Opinion ID: 3184650
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adaptive Management

Text: In their annual report, the Counties must submit the pollutant load reductions determined through monitoring. Part V.A.2.g; see also Attachment A: Annual Report Databases (G). The required measurement is pounds per year, which is consistent with the federal requirement that a discharger monitors “mass (or other measurement specified in the permit) for each pollutant” or “volume of effluent discharged from each outfall.” 40 C.F.R. § 122.44(i)(1)(i)-(ii). As discussed above, these reductions pertain to the pollutants which the Counties must monitor. Part IV.1.a.iv; see Attachment A: Annual Report Databases (G) (The pollutants arise from the Bay TMDL and local TMDLs.). MDE will review the annual reports, Part V.B, and will require program modifications “according to needed program improvements identified as a result of [MDE’s] periodic evaluations,” Part IV.D.79 “Failure to comply with a [P]ermit See also Part V.A.3 (“Because this permit uses an iterative approach to 79 implementation, the County must evaluate the effectiveness of its programs in each annual 71 provision,” such as the stormwater management or reporting requirements, “constitutes a violation of the CWA and is grounds for enforcement action; permit termination, revocation, or modification; or denial of a permit renewal application.” Part VII.C. As we have discussed,80 MDE has flexibility in setting controls in MS4s: “Congress did not mandate [in 33 U.S.C. § 1342(p)(3)(B)(iii)] a minimum standards approach or specify that the EPA develop minimal performance requirements.” Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 966 F.2d at 1308; see also 54 Fed. Reg. at 23,870, 23,879 (codified at 40 C.F.R. § 122.44) (“Subparagraph (vii) does not prescribe detailed procedures for developing water quality-based effluent limits. Rather, the regulation prescribes minimum requirements for developing water quality-based effluent limits, and at the same time, gives the permitting authority the flexibility to determine the appropriate procedures for developing water quality-based effluent limits.”). We discern that the law requires a regulating authority such as MDE to review the entity’s actions (or non-action, as the case may be) to ensure accountability in implementing stormwater controls: “stormwater management programs that are designed by regulated parties must, in every instance, be subject to meaningful review by an appropriate regulating entity to ensure that each such report. BMP and program modifications shall be made within 12 months if the County’s annual report does not demonstrate compliance with this permit . . . .”). 80 See supra Part I.A: Maximum Extent Practicable. 72 program reduces the discharge of pollutants to the maximum extent practicable.” EDC, 344 F.3d at 856.81 MDE’s adaptive management approach includes a requirement to impose program changes based on annual report data obtained from monitoring. Where, for example, the Counties’ current strategy is not reducing discharges, the Permits allow MDE to force the Counties to implement BMPs that will, or at least are an improvement. Because the Counties will implement controls to reduce discharges under MDE’s oversight, the monitoring provisions comply with 40 C.F.R. § 122.44(i).82 See Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc. v. Cnty. of L.A., 673 F.3d 880, 897 (9th Cir. 2011) (“As opposed to absolving noncompliance or exclusively adopting the MEP standard, the iterative process ensures 81 The Ninth Circuit in EDC concluded that the EPA had implemented a rule that failed to comply with 33 U.S.C. § 1342(p). See 344 F.3d at 855 (“Nothing in the Phase II regulations requires that NPDES permitting authorities review these Minimum Measures to ensure that the measures that any given operator of a small MS4 has decided to undertake will in fact reduce discharges to the maximum extent practicable.”) (emphasis in original). 82 The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”) designed a similar approach in its MS4 general permits, which the Court of Appeals of New York upheld in 2015: DEC’s review of annual reports allows the Department to keep tabs on small MS4s and to require any necessary refinement of best management practices. DEC refers to these contemplated successive rounds of reviewing and, as necessary, fine-tuning and refocusing best management practices as the “iterative process” that is the hallmark of the flexible “maximum extent practicable” standard, which Congress deliberately chose as best suited for regulating small municipalities’ stormwater discharges. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 34 N.E.3d at 790. 73 that if water quality exceedances ‘persist,’ despite prior abatement efforts, a process will commence whereby a responsible Permittee amends its [stormwater quality management program].”), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. L.A. Cnty. Flood Control Dist. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 710, 713 (2013); cf. Port of Seattle v. Pollution Control Hearings Bd., 90 P.3d 659, 679 (Wash. 2004) (en banc) (“Monitoring and adaptive management provide a mechanism through which [the Washington State Department of Ecology] can mitigate [an] inherent uncertainty” in the question of whether there was a reasonable assurance that an airport runway project would not violate applicable water quality standards.); University of Maryland/Mid-Atlantic Water Program, BMP Assessment Final Report 25–26 (2009) (“Utilizing an adaptive management approach recognizes uncertainty and limitations in science, but does not impede implementation of management actions.”).83