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September 9, 2013

MEMORANDUM

To: File

From: Erika Farris, Environmental Scientist, U.S. EPA

Re: Summary of Changes Made to EPA’s Draft Multi-Sector General Permit at the Request 

of OMB or other Federal Agencies

This memorandum includes a summary of changes made to EPA’s draft Multi-Sector 

General Permit (MSGP) in response to comments received during Inter-Agency review. The 

draft MSGP was submitted to the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) on April 16, 2013. 

OMB closed its review on September 9, 2013.

The following includes a part-by-part summary of the changes made to the draft permit, 

fact sheet, and Federal Register notice. This list does not include changes initiated by EPA 

during Inter-Agency review to improve clarity or consistency, or to correct errors.

Part 1

Part 1.1.3 – Added the underlined text: Pavement wash waters where no detergents or 

hazardous cleaning products are used (e.g., bleach, hydrofluoric acid, muriatic acid, 

sodium hydroxide), and the wash waters do not come into contact with oil and grease 

deposits or any other toxic or hazardous materials. (unless oil and grease deposits have 

been cleaned using dry clean-up methods). You are prohibited from directing any 

authorized pavement wash waters directly into any surface water, or storm drain inlet 

unless you have implemented appropriate control measures that meet the non-numeric 

effluent limits in Part 2.1.2. Where appropriate control measures are not in place, wash 

water runoff must first undergo treatment prior to discharge such as filtration, detention, 

or settlement.

Part 2

Part 2.1.2.1 – Added the underlined text: “Ensure that all washwater, with the exception 

of discharges from routine building washdown and pavement wash water described in 

Part 1.1.3, drains to a sanitary sewer, sump, or other proper collection system (i.e., not the 

stormwater drainage system).”

Part 2.1.2.3 – Changed bag house maintenance from monthly to quarterly. Also added 

the following text: “Note: In this context, the term “immediately” requires you to, on the 

same day a condition requiring maintenance is found, take all reasonable steps to 

minimize or prevent the discharge of pollutants until a permanent solution is installed and 

made operational. However, if a problem is identified at a time in the work day when it is 

too late to initiate corrective action, the initiation of corrective action must begin on the 

following work day.”
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Part 2.1.2.4 – Added the underlined text: “Implement procedures for material storage 

and handling, including the use of secondary containment and barriers between 

material storage and traffic areas, or a similarly effective means designed to prevent the 

discharge of pollutants from these areas;”

Part 3

Part 3.2.1 – Changed the following text “Whenever any of the characteristics above are 

visually detected or observed in a sample, you must initiate the corrective action 

procedures in Part 4” to say “Whenever the visual assessment shows obvious signs of 

stormwater pollution, you must initiate the corrective action procedures in Part 4.” 

Part 4

Part 4.1 – Added the underlined text: “A required control measure was never installed, 

was installed incorrectly, or not in accordance with Parts 2 and/or 8, or is not being 

properly operated or maintained” Also changed the following text: “Visual assessments 

of your discharge indicate pollutants are being discharged” to say: “If there are obvious 

indicators of stormwater pollution, such as color, odor, floating solids, settled solids, 

suspended solids, foam, oil sheen, etc.”

Part 4.2.1 – Added the underlined text: “Note: In this context, the term “immediately” 

requires you to, on the same day a condition requiring corrective action is found, take all 

reasonable steps to minimize or prevent the discharge of pollutants until a permanent 

solution is installed and made operational. However, if a problem is identified at a time in 

the work day when it is too late to initiate corrective action, the initiation of corrective 

action must begin on the following work day.”

Part 5

Part 5.1– Made the following changes: “The SWPPP shall be prepared in accordance 

with good engineering practices and to industry standards. The SWPPP may be 

developed by any person, but it shall be certified in accordance with Part 5.2.7by a 

person with the education, experience and accountability necessary for its 

implementation. If EPA concludes that the SWPPP is not in substantial compliance with 

Part 5.2 of this permit, EPA may also require the SWPPP to be prepared, reviewed, 

amended as necessary, and or certified signed by a Professional Engineer, or for Sector 

G, H or J, by a Professional Geologist, with the education and, experience and 

accountability necessary to for developingprepare and implementing an adequate

SWPPP.”

