SITE INFORMATION AND CORRESPONDENCE

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City of Stockton and County of San Joaquin Page 36 NPDES Permit CAS0083470 Response to Comments immediately prohibits a receiving water condition of pollution, contamination and nuisance. The clear answer is the Permit does not! The EPA Environmental Appeals Board recently remanded the EPA issued storm water permit for the District of Columbia because, among other reasons, it failed to ensure compliance with water quality standards within three years. Government of the Distinct of Columbia Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, NPDES Permit No. DC 0000221,NPDES Appeal Nos. 0014 &01-09, decided 20 February 2002. The Appeals Court concluded that"it is not clear that the Region's determination that the BMPs required under the Permit are `reasonably capable' of achieving water quality standards fully comports with the regulatory prohibition on issuing a permit `when imposition of conditions cannot ensure compliance with the applicable water quality requirements of all affected states' 40 CFR§ 122.44(d) (2001). Simply stated, the `reasonable capable' formulation accepting as it is of the potential that the Permit will not, in fact, attain water quality standards, does not appear to be entirely comparable to the concept of ensuring compliance " Decision at 26. The decision went on the say that"we find nothing in the record, apart from the District's section 401 certification, that supports the conclusion that the Permit would, in fact achieve water quality standards." Id. The proposed Permit and Information Sheet are devoid of any analysis of how permit conditions are sufficient to ensure attainment of water quality standards within three years. Unsupported and undocumented staff opinions will certainly fail the test, given the extent of existing impairment of identified critical habitat and the Permittees abject failure to comply with requirements in their existing permit. Many of the proposed new or expanded prescriptive measures are not even likely to be implemented during the next three years. For example, the requirement to complete screening of illicit connections is not scheduled for completion until the end of the Permit cycle. The Water Quality Control Programs (pesticides, dissolved oxygen, pathogens) require submission of a proposed plan by April 2004 (the Diazinon and Chlorpyrifos Mitigation Program is not required to be submitted until 31 December 2005. Unfortunately, there is no assurance as to when or whether they will be implemented or whether they will address all of the waterways identified as violating standards. The Permit states that the Executive Officer may"accept or reject the proposed plan or schedule it for a hearing before the Regional Board." Presumably, the Permittees could submit an inadequate plan and delay any meaningful implementation during the life of the Permit. The Smith Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program is focused on monitoring and analysis, feasibility studies and pilot testing of future BMP implementation. Several years ago, the Regional Board required the City of Stockton to conduct studies to identify sources and causes of dissolved oxygen (DO) impairment in Smith Canal. At the time, it was stated that the Smith Canal Study was to be replicated on the other DO impaired waterways. The study revealed that storm water was high in oxygen demand load. The study was never extended to other waterways. Years later, the proposed Permit requires the City to essentially redo the Smith Canal study. One of the obvious and ignored causes of oxygen demand is the City of Stockton's policy of allowing residents to routinely dispose of massive quantities of green waste in the storm sewer system. While additional studies will further define the problem, the fact that we may better