Please note, this article has been updated and can be found here: http://www.liesch.com/news/minnesotas-new-industrial-stormwater-multi-se...

NOT YET. Liesch staff attended the MPCA Citizens’ Board meeting Tuesday morning (February 23) and expected to be notifying you either of the final issuance of the new Minnesota Industrial Multi-Sector General Stormwater Permit or of the Board’s granting of contested case hearing requests, which would delay issuance of the permit. Neither of those happened.

The MPCA staff provided a detailed presentation on the permit and revisions that had been made as a result of public comments. Representatives of two organizations spoke, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Cities Stormwater Coalition.

Level Playing Field. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce mainly objected to unequal treatment of facilities based on the use of the primary Standard Industrial Classification to determine applicability of the stormwater permit. The example presented contrasted retail or government facilities with vehicle maintenance operations (not subject to the permit) with a transportation facility with the same vehicle maintenance operations (required to obtain coverage under the permit, including benchmark monitoring). The underlying applicability language comes from the Federal regulations so it isn’t clear that Minnesota will solve this issue but the hearing request still stands.

Wetlands? The representative for the Minnesota Cities Stormwater Coalition stated that they had withdrawn their hearing request but he commented that within the new permit, permittees are required to evaluate wetlands within a mile of their facility and that is beyond the capability of most permittees. The board was swayed by this discussion and the staff asked for a five minute recess. They came back and recommended postponing action on both the permit issuance and the hearing requests. They said they would develop and present guidelines to deal with the wetland issue for next month’s meeting and request issuance of the final permit at that time.

What is Next? The upcoming meeting of the MPCA Citizens’ Board is scheduled for March 23, 2010. Permit issuance appears likely soon after this meeting based on comments made by the MPCA during the February meeting.

Questions? Call Larry Christensen, CHMM at (763) 489-3177, Mat Knutson at (763) 489-3102, or Margaret Zuckweiler at 763-489-3131.