.

Basin Plans to alter the minimum requirements approved by Ecology

The following Basin Plans have been approved by us for incorporation into local codes:

• Alternative Flow Control Requirement in Central Sub-Area, Issaquah, WA
• Mill Creek Alternative Flow Control, Clark County, WA
• Des Moines Creek Regional Detention Facility, King County, WA

Stormwater Control Transfer Program

This guidance was incorporated into the SWMMWW (Appendix I-E) and applies to the Phase I and Western Washington Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permits. The guidance document lays out features of an alternative program (a Stormwater Control Transfer Program) that western Washington State municipal stormwater permittees can implement to satisfy permit requirements associated with flow control triggered at new and redevelopment sites.
 
This guidance is a companion guidance to Building Cities in the Rain issued by the Department of Commerce. The Building Cities in the Rain guidance describes a four-step watershed prioritization process for stormwater retrofits. See the Building Cities in the Rain webpage for background on the project and draft prioritization guidance.
 
We released earlier versions of draft guidance on a Stormwater Control Transfer Program for public comment in 2015 and 2016. We finalized the guidance following consideration of comments received on the formal draft permits and manual.

Background

This stormwater management approach directs stormwater control efforts to watersheds where addressing flow control is more likely to help maintain or restore designated and existing beneficial uses.
 
Permittees establishing a Stormwater Control Transfer Program must seek input from natural resource agencies and must obtain our approval of their program (through PH I: S5.C.5.a.i or PH II S5.C.4.a.i of the Western Washington Municipal Stormwater Permits). Stormwater permittees satisfy permit requirements associated with flow control triggered at new and redevelopment sites by implementing their approved program.

Our approval of a Stormwater Control Transfer Program will be made public and can be appealed.
 
We do not propose relaxing the requirements, but rather allow local governments to use a strategy to shift stormwater improvements triggered by the existing requirements to higher priority watersheds. The anticipated advantage of this type of program is that efforts will focus on priority watersheds at a rate greater than the default site-by-site application of the municipal permits' minimum requirements.

• Hazardous Waste’s Pollution Prevention Assistance
• Source Control Inspection Checklist template

• WSU Source Control Training materials

Mobile Business Stormwater Source Control SAM Study

In this SAM funded project, King County and Aspect Consulting develop and test new tools and guidance to support municipal stormwater permittees in identifying and inspecting mobile businesses for compliance with the Phase I and WWA Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permits Section S5.C.8 for source control from exiting development.

• Technical memos and guidance documents from the study are on the project webpage.
• Outreach brochures for three different types of mobile business activities: mobile automobile repair, commercial landscaping, and pressure washing. Print and digital versions of these brochures, in both English and Spanish, can be found on the SAM Mobile Business Study webpage

The Phase I Permit requires a Structural Stormwater Control program (SSC) that addresses municipal stormwater impacts from existing development, which aren’t addressed by the other sections of the permit. For the first time, in the 2019 Phase I Permit, permittees are required to develop and complete projects to achieve a defined level of effort; each permittee must develop and complete projects that qualify for a total of 300 SSC points.

The Phase I Permit, Fact Sheet, and Response to Comments provide information about the program and point calculations.

Our municipal stormwater permits require all permittees to submit annual reports describing the progress of their permit implementation activities. Annual reports cover the previous calendar year's activities, unless otherwise specified, and must be signed by the responsible official and submitted to us by March 31 each year.

Online electronic reporting is here 

You may submit your annual report online by completing our electronic form.

To begin, create your Secure Access Washington (SAW) account, your WQWebPortal account, and associate the two accounts with each other. You will then have access to your annual report form.

Submitting an annual report

Annual reports must be submitted online through the WQWebPortal service. You will need to create a profile if you have not done so already. All annual reports must be submitted by March 31 for the previous year's activities.

Annual report guidance

• Annual report walkthrough: step-by-step guidance for submitting your annual report
• Video tutorials

See below for links to the four individual tutorials, each addressing different elements of the annual report.

