National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Phase II - Storm Water Regulations

Communities within the Lower Grand River Watershed have formed a cooperative agreement to achieve compliance with the EPA's NPDES Phase II regulations for controlling storm water pollution. Since the introduction of the Clean Water Act , our nation's rivers, lakes, and streams have shared a great success and are now fishable and swimmable. However, impairments to these waters still exist despite progress that has been made cleaning up point source pollution discharges. The largest contributor of water pollution today, is storm water runoff, or nonpoint source pollution.

Clean Water Act was amended in 1987 to include regulation of storm water pollution from municipal storm sewer systems. Phase I of this program was promulgated in 1990 and was designed to address storm water pollution from large metropolitan areas and construction sites larger than five acres. The City of Grand Rapids was included in Phase I. Phase II expands this program to include smaller construction sites and the communities surrounding large metropolitan areas. The communities in the Grand Rapids metropolitan area that are required to comply with the storm water program are listed below.

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The communities listed above are within the Lower Grand River Watershed and all but two have formed a cooperative agreement to fulfill the NPDES Phase II requirements under a watershed-based permit structure. This permit structure allows communities that are in the same watershed to comply with NPDES Phase II regulations through a cooperative agreement under the auspices of the Grand Valley Metropolitan Council.

The communities participating in this regional strategy will be granted a certificate of coverage to discharge storm water from their separate storm sewer systems. At that time the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality will expect these communities to submit plans for locating and correcting illicit connections to storm drains, develop a public education program about storm water pollution, create a watershed management plan, develop a public participation program, and create a storm water pollution prevention initiative. The support and cooperation developed under the cooperative agreement has propelled this program forward and much of the permit compliance tasks are well underway.  

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