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..i ... <br /> RESPONSE TO WRITTEN COMMENTS -27- <br /> City Of Stockton-Regional Wastewater Control Facility <br /> NPDES No. CA0079138 <br /> 26 April 2002 Board Meeting <br /> enterococcus bacteria as the appropriate indicators for bathing areas. DHS admits that the standards, <br /> which the Regional Board seeks to impose here upon the City of Stockton, are more restrictive than <br /> those imposed anywhere else in the country. <br /> RWQCB Response: See response to Stockton Comment No. Att. II.c. <br /> Stockton Comment No. Att. II.2: The Regional Board has proposed to adopt waste discharge <br /> requirements for coliform in contrast to the requirements of the Basin Plan, DHS Beach Guidance, and <br /> EPA recommended criteria. There is no analysis or documentation in the record demonstrating that an <br /> effluent limitation thousands of times more restrictive than the 200 MPN/100 ml (fecal coliform thirty- <br /> day average) is necessary to avoid a significant risk to public health or the environment, and as such <br /> may be viewed as an arbitrary and capricious standard. <br /> RWQCB Response: See response to Stockton Comment No. Art. II.c. <br /> Stockton Comment No. Att. II.h: DHS recommendation is not a water quality-based limit and is <br /> therefore unlawful. <br /> RWQCB Response: Section 301 of the Clean Water Act requires that NPDES permits include <br /> effluent limitations that achieve technology-based standards and any more stringent limitations <br /> necessary to meet water quality standards. Water quality standards include beneficial uses, water <br /> quality objectives, and an antidegradation policy. The Regional Board is required to implement all the <br /> water quality standards. In some cases it is necessary to impose more stringent effluent limitations <br /> where necessary to protect the beneficial uses. The U.S. Supreme Court in PUD No. 1 of Jefferson <br /> City v. Washington Department of Ecology(1994) 511 U.S. 700, recognized that specific numerical <br /> criteria alone may be insufficient to protect beneficial uses. The Court noted that water quality <br /> standards apply area-wide to numerous individual water bodies and in most circumstances compliance <br /> with the numerical criteria would be sufficient to maintain the designated uses. (Id.at pp. 716-717.) <br /> The Court stated, however: <br /> "While enforcement of criteria will in general protect the uses of these diverse waters, a <br /> complementary requirement that activities also comport with designated uses enables <br /> the States to insure that each activity-- even if not foreseen by the criteria-- will be <br /> consistent with the specific uses and attributes of a particular body of water." (Ibid.) <br /> As an example, the Court noted that requiring rigid adherence to a particular turbidity criterion may be <br /> insufficient to protect a particular fish species in a particular river. Without the ability to regulate <br /> based on designated use, the state would be limited to enforcement of an insufficient turbidity <br /> criterion. (Ibid.) <br /> "Requiring the States to enforce only the criteria cnmr . -nt of their water qual tv <br /> standards would in essence require ates to fi 1, vel )f great specifi <br /> each individual surface water to ins re nat the criteri,. acable to that water are <br />