Part 5.2.5.1 – Made the following changes: “The SWPPP shall include the schedule and 

frequency for completing each maintenance taskmaintaining all control measures used 

to comply with the effluent limits in Part 2.”

Part 5.4.2 – Added the underlined text: “You must retain a complete copy of your current 

SWPPP required by this permit at the facility in any accessible format. A complete SWPPP 

includes any documents incorporated by reference and all documentation supporting 

your permit eligibility pursuant to Part 5.2.6 of this permit, as well as your signed and 
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dated certification page. Regardless of the format, the SWPPP must be immediately 

available to facility employees, EPA, a state or tribe, the operator of an MS4 receiving 

discharges from the site; and representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) 

or the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) at the time of an onsite inspection. Your 

current SWPPP or certain information from your current SWPPP described below must also 

be made available to the public (except any confidential business information (CBI) or 

restricted information (as defined in Appendix A)), but you must clearly identify those 

portions of the SWPPP that are being withheld from public access; to do so, you must 

comply with one of the following two options:”

Part 5.5 – Removed the following language from Part 5 and instead require that spills be 

logged as part of the corrective action documentation in Part 4: “A log of significant leaks, 

spills or other releases that could be exposed to stormwater. Include the following 

information: a description of the incident including material, date/time, amount, 

location, and reason for spill; response actions, date/time clean-up completed, 

notifications made, and staff involved. Note any of the leaks, spills or other releases that 

resulted in discharges of pollutants to waters of U.S., through stormwater or otherwise. 

Also include any measures taken to prevent the reoccurrence of such releases (see Part 

2.1.2.4).” 

Part 6

Part 6.2.1.2 – Added the underlined text: “Natural background pollutants do not include 

legacy pollutants from earlier activity on your site, or pollutants in run-on from 

neighboring sources which are not naturally occurring, such as other industrial sites or 

roadways. However, permittees may be eligible to discontinue monitoring for pollutants 

that occur solely from run-on sources and should consult the appropriate EPA Regional 

Office for related guidance.” 

Part 8

Part 8.G, 8.H, 8.I, and 8.J – Make the following change: “All erosion and sedimentation 

control measures must be inspected either: (1) every 7 days; or (2) once every 14 

calendar days and within 24 hours of a storm event of 0.25 inches or greater.”

Appendix A

Added the following definition: “Restricted Information is information that is privileged or 

that is otherwise protected from disclosure pursuant to applicable statutes, Executive 

Orders, or regulations. Such information includes, but is not limited to: Classified national 

security information, protected critical infrastructure information, sensitive security 

information, and proprietary business information.”

Added the following definition: “Saline water – for the purposes of this permit, a 

waterbody with salinity that exceeds 0.5 parts per thousand (by mass), unless otherwise 

defined as a coastal or marine water by the applicable state or tribal surface water 

quality standards.”
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Appendix E

Deleted draft additional requirements for additional monitoring, inspections, and 

maintenance for facilities establishing their eligibility under the Part 1.1.4.5 criterion C. 

Also reduced the Criterion C worksheet review time from 60 days to 30 days, and 

removed the requirement that Part 1.1.4.5 eligibility be verified annually. 

Appendix G

Added the following note: “Note: You are not required to post any confidential business 

information (CBI) or restricted information (as defined in Appendix A) (such information 

may be redacted), but you must clearly identify those portions of the SWPPP that are 

being withheld from public access.”