• Log in and add users
• Answer questions
• Manage attachments
• Validate and submit

IDDE reporting templates

Ecology created the WQwebIDDE reporting application for permittees to report IDDE investigations and incidents. Permittees may report by filling out the WQwebIDDE form, or by exporting the required data from their own database. WQwebIDDE is accessed through your WQwebPortal account.

Using the WQWebIDDE Form

• The form is required for reporting, unless you are using your own tracking system.

Using your own IDDE tracking system

• If using your own tracking system, this information must be provided in an electronic format that follows the data schema provided in the IDDE Reporting appendix in each permit. For annual reports due on March 31, 2022, and beyond, a .xml that follows the schema is required.

• EPA EJ Screen combines environmental and demographic indicators in maps and reports.
• We put together a guide on how to quickly get demographic information from EPA’s EJ Screen.
• The Washington Environmental Health Disparities Map is an interactive mapping tool that compares communities across our state for environmental health disparities.
• Federal Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) - overburdened and underserved communities on national scale provided by Council on Environmental Quality.
• We translated this sentence which may be helpful to use on your own stormwater program pages:
  • For more information on the municipal stormwater program contact: [Insert local contact here]
  • Spanish: Para más información acerca del programa municipal de agua pluvial comuníquese con:
  • Vietnamese: Để biết thêm thông tin chương trình nước mưa của thành phố, xin liên lạc:
  • Korean: 도심지의 빗물 관리 프로그램에 관하여 보다 자세한 사항을 원하시면 다음으로 연락하십시오. 연락처:
  • Chinese: 欲了解更多 市政的處理雨水計畫，請聯繫:
• Translation services or interpreters may be a need in your jurisdiction. Consider the demographics and languages used by your residents.

Stormwater discharge monitoring SOPs

1. Collecting Grab Samples from Stormwater Discharges
2. Automatic Sampling for Stormwater Monitoring
3. Collection of Stormwater Solids Using In-Line Traps
4. Calculating Pollutant Loads for Stormwater Discharges

The following questions will help you determine whether your facility or district needs a permit:

1. Is the district/facility a public entity?

   Secondary permittees must be a public entity such as a sewer district, flood control district, port, public university or college, prison complex, drainage district, or parks and recreation district.

2. Does the district/facility own or operate a municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4)?

   A municipal separate storm sewer system is a conveyance, or system of conveyances, that includes roads with drainage systems, municipal streets, catch basins, curbs, gutters, ditches, man-made channels, or storm drains that are:
   • Owned or operated by a public entity such as a city, town, county, or special purpose district established by the state
   • Designed or used for collecting and carrying stormwater
   • NOT a combined sewer, and
   • NOT part of a Publicly Owned Treatment Works
   • (Storm sewers in very discrete areas, such as individual buildings, do not require permit coverage. Stormwater discharges from certain facilities may require coverage under other NPDES general stormwater permits, such as the Industrial Stormwater General Permit or Construction Stormwater General Permit)

3. Is the district/facility located in an area covered by the permits?

   The permit requirements apply to limited geographic areas in Washington.

If you answered YES to the above questions, your district/facility may need a stormwater general permit as a secondary permittee. In order to get a permit, you must apply for coverage.

However, some districts may be eligible for a waiver.

Can I get a waiver?

You may be eligible for a waiver from the permit requirement if your municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4):

1. is located in a Phase II jurisdiction and
2. serves fewer than 1,000 people, including both resident and transient/commuter populations.

This waiver does not apply to districts or facilities located entirely or partially in Phase I jurisdictions: Snohomish, King, Pierce and Clark counties and the cities of Tacoma and Seattle.

Who can I contact about my district/facility?

Please refer to our contact information to find out who manages permits in your region.

Also, see EPA's Fact Sheets on Phase II coverage:

• Overview
• Who's Covered?
• Urbanized Areas

If you determine that your MS4 does not require a permit from us, then you do not need to take further action. If you are unsure, you should contact the regional MS4 Permit Manager.
 

Complete the Notice of Intent (NOI)

Apply through SecureAccess Washington and use the WQWebPortal to submit your NOI.

• Review print version of online application (pdf) - For reference only

Publish public notice

Publish a notice at least once a week, for two consecutive weeks, in a single newspaper of general circulation in the county or city in which your district is located.