The Conservtech Group offers comprehensive services to assist our clients in complying with storm water regulations as put forth by the California State Water Resources Control Board. If you are unsure of whether or not your facility must take action to comply with storm water regulations, please contact us and we will determine that for you.

For those facilities that require it under storm water regulations, we offer Notice of Intent (NOI), Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP), and Notice of Termination (NOT) preparation services.

Notice of Intent
A Notice of Intent is a registration form that informs the California State Water Quality Control Board that you have determined that your facility is required to prepare a SWPPP and that you intend to do so. The NOI should be submitted prior to the preparation of a SWPPP, and is a simple form that registers your company in the storm water compliance system of the State Water Board. You must submit some basic administrative information on the NOI form, a plan of your facility showing storm drains and potential sources of storm water contamination, and a filing fee (as of 5/1/08 the fee is $830). The State Water Board will issue a “WDID number” to your facility that allows you to operate under the general permit of the state.

Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan
Once the NOI has been submitted, you must prepare a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan. The SWPPP will contain descriptions of the operations at you facility, the potential sources of contamination of storm water discharge, the steps you will take to prevent these sources from getting into storm sewers, emergency procedures, emergency contacts, storm water sampling parameters, and other information that will help you keep your storm water discharge clean and free from contamination.

The SWPPP must be signed by a responsible official at your company, but it is not submitted to the State Water Board. It should be kept at your facility for reference and provided to storm water inspectors at their request.

Notice of Termination
For companies that have changed the conditions under which they operate or have demonstrated that there is no longer a need to monitor storm water discharges, a Notice of Termination (NOT) may be appropriate. When approved, the Notice of Termination allows your company to stop the monitoring of storm water discharges. If you would like to find out if your facility qualifies, please contact us.

Management of Your Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan
There are several things that all facilities need to do to comply with storm water regulations once they have completed their SWPPP:

You must do quarterly dry weather inspections of the property. You should walk around the property and take notes of any conditions that might contaminate storm water discharges. Take notes of your findings and correct any deficiencies.

You must complete monthly wet weather inspections of your property during the rainy season, which is October 1st through May 31st. These should be done during one qualifying storm event in each of these months, October through May. You are looking for any storm water discharge that might be contaminated, such as by solids, oil, hydraulic fluid, etc. As with dry weather inspections, take notes and correct any deficiencies. In Los Angeles it doesn’t always rain every month, and a wet season inspection obviously cannot be completed in any dry month.

You must take two storm water samples at each of the points that storm water leaves your property, such as from storm drains or from driveways. These samples must be taken during two different qualifying storm events, including the first event of the season where possible. At a minimum you will be required to sample for suspended solids, oil & grease, pH, and conductance. Some facilities may need to sample for other parameters—this will be described in your SWPPP.

You must submit an annual report by June 30th for the prior 12 months describing the actions you have taken to comply with storm water regulations. This will include the dates and findings of your inspections and the results of your storm water sampling.The Conservtech Group can administer the plan for you. We can complete the dry weather inspections and the annual report and provide a storm water sampling kit with instructions for taking storm water samples. Because of the number of clients we have, we cannot do wet weather inspections or storm water sampling for our clients. Once the storm water samples are taken, we can arrange for pickup and have them analyzed for you.

Call us today to assist you with this important aspect of your environmental compliance program.

What is a qualifying storm event?

Several conditions must be met for a rain storm to be a qualifying storm event:

It must be during daylight working hours;

It must be under safe conditions;

It must have enough rain to allow collection of storm water samples;

It must not be within 72 hours of a prior qualifying storm event.