Improving the EPA Multi-Sector General Permit for Industrial Stormwater Discharges

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has released a report that builds on a 2009 comprehensive report on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Stormwater Program that covered all sectors of the program. This report focus on industrial stormwater monitoring and management.

Industrial stormwater is derived from precipitation and/or runoff that comes in contact with industrial manufacturing, processing, storage, or material overburden and then runs offsite and enters drainage systems or receiving waters. In 1987, Congress significantly expanded the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program through amendments to the Clean Water Act to include industrial stormwater runoff conveyed through outfalls directly to receiving waters or indirectly through municipal separate storm sewer systems.

The added regulation of stormwater in the NPDES program has been challenging. Stormwater is produced throughout a developed landscape, and its production and delivery are episodic. In 2009, the National Research Council released a comprehensive report on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Stormwater Program that covered all sectors of the program.

TRB is one of seven major programs of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.