Polluted runoff, or stormwater, is the single biggest source of pollution to California's coastal waters. During storms, rainwater runs over dirty streets, rooftops, parking lots and lawns, carrying with it a toxic cocktail of pollutants, including disease-causing pathogens, gasoline and lubricants, pesticides, fertilizers, trash, sediment and heavy metals. Even during dry weather, activities like lawn watering and car washing send polluted water down storm drains. This polluted runoff does not undergo treatment like sewage does, but flows untreated directly to our creeks and ocean, making swimming and surfing unsafe and threatening marine life. Due to increasing urbanization and the increasing percentage of land covered by impervious surfaces such as roads, stormwater is the fastest growing source of water pollution in the US.
 
In recognition of this growing problem, Congress amended the Clean Water Act in 1987 mandating the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate stormwater discharges under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). In 1990, EPA promulgated regulations that required operators of certain types of industrial sites, construction sites disturbing five or more acres, and large municipal storm sewer systems to obtain permits governing stormwater discharges. These regulations are known as the Phase I stormwater permit regulations. In 1999, EPA promulgated the Phase II regulations, requiring permits for stormwater discharges from smaller municipal storm sewer systems (serving populations over 50,000) and from construction sites disturbing between one and five acres. These regulations require California's State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to issue NDPES stormwater permits to these categories of dischargers in California.
 
In 1992, the SWRCB adopted general statewide permits regulating stormwater discharges from construction and industrial activities. Large municipalities obtained permits for their stormwater discharges in the early 1990s as well. The SWRCB began developing a general permit for smaller municipalities in 2002. Channelkeeper, in collaboration with several other groups across the state, succeeded in convincing the SWRCB to strengthen the permit, which now requires cities with more than 50,000 people to develop and implement Storm Water Management Programs (SWMPs) to reduce the discharge of pollutants to the “maximum extent practicable” to protect water quality.
 
Local municipalities, including the cities of Goleta, Santa Barbara and Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County and UCSB, have developed SWMPs to obtain coverage under the Statewide General Permit for Discharges from Small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems. Channelkeeper was deeply involved in the development of Santa Barbara County municipalities’ SWMPs from the initial drafting stages (since 2003), playing a lead role in the stakeholder process and providing in-depth technical comments and testimony on how the programs can and must be strengthened. We emphasized the need for adoption and rigorous enforcement of ordinances that prohibit the discharge of pollutants into storm drains, heightened inspections of likely pollution sources, and policies to ensure that development projects will not contribute to water pollution, among many other recommendations. Most of our recommendations were incorporated into local SWMPs, and Channelkeeper’s expertise and contribution to the lengthy process of developing Santa Barbara area municipal stormwater permits has served to make the permits significantly stronger and more effective in combating our most significant and daunting water pollution problem.

Local municipalities are now implementing these five-year SWMPs, and Channelkeeper is closely monitoring their implementation and working with local agencies to make sure that the initiatives and best management practices required in the SWMPs are effectively reducing stormwater pollution.

Click here to for Channelkeeper's comments on local Storm Water Management Programs.

We are also tracking and participating in budget hearings and advocate for local governments to allocate additional resources their polluted runoff prevention efforts.  We succeeded in convincing the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors to increase their budget for stormwater pollution prevention in 2007 and 2008 despite significant budget cuts to many other departments.

Channelkeeper is also actively encouraging local governments to undertake efforts to promote the use of Low Impact Development (LID) techniques into land use decisions and the siting and design of new development and redevelopment projects. LID is an alternative method of land development that seeks to maintain the natural hydrologic character of a development site. It is an exceptionally effective and increasingly popular tool in achieving reductions in polluted runoff. Unfortunately, local zoning ordinances and building codes can pose significant barriers to LID. Channelkeeper is working with local governments to promote LID as a particularly effective and innovative set of tools to reduce urban runoff pollution. To learn more about LID, please visit lowimpactdevelopment.org.

Channelkeeper recently produced a report describing LID strategies, case studies, and other resources for individuals, businesses or public agencies interested in implementing LID projects.

In addition to this advocacy work, Channelkeeper also conducts field investigations to monitor compliance with SWMP requirements on the ground. We routinely patrol local waterways and facilities that may be contributing pollutants to the storm drain system, particularly during rain events, and take photos, video footage and field notes of any pollution incidents that we identify, which we then submit to the relevant agencies. We also take water samples when we find potentially polluted discharges and submit the results to relevant agencies to supplement our field investigation reports. We follow up to ensure that the agencies take appropriate action to clean up and abate the discharges and prevent them from recurring. We also actively encourage local citizens to contact us if they witness a potential pollution problem in their neighborhoods, and then follow up by conducting our own inspections. We have identified and ensured the clean-up of numerous pollution incidents through our pollution patrols, including discharges of raw sewage to local creeks and of sediment and other pollutants from construction sites to the storm drain system.


What you can do
In addition to writing your local representatives and urging them to fully implement and adequately fund the strongest possible SWMPs that will effectively prevent stormwater pollution, you can also help address this problem by never dumping anything down storm drains, avoiding the use of pesticides and fertilizers, composting your yard waste, recycling used motor oil, washing your car on the grass or at a professional carwash, and properly disposing of pet waste and household chemicals. For more information about what you can do to, go to  EPA's Polluted Runoff page.