TITLE
Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Southern California Stormwater Monitoring Coalition (SMC), for a term of five years, to upgrade and reprioritize the research needs agenda and expand web capabilities to make Stormwater Monitoring Coalition products available for use in complying with United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) requirements. (Citywide)
DISCUSSION
Stormwater regulators and municipal stormwater management agencies throughout Southern California have developed a collaborative working relationship. The goal of this relationship has generally been to develop the technical information necessary to better understand stormwater mechanisms and impacts and ultimately develop the tools that will effectively and efficiently improve stormwater decision-making, which contributes to compliance with US EPA TMDL requirements. There was early recognition that these issues are oftentimes not localized, but typically cross watershed areas and jurisdictional boundaries. This relationship culminated in a formal agreement (D99-072), signed in 2001, by the Phase I Municipal Stormwater National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) lead permittees, the NPDES regulatory agencies in Southern California and Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) to create the SMC.
The SMC’s initial project was to create a five-year research plan. A team of experts convened a three-day workshop to create a plan that focused around three main themes: building a monitoring infrastructure, understanding mechanisms and processes, and assessing receiving water impacts.
The original five-year research plan has served the SMC well. Ten of fifteen project areas in the five-year agenda were completed and nearly all have had an immediate impact on the regulatory structure for municipal stormwater agencies. As a result, a number of the initial issues rais...
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