Fact Sheet

Part 2.1.2.3 – Added the underlined text: “If a permittee finds that their control measures 

need to be replaced or repaired, Part 2.1.2.3 requires that they immediately take all 

reasonable steps to minimize or prevent the discharge of pollutants until a permanent 

solution is installed and made operational, including cleaning up any contaminated 

surfaces so that the material will not discharge in subsequent storm events. The permit 

specifies that “immediately” means that all reasonable steps to minimize or prevent the 

discharge of pollutants must be taken on the same day the repair or replacement of a 

stormwater control is identified until a permanent solution is installed and made 

operational. However, if a problem is identified at a time in the work day when it is too 

late to take action, the initiation of action must begin on the following work day. EPA 

clarifies that “all reasonable steps” does not necessitate taking action when it is unsafe to 

do so (e.g., due to inclement weather).”

Part 6.2.1. – Added the following request for comment:

These benchmark monitoring requirements have come under considerable scrutiny since 

they were established in the 1995 MSGP with some stakeholders voicing support for more 

intensive monitoring requirements and other stakeholders recommending the 

replacement of monitoring with a combination of control measures and onsite 

inspections. EPA has received comments from certain stakeholders that the benchmark 

monitoring requirements are overly burdensome, and that modifications of control 

measures in response to exceedances do not reduce future exceedances. EPA has also 

received feedback that the monitoring requirements do not adequately characterize 

the pollutant concentrations in stormwater discharges. Specifically, concerns were 

raised about the variability of stormwater discharges and whether the discharges could 

be sufficiently characterized from the limited number of grab samples required under the 

MSGP. In addition, some commenters believed that the benchmarks were not valid 

indicators of water quality concerns from storm events, in part because the benchmark 

may not account for the dilution of the discharge that occurs during a storm event, and 

that 30 minute first flush samples are not representative of the longer term exposures used 

to derive the water quality criteria that form the basis for most benchmarks. Other 

commenters expressed concerns that the benchmark levels are not protective enough 

due to the high levels of contaminants in the first flush. Concerns were also raised about 
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the difficulties in meeting certain benchmark levels. 

In July 2006, the EPA requested that the National Research Council (NRC) review the 

EPA’s stormwater program and make associated policy recommendations. As part of 

this study, the EPA asked NRC to consider how useful monitoring is for both determining 

the potential of a discharger to contribute to a water quality standards violation and for 

determining the adequacy of stormwater pollution prevention plans (SWPPPs). NRC 

completed their study in 2008 and published their findings in a report titled “Urban 

Stormwater Management in the United States.” The report is available on EPA’s website 

at http://www.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/nrc_stormwaterreport.pdf. NRC’s finding on 

monitoring of discharges from industries can be found in Chapter 4. 

The NRC offered a suggestion for a monitoring program that is tied to the level of risk 

posed by the stormwater discharges from each type of facility. A full description of this 

suggestion is provided in the NRC report under the section entitled “Recommendations 

for Industrial Stormwater Monitoring”. The NRC suggested that sites can be categorized 

into low, medium, and high risk categories and that monitoring could be tailored to the 

level of risk. Facilities in the low-risk category (i.e., those with limited stormwater exposure 

to industrial operations) would have visual inspections with no monitoring requirements, 

and could use simple guidance manuals to select and size appropriate stormwater 

controls. Facilities designated as medium-risk would perform site inspections and 

modeling supplemented by suitable outfall monitoring to ensure compliance. The 

facility would develop an “event mean concentration” that would be compared to 

“allowable discharge conditions”. Exceedances would be allowed for a “small fraction” 

of the monitored events. High-risk facilities would perform visual inspections and 

modeling, in conjunction with monitoring every storm event during the permit term. 

The EPA is seeking comment on a risk-based monitoring approach to replace the 

benchmark monitoring requirements under the MSGP. Specifically, how should the risk 

categories be defined? What should the monitoring frequencies be for medium and 

high risk facilities? What should the allowable discharges concentrations be? Given the 

number of monitoring events (dozens or more per year) envisioned by this type of 

scheme for medium and high risk facilities, would a risk-based approach to monitoring 

be economically practicable? EPA plans to evaluate this concept and to consider 

information submitted in response to this request as it considers its proposal for 

benchmark monitoring requirements for the 2018 permit.

