Ventura County Brokers Landmark Stormwater Discharge Permit; May Become Statewide Model

The new five year stormwater permit sparked both praise and condemnation. You were among the key leaders who helped shape it. Some are calling a breakthrough while the building industry branded it as potentially disastrous. How significant is the agreement?

Mark Gold: It is precedent setting in two ways. First, it sets a more standardized and science-based approach to improving water quality. It specifies a visionary goal for reducing run-off in new development, while including very practical alternative ways to reach it for urban infill projects. The crux of the requirement is that approximately 95 percent of the rain from a three-quarter inch storm must be captured and used or infiltrated on site. In the event that isn't feasible on site, then the developer must mitigate the runoff by giving funds to local government for regional infiltration projects like green streets, parking lot retrofits, and stormwater recharge at parks, parkways, medians, or open space. Second, it shows that local government and environmentalists can work together on issues that too often lead to polarization and litigation.

Controversy over how to manage stormwater is raging throughout California. What's at stake as local governments, environmentalists, and developers battle over how to clean up our rivers and beaches-and who will pay?

Gold: You've captured the key-at stake is finally living up to the Clean Water Act, one of the first pieces of national environmental protection legislation. Progress has been too slow. That's why we're excited about the new Ventura permit. The Low Impact Development and Best Management Practices sections should serve as models for other stormwater pollution abatement permits and ordinances in California and beyond.

Rick Cole: Local governments find themselves literally at the end of the pipe. We don't generate the bacteria, the motor oil, the trash and the traces of lead and other pollutants that are washed into our storm drains. But we are increasingly being held responsible for keeping them out of our water. When the Ventura County permit was first proposed almost three years ago, we estimated it would have cost an average of $600 per household, per year, to implement. That price tag got everyone's attention.

At the end of a lengthy and contentious process, the Regional Water Quality Board chose an alternative negotiated by local government and environmental groups over their own staff's plan. How did that come about?

Cole: For a long time, we in local government felt that the Regional Board staff was taking a "top-down" regulatory approach instead of pursuing a collaborative partnership. Since our performance on our last stormwater permit had been recognized with an award for national leadership from the U.S. EPA, we couldn't understand that stonewalling. In talking with Heal the Bay and the Natural Resources Defense Council, we found a lot of common ground. As a result, four of us from local government were given authorization to by the county and its ten cities to talk with them in depth to find a "win-win" approach.

Gold: We've not always had success in the past in talking with local governments because we could never be sure that the people we were talking to had the authority to truly negotiate a deal. The fact that the city managers were doing the negotiating rather than public works directors really made a huge difference. My colleagues, David Beckman and Bart Lounsbury of the NRDC along with Kirsten James of Heal the Bay, were invaluable in the negotiations on these critical and complex issues. It wasn't easy and we didn't finalize our deal until the final tentative order was ready to be released by board staff.

Cole: My colleagues in local government remain concerned about the costs and practicality of the new standards. But two things are important to keep in mind-first, our agreement incorporates a package of trade-offs that overall have reduced the costs of compliance to local governments by around 90 percent. It's still expensive, but not nearly as onerous as when we started out. Second, we think the new standards give us some clarity-both on what we're trying to achieve and how we go about achieving them. Ventura County residents want clean rivers and beaches-we just need to be cost-effective in how we achieve that shared goal.

You referenced the new standards for "low-impact" development. How will they reshape development and redevelopment in cities?

Gold: Since developers will be required to capture and infiltrate or use runoff on site, I think we'll see more landscaping. Also, since there will be sites where requirements can't be met, nearby streets and parking lots will start becoming green. The end result should be reduced stormwater pollution, more attractive communities, increased local groundwater recharge and reduced need for large flood control infrastructure.

Cole: I see two very promising opportunities. First, as Mark notes, we'll see offsite efforts to retrofit existing paved expanses of land to make them greener. Second, we have an opening for downtowns and other redevelopment areas to begin to deal with stormwater as a shared challenge-and resource. In urban areas where you can't set aside open space to absorb run-off, we can begin thinking of that water as a resource too precious to be flushed away. Andy Lipkis of Tree People, and others, offer inspiring ideas for capturing and using urban stormwater. It helped that we began our discussions at NRDC's downtown Santa Monica headquarters where all virtually all the rain is diverted to landscaping or stored and treated as greywater to flush their toilets.

Why have the new standards drawn fire from builders and developers?

Gold: We worked very carefully to ensure that the new permit would not negatively impact urban infill and affordable housing. These are both critical local needs and the permit offers flexibility through offsite mitigation. Predictably, however, developers see the rules as too restrictive and expensive. We hope they will play a positive role in shaping the implementing rules for achieving those standards.

Cole: In part, they felt excluded from the process. That wasn't deliberate, but it was difficult enough finding common ground between two sides that have often clashed-environmentalists and local governments.

Gold: In the future, these negotiations should be opened up to the regulatory agencies and other stakeholders, but the negotiation groups have to be small-nine or less-to be effective.

The new permit has gotten statewide attention. What lessons do you see in the Ventura experience for others?

Gold: We certainly hope there will be more collaborative efforts. We also hope others will emulate the approach of retaining and reusing stormwater. Regional Boardmember Maribel Marin distinguished herself in making the motion to approve the approach we'd negotiated with local government. Perhaps she said it best about the complex permit negotiations and hearing process: "It was a sausage, but at the end of the day we got a good meal!"

Cole: For those of us in local government, it comes down to trust. It actually took enormous trust among 11 local government agencies to work together over three years to achieve a permit we could all support.

I give particular credit to my city manager colleagues, Mike Sedell of Simi Valley, Ed Sotelo of Oxnard, and Scott Mitnick of Thousand Oaks and to Jeff Pratt, head of Ventura County Public Works, as well as Vicki Musgrove, our deputy public works director in Ventura. They were all incredibly committed and willing to take risks to achieve success. Environmental groups are often seen as impatient, inflexible, and even impossible in their demands. We sought to earn their trust as being truly committed to our role as environmental stewards. In turn, we stretched our trust to believe they would reach and honor a deal that was realistic and achievable. The leaders at Heal the Bay and NRDC truly lived up to that expectation. Although the board staff was uncomfortable with our approach, we in local government trust that they will work with us in good faith to implement the permit approved by their board.

Finally, we are going to have to earn public trust that higher costs and higher development standards will pay off in cleaner rivers and beaches.