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3 <br />Report: <br />US Environmental Protection Agency Stormwater Regulations <br />In November, 1990, -the US Environmental Protection Agency <br />released its long awaited rules for permitting of stormwater <br />runoff discharges to surface waters. Environmental <br />protection and engineering professionals and units of local <br />government had anticipated that the stormwater permitting <br />regulations would apply only to jurisdictions with <br />populations of over one hundred thousand people and that the <br />permits would set some level of water quality standards and <br />other restrictions on stormwater discharges from large urban <br />stormwater collection systems. The municipalities and other <br />local governmental units which operate stormwater collection <br />systems anticipated that they would eventually be required to <br />build and operate a system of Best Management Practice (BMP) <br />structures to meet specified water quality standards. The <br />new EPA regulations do require the permitting of large urban <br />stormwater collections systems, as expected. Unfortunately, <br />the impacts of the new regulations are far more pervasive <br />than was anticipated. The new regulations impact nearly <br />every local jurisdiction, no matter how small. <br />The new EPA rules make industrial sites in any size community <br />or jurisdiction subject to the stormwater regulations. EPA <br />has classified waste water treatment plants, new and old <br />landfills, transportation facilities such as airports, and <br />motor pool and vehicle maintenance facilities as industrial <br />sites. Orange County operates a motor pool, owns a park <br />built on an old landfill, and is one of the joint owners of <br />an active land fill. In addition, Orange County has some <br />degree of responsibility for the Orange County school system <br />which operates a motor pool facility. Orange County is and <br />will be unavoidably involved in the EPA stormwater permitting <br />process. <br />The NC Association of County Commissioners (NCACC) and the NC <br />League of Municipalities (NCLM) have jointly recognized that <br />almost all local jurisdictions are going to have some <br />facilities which will fall under the EPA industrial site <br />stormwater regulation process. There are two EPA stormwater <br />permitting options available in North Carolina; the <br />individual industrial site permit and the group industrial <br />site permit. The NCACC and NCLM determined that <br />environmental consultant expenses could be expected to range <br />from $25,000 to $35,000 per site in the individual site <br />permitting process. The Association and the League then <br />developed a strategy to allow their members to take advantage <br />of group site permitting option. Group permitting allows <br />owners of similar facilities to join together to apply for a <br />group permit. In the group permitting process, the EPA <br />requires that an individual environmental study be undertaken <br />