EPA has conducted an analysis of the results of benchmark monitoring and has placed 

this study in the docket for the permit. This analysis shows that compliance with the 

monitoring requirements is a significant issue and that mistakes are common. For 

instance, the record was missing information, the parameter name was not provided, 

monitoring data was not associated with the benchmark monitoring program, and 

hardness data was missing for the 6 hardness-dependent metals. EPA also requested a 

copy of the facility’s SWPPP and discharge monitoring reports (DMRs) from 35 facilities 

and received SWPPPs and DMRs from 20 facilities. Based on a review of this very limited 

sample, EPA found that most facilities (89%) are developing complete SWPPPs, but there 

is significant noncompliance with monitoring requirements. Only 35% of facilities 

submitted complete monitoring data and all facilities that submitted benchmark

monitoring data had at least one benchmark exceedance. Of the facilities that 

completed benchmark monitoring, 84% identified corrective actions. None of the 

facilities reviewed had documented a clear reduction in benchmark exceedances after 

implementing corrective actions; most facilities continued to have benchmark 

exceedances after the corrective actions. Note that due to the limited number of 

SWPPPs reviewed (20 out of approximately 2,365) these findings are not statistically 
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significant. 

Based on this very limited analysis of benchmark monitoring, EPA is aware that facilities 

that report exceedances of benchmark values have been unable to find cost-effective 

modifications to their management practices to eliminate these exceedances. In some 

cases this may be due to natural background concentrations, or other factors beyond a 

facility’s reasonable control. EPA requests comment on whether it should provide some 

type of waiver from benchmark monitoring for facilities covered under the 2008 permit 

that demonstrate that a past benchmark exceedance was due to factors not under 

their control, and that there has been no change to these factors since they last 

conducted benchmark monitoring. EPA welcomes any suggestions on the details of 

how such a waiver might work.

Part 6.2.1.1 – Added the underlined text: “For this proposed permit, EPA has included 

additional non-hardness dependent metals benchmarks for facilities that discharge into 

saline waters. The addition of these benchmarks was necessary to provide an 

appropriate indicator of the performance of the measures undertaken to meet the 

effluent limitations contained in the permit where stormwater is discharged into saline 

waters. Benchmark values in the 2008 MSGP for these metals were based on acute or 

chronic aquatic life freshwater criteria. These additional saline benchmark values are

based on available acute ambient water quality criteria for arsenic, cadmium, copper, 

cyanide, lead, mercury, nickel, selenium, silver and zinc.” Also deleted the following 

statement: “Based on DMR data reported under previous permits, EPA believes that most 

facilities with effective control measures can meet these targets.”

Part 6.2.4 – Added the underlined text: “No monitoring is required when a waterbody’s 

biological communities are impaired but no pollutant is specified as causing the 

impairment, or when a waterbody’s impairment is related to hydrologic modification, 

impaired hydrology, or other non-pollutant (e.g., exotic species, habitat alterations, 

objectionable deposits).”

Part 7.1 – Added the following request for comment: “EPA requests comment on 

whether the Agency should consider allowing long-term waivers from electronic 

reporting (i.e., one waiver request can be used to waive electronic reporting for the 

permit term), and if so, under what conditions long-term waivers should be granted.”

Federal Register Notice

Included the following statement: “EPA expects the economic impact on entities 

covered under this permit, including small businesses, to be minimal. A copy of EPA’s 

economic analysis, titled, ‘‘Cost Impact Analysis for the Multi-Sector General Permit 

(MSGP)’’ is available in the docket for this permit. The economic impact analysis 

indicates that while there will be some incremental increase in the costs of complying 

with the new permit, these costs will not have a significant economic impact on a 

substantial number of small entities. “