The Compliance Comeback: Saving Projects from SWPPP & BMP Mayhem
By Forrester Cook, PE, PMP
DOWL’s Forrester Cook, PE, PMP, has been restoring and maintaining stormwater permit compliance on Alaska construction projects for more than a decade. With this experience, he has developed lessons learned and stormwater management guidance for when simultaneous on-site best management practices (BMP) issues and storm water pollution prevention plan (SWPPP) documentation issues occur. The following article presents a standard approach public owners and private developers can implement to restore stormwater construction general permit compliance when their projects go awry.
Introduction
During construction of infrastructure, contractors must implement stormwater management programs. These programs are designed to prevent or reduce the discharge of pollutants, such as those from equipment and materials, into waters of the United States, which are waters that fall under federal jurisdiction, as defined by the Clean Water Act. The contractor accomplishes site-specific stormwater management with a SWPPP.
Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan
A SWPPP is a site and project-specific document that identifies potential sources of storm water pollution at a construction site, describes the BMPs to reduce or eliminate pollutants in stormwater runoff, and identifies the procedures a permittee (the contractor) will implement to remain compliant with local requirements and a construction general permit.
Construction General Permit
A construction general permit authorizes pollution control at a construction site and sets conditions of the discharge to waters of the United States to provide protection of water quality and human health. The permit describes control measures that must be used to control pollutants discharged from construction sites.
The Need for a General Strategy to Restore Permit Compliance
Project owners who procure consultant and contractor services for an infrastructure project, and who are ultimately responsible for its design, will likely encounter projects that enter a period of permit noncompliance because of a contractor’s failure to follow conditions described in the SWPPP. Irrespective of the factors responsible for permit noncompliance, project owners need a general strategy to assist contractors as they restore stormwater permit compliance on projects gone astray.
The Need for Guidance on Projects with Concurrent Permit Violations
Although local agencies provide construction stormwater permitting guidance or recommended corrective actions for individual permit violations, this guidance does not extend to projects troubled with simultaneous violation categories. Additionally, each recommended corrective action or issue-specific guidance is presented independently, and the project as a whole is not considered. Consequently, agency guidance does not encompass the worst-case scenario (WCS), which results in a couple critical unanswered questions:
- When the WCS transpires, what permitting elements should be focused on?
- What steps are necessary to alleviate all identified and unidentified noncompliance issues?
Types of Permit Non-Compliance
Specific stormwater permit noncompliance items can generally be divided into two categories: 1) on-site BMP issues and 2) SWPPP documentation issues.
BMPs broadly include on-site erosion and sediment control measures, good housekeeping measures, and phased earth disturbance and stabilization. This makes BMP issues more obvious to the eye and project stakeholders. BMPs also pose a larger threat to water quality. SWPPP documentation issues on the other hand tend to require more contractor and owner effort to alleviate; however, when BMP and SWPPP documentation permit violations take place concurrently, a project owner may want to prioritize initial remediation efforts toward on-site BMPs first due to the larger threat to water quality.
Common On-Site Issues
Upon discovery of permit noncompliance, the project owner’s designated resident engineer (RE) or SWPPP inspector must identify the following:
- Any project areas requiring supplemental or alternative BMPs
- Each erosion and sediment control BMP requiring maintenance or removal
- Any onsite good housekeeping issues needing to be addressed (e.g., project debris, track-out, fuel and maintenance areas, concrete washouts, etc.)
- Any disturbed areas requiring temporary or final stabilization
Following identification of the on-site issues, the RE/SWPPP inspector should work directly with the contractor’s superintendent and verify trade workers have been trained to install and maintain BMPs selected for the project.
Common SWPPP Documentation Issues
SWPPP documentation noncompliance issues frequently relate to the following areas of focus:
- Project site maps or SWPPP construction site inspection reports do not accurately identify or document installed BMPs on-site
- Incorrect listing and identification of project discharge points
- Incorrect grading and stabilization entries
- Lack of modifications to project-specific authorizations for stormwater discharge
- Inconsistent stormwater training implementation and recordkeeping; failure to perform on-going SWPPP training
- Implementation of ground disturbing activities prior to permit coverage or without proper delegations of signatory authority being obtained
To adequately address SWPPP documentation issues, the RE/SWPPP inspector needs to have a working knowledge of the local construction general permit, environmental-related permits and documents, and project specifications dictating erosion, sediment, and pollution control. Similar to the on-site assessment, the RE/SWPPP inspector needs to evaluate the contractor’s SWPPP for completeness and accuracy. As previously indicated, determining which SWPPP documentation processes the contractor is employing that are noncompliant can be time consuming and challenging, especially for large earthwork projects where several areas have active grading and stabilization activities.
General Strategy to Restore Permit Compliance
The following field-demonstrated strategy can be applied to small-, medium-, and large-scale projects, although a customized approach with minor owner-conducted due diligence is necessary. Stormwater management due diligence topics include:
- The project SWPPP
- The applicable construction general permit
- Types of permit non-compliance
- Common on-site issues
- Stormwater documentation
- SWPPP documentation issues
The strategy to restore stormwater permit compliance is presented below as a series of five steps.
Step 1. Prioritize initial efforts toward on-site BMPs, as these issues pose the largest threat to water quality. Action items include performing an on-site assessment identifying permit discrepancies and communicating findings of the assessment to the contractor.
Step 2. Coordinate with the superintendent and verify trade workers have been trained to install and maintain BMPs selected for the project.
Step 3. Perform a thorough review of the contractor’s SWPPP for completeness and accuracy. The RE/SWPPP inspector should also evaluate the weekly or regular SWPPP documentation processes that the contractor is implementing.
Step 4. Communicate key findings to the contractor, such as SWPPP documentation discrepancies identified by the RE/SWPPP inspector and practical solutions to resolve the discrepancies.
Step 5. As a final form of permit compliance quality assurance, the last step requires the RE/SWPPP inspector to monitor the contractor’s bolstered stormwater management effort. The contractor may require additional assistance with BMP selection and installation or may need assistance regarding the correct development of erosion and sediment control maps. The RE/SWPPP inspector should assist as appropriate with any SWPPP modifications; however, certain circumstances may necessitate coordination with the designer of record or SWPPP preparer.
This general strategy provides project owners with clear guidance for addressing concurrent permit violations by engaging their RE/SWPPP inspector to collaborate with the contractor and initiate a streamlined remediation process. With this field-tested, tried-and-true strategy, project owners can feel empowered that even in the WCS, there is a plan available for achieving permit compliance and getting their project back on track.