Ohio EPA Announces New General Storm Water Permit

Ohio EPA issued the new Industrial Storm Water General Permit (OHR000005) on December 15, 2011. The effective date of the new permit was January 1, 2012.

Existing facilities were required to submit a Notice of Intent (NOI) within 90 days of receiving Ohio’s written instruction to re-notify, and are required to update their Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan within 180 days of the effective date of the permit. New facilities must submit the NOI within 180 days of commencing operations and must complete their SWPPP prior to submitting the NOI.

What’s New in the General Permit?

It’s bigger than ever! The permit is over 150 pages if you download and print the new forms that it references. The new permit breaks down the industries into Sectors and Subsectors and you can determine what specific requirements apply to you by reading Sections 1 through 7 and the applicable portion of Section 8 that applies to your industry Subsector. So, if that doesn’t get you too excited, here are some of the new requirements you’ll find in the permit:

Quarterly Visual Assessments – If you think you‘ve been missing out on your opportunity to collect water samples during a storm event, well, now is your big chance! The new permit details what to look for in the samples and how to document your observations. The biggest challenge here might be finding a location to collect the samples in a safe and convenient manner.

Routine Visual Inspections – Must be performed at least once per calendar quarter and documented according to the permit requirements.

Storm Water Samples – Storm water samples that are collected for laboratory analysis are required for many industries. Depending on your Subsector you will need to comply with either Numerical Effluent Limits or Benchmark values.

Reporting Monitoring Data to Ohio EPA – Both the Effluent Limitation and Benchmark monitoring data results need to be submitted to Ohio EPA using eDMR or the paper reporting forms.

Annual Reports – An Annual Report form has been developed for your convenience and can be downloaded from the Ohio EPA web site. Annual reports are now required as part of your storm water recordkeeping and include findings and corrective actions from your quarterly inspections and Annual Comprehensive Site Inspection. The reports do not need to be submitted to Ohio EPA but are kept with your records.