State of Colorado Updates Environmental Protection Agency on Colorado Stormwater Excellence Program Status

Dedicated to protecting and improving the health and environment of the people of Colorado

http://www.cdphe.state.co.us

Catherine McCabe. Deputy Assistant Administrator
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (2201A)
United States Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, D.C., 20460

RE: Colorado Stormwater Excellence Program (CSEP)

Dear Ms. McCabe:

This letter is a follow-up to our meeting on February 21, 2007, regarding the Colorado Water Quality Control Division's (the Division's) efforts to improve stormwater permit compliance at construction sites through implementation of the Colorado Stormwater Excellence Program (CSEP). We appreciate the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance's interest in and support of the CSEP, and with this letter are providing an update of our recent and ongoing efforts to improve and finalize this program.

The Division strongly supports stormwater permitting and compliance assurance activities and with its private and public partners is committed to developing and implementing an effective and sustainable program to assist permittees in complying with the stormwater construction permit. It is our goal to produce a well-documented program that will reduce stormwater pollution from construction activities in Colorado, and be a model for other industry sectors and regulatory agencies.

Attaining the program goals is challenging as the program continues to evolve through ongoing evaluation and revision, and incorporation of lessons learned. We feel that it is imperative to address many of the current challenges prior to finalizing the program. This commitment has resulted in significant delays to our original timeline for releasing the Stage II final report, which will include revised CSEP policies and procedures. Our intent is to release the Stage II report in the first half of 2008, as early in the year as possible.

Please find below a summary of our current challenges, lessons, and achievements.

Program Objective and Image
As the program has developed and participation and program awareness increased, various new perspectives have been shared with the Division. This has led the partners in the program to rethink some of the overall goals and marketing of the program.

A common misconception of the program that we have become aware of is that participants are expected to be 100% in compliance at all sites at all times. Although the overall long-term goals for all participants is to reach that state, even the highest level performers will have conditions at some sites that are not continuously in compliance with the stormwater construction permit requirements. For this reason, we are considering options to more clearly portray the overall objectives and image of the program, while not downplaying the importance of compliance. Specific examples include:

Participant Recognition and Incentive
Two of the program participants, Waner Construction Company, Inc. and Fransen Pittman General Contractors, were recognized as Bronze Achievers for 2007 by the Colorado Environmental Leadership Program (www.cdphe.state.co.us/el/elp). This recognition was a key step in promoting the program, and helps to increase the awareness of construction site stormwater quality management as an important environmental stewardship practice. The Division intends to find further ways to integrate recognition such as this into the CSEP.

Third-Party Inspector Recruitment, Certification, and Oversight
The most significant challenges remaining are to develop policies and procedures to recruit and certify qualified consultants to perform the third-party inspections of CSEP participants, and provide oversight audits to ensure the accuracy and integrity of CSEP inspections. We have developed several basic components of this program element, but are still working to finalize it. The Division is beginning to conduct formalized oversight audits to test and further refine those processes. Currently, oversight audits are being conducted of sites inspected by Stormwater Risk Management (SRM), the current CSEP third-party inspector, and the Division's key partner in developing the program. Initial oversight has confirmed that third-party inspections performed by SRM are being performed relatively consistently with the Division's own inspection processes, and accurately measure compliance at sites. However, these oversight audits have also identified various CSEP processes that can, and will, be further improved. A summary of the results of these oversight audits will be included in the CSEP Stage II final report.

The next challenge is to begin working with additional third-party auditors in 2008, and to implement a long-term sustainable program for performing oversight of those CSEP third-party inspectors. The current proposal is to perform oversight through a combination of direct oversight audits performed by the Division staff and contractors, and through partnerships with MS4s. It is expected that as new third-party auditors enter into the program and more oversight is conducted, additional improvements will be realized.

Public Participation
The Division has strived to be extremely transparent in its development of the CSEP program and has shared information on the process with a variety of stakeholders. However, the Division has received feedback from some stakeholders indicating concern that more opportunities have not been offered to allow direct public participation in the development of the program's policies and procedures. Therefore, the Division and the CSEP Board plan to allow for a public review before finalizing the program. The Division will also be sure to include EPA Region 8, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, and the Sector Strategies Division when seeking stakeholder input.

Please contact Nathan Moore at { phone } or { email } if you have any questions or comments. In addition, we will be sure to provide updates in the future as we work to finalize the CSEP. Thank you once again for your time and interest in this program.

Sincerely,