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1-04 Page 37 City of Stockton and County of San Joaquin NPDES Permit CAS0083470 Response to Comments understand the issue in the future doesn't obviate the necessity to take concrete steps now to ensure compliance within three years. The Permittees have employed a hypothetical need for"additional studies" as a shield to postpone requirements to begin instituting measures to alleviate impairment. It is unclear when or whether the DO study(as well as the pathogen and pesticide studies)will be extended to the other impaired waterways. The Permit states that the Permittees will participate in stakeholder forums and collaborative technical studies to assist the Regional Board in completing the TMDL. These studies may include the other impaired waterways. However,TMDLs for local waterways do not have a high priority. It may be many years before they are completed. The Permit is unclear as to how the technical studies,BMP development and implementation will occur on the other impaired waterways. Indeed, a requirement to submit an implementation time schedule for the Other Creeks was deleted from the previous tentative Permit. Each of the urban waterways is,in some measure, unique and there is no certainty that control measures developed for one will be applicable to all. The Permit must make clear that control measures must be concurrently developed and implemented on all waterways identified as violating water quality standards for dissolved oxygen,pathogens, and pesticides. Response: By establishment of their SWMP through the first permit cycle the Permittees complied with Section 402(p)(4)(B) of the CWA by establishing its storm water program and implementing BMPs to the MEP. The first term permit included similar provisions as required under the federal laws and regulations. The MS4 permits generally do not have numeric limits; the permittees are required to reduce the discharge of pollutants to the MEP. The Tentative Order contains Discharge Prohibitions at A. 1-3, and B. 1-5. The Tentative Order also imposes receiving water limitations on discharges from the MS4. The Tentative Order specifies that increasingly more effective BMPs must be developed and implemented if water quality standards are being violated. Unlike most other point source NPDES permit requirements, a large amount of capital investment is not anticipated for structural treatment control systems to comply with the storm water MS4 permits. There is no statutory or regulatory definition for MEP. The CWA section 402(p)(3)(B)(iii)requires that MS4 permits"shall require controls to reduce the discharge of pollutants to the MEP,including management practices, control techniques and system, design and engineering methods, and such other provisions as the Administrator or the State determines appropriate for the control of such pollutants..."However,there have been several interpretations that have been provided including: 1. MEP means that when considering and choosing BMPs to address an identified pollution problem,the municipality is to consider the following: technical feasibility, effectiveness, compliance with regulatory standards, cost, and public acceptance. The BMP chosen must achieve greater or substantially the same pollution control benefit as identified in the manuals developed by the California Storm Water Quality Task Force. (As part of the Definitions contained in proposed Order R8-2002-11 by Permittees for Riverside County MS4 permit) 2. MEP means to the maximum extent feasible, taking into account considerations of synergistic, additive, and competing factors, including but not limited to, gravity of the problem, technical feasibility fiscal feasibility,public health risks, societal concerns, and social benefits. (Order R8-2001-10 Orange County MS4 Permit)