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1 <br />ORANGE COUNTY <br />BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS Action Agenda <br />Item No.0 <br />ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br />Meeting Date: March 20, 1991 <br />SUBJECT: New NPDES stormwater regulations <br />DEPARTMENT: County Manager <br />ATTACHMENT(S): Report <br />PUBLIC HEARING YES: NO: X <br />INFORMATION CONTACT: County Engineer <br />TELEPHONE NUMBER- <br />Hillsborough <br />- 732 -8181 <br />Chapel Hill <br />- 968 -4501 <br />Mebane <br />- 227 -2031 <br />Durham <br />- 688 -7331 <br />PURPOSE: To present a report to the Board of County Commissioners <br />outlining new stormwater regulations promulgated by the US <br />Environmental Protection Agency, the effects of those <br />regulations on Orange County, and Orange County's response to <br />the regulations. <br />BACKGROUND: As of January, 1991, the US Environmental Protection Agency's <br />new regulations requiring that many local governments obtain <br />National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) <br />permits for stormwater discharges to surface waters became <br />effective. Prior to the time the new regulations were <br />published, most engineering and environmental professionals <br />assumed that these regulations would apply only to highly <br />urbanized areas with populations of greater than 100,000 <br />people, and only to the stormwater discharges from urban <br />stormwater collection systems. When the rules were published, <br />they did contain the expected permitting requirements for <br />urban stormwater collections systems, but they also contained <br />provisions which required the NPDES permitting of sites which <br />the EPA had classified as "industrial ". Sites classified as <br />industrial by EPA include many types of facilities owned or <br />operated by local governmental units, including airports, <br />motor pools, maintenance garages, transportation facilities, <br />landfills -both in use and closed out, waste treatment <br />plants, etc. <br />The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners and the <br />NC League of Municipalities realized that many,of their <br />respective members were going to be caught unaware by the <br />pervasiveness of potential local impacts of the new EPA <br />stormwater regulations, and began to develop a strategy to <br />assist local governments to deal with those regulations. The <br />Association and the League jointly retained an environmental <br />