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City of Stockton and County of San Joaquin Page 2 NPDES Permit CAS0083470 Response to Comments Thus, Stockton's permit conditions should be flexible and should reflect the specific conditions that exist in Stockton. Additionally, the need for requirements imposed by the Regional Board must be supported by evidence in the record. (Topanga Assn.for a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles, 11 Cal.3d at 515.) Porter-Cologne requires that the permit be reasonable, taking into account various factors. (Water Code, §§ 1300, 13241, 13263.) Porter-Cologne also prohibits the Regional Board from prescribing the manner of compliance with the permit. (Water Code, § 13360.) Thus,while the Regional Board may impose effluent limitations and standards (40 C.F.R. § 122.44), the Regional Board may not tell the city how to meet those limitations and standards. (Water Code, § 13360.). The Tentative Permit contains a number of instances of prescriptive language that restricts the flexibility of the City program to address real water quality issues. These areas include specifying particular commercial land uses that must be regulated and specifying schedules for commercial inspection, industrial inspection and catch basin cleaning. The commercial land use oversight obligation provides a good example of where permit specificity will require the City to expend resources in low priority areas. The Tentative Permit (which was based on the Los Angeles permit)requires the City to concentrate its efforts on restaurants,retail gasoline outlets, dry cleaners, automotive dealerships, and automotive service facilities. The recognized water quality issues in Stockton-area waterways concern bacteria,pesticides, and low dissolved oxygen. Regulation of the specified commercial land uses will have little to no impact on these water quality problems. The tentative permit should have been drafted to allow the City to prioritize commercial land uses that contribute to the noted water quality problems as was done in the San Diego permit. This would allow Stockton to expend its resources addressing actual water quality problems. Response: The Tentative Order is not unlawfully prescriptive under Section 13360 of the California Water Code (CWC). Section 13360 generally prohibits the regional boards from specifying the manner of compliance in state waste discharge requirements. However, CWC Sections 13372 and 13377 provide that the regional boards shall issue waste discharge requirements that assure consistency and compliance with applicable provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. §1251 et seq.), as amended, also known as the Federal Clean Water Act (CWA). To ensure the proper application of any provision of the Porter-Cologne Act that might conflict with the CWA,the Legislature directed that the requirements of the CWA prevail over any inconsistent provisions in the Porter-Cologne Act. (Wat. Code, § 13372.) The City of Stockton and County of San Joaquin MS4 Tentative Order proposes the implementation of specified best management practices (BMPs) in Iieu of numeric effluent limits for the control of pollutant discharges from MS4s. The Regional Board's authority to identify specific BMPs in the Tentative Order derives from CWA §402(p)(3)(B)(iii), which states that a permit for discharges from municipal storm sewers shall "require controls to reduce the discharge of pollutants to the maximum extent practicable, including management practices, control techniques and system design and engineering methods, and such other provisions as the Administrator or the State determines