Update: October, 2006

Mendocino County officials in coordination with the Mendocino Partnership for the Precautionary Principle have selected two county departments to begin incorporating the Precautionary Principle into decision-making: Environmental Health and the Water Agency. The chosen pilot project will focus on the county's Storm Water Discharge Program (SWDP). Residents of Mendocino County are welcome and encouraged to participate in this venture and the implementation of Precautionary Principle.

Storm Water Discharge Program

Since the passage of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, also referred to as the Clean Water Act (CWA), the quality of our Nation's waters has improved dramatically. Despite this progress, however, degraded waterbodies still exist. According to a 2006 report by the EPA, more than half of U.S. streams are polluted. A leading source of this impairment is polluted storm water runoff. When rain falls on land and impervious areas such as paved streets, parking lots and building rooftops it can wash away soil and sediment. Stormwater runoff can change both water quality and quantity affecting our water resources physically, chemically and biologically. Polluted runoff containing oil, grease, chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, metals, debris and pathogens for example, can severely reduce water quality. If left unmanaged, runoff stresses our streams, ages our lakes, and degrades and eliminates our wetlands.

On December 8, 1999, the EPA promulgated regulations known as the Storm Water Phase II Final Rule. The Phase II program requires operators of Small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s) to apply for discharge permits and to implement programs and practices to control polluted storm water runoff.

The State Water Resources Control Board designated the County of Mendocino (Water Quality Order No.2003-0005-DWQ & Attachment 2 of WQO 2003-0005-DWQ) as an Operator of Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems. Therefore, Mendocino County is required to prepare a Storm Water Management Program and implement practices to control polluted storm water runoff in the unincorporated Urbanized Areas of Ukiah and Fort Bragg. The Phase II NPDES Program is intended to further reduce adverse impacts to water quality and aquatic habitat by instituting the use of controls on the unregulated sources of storm water discharges that have the greatest likelihood of causing continued environmental degradation.

The Mendocino Partnership for the Precautionary Principle along with County officials are in agreement that applying the Precautionary Principle to the Stormwater Discharge Plan would be appropriate pilot for several reasons:

• The State of California is still making adjustments to the requirements for this newly mandated program.
  
  
• The county's existing Stormwater Plan, modeled on Monterey County's, was approved less than a year ago, and the Water Agency is open to reviewing it through a Precautionary Principle lens.
  
  
• The Stormwater Discharge Plan covers well-defined areas of the county (halo areas surrounding major population centers) and will be coordinated with the plans that each city will be required to develop when their population density reaches set levels.
  
  
• The County is currently not treating stormwater run-off.
  
  
• The county will be subject to fines if the Stormwater Plan does not result in set limits on toxins in storm-water run-off.
  
  
• We believe that applying the Precautionary Principle to this existing and required program will enhance the effectiveness of the existing Stormwater Discharge Plan, by further reducing untreated discharges that contribute high levels of pollutants, including heavy metals, toxics, oil and grease, solvents, nutrients, viruses, and bacteria to receiving waterbodies.

For more information

• Mendocino County Storm Water Management Program (September 6, 2005): www.mendoprecaution.org/mendocino_swmp.pdf
• Mendocino County Stormwater Baseline: www.rrwatershed.org/BaselineSurvey.pdf
• Mendocino Partnership for the Precautionary Principle: www.mendoprecaution.org