Watershed-Based Permitting And Integrated Planning: Bringing It All Together In Richmond

The need to control wet weather discharges is getting more and more attention, including new regulatory requirements. In response, municipalities are looking at ways to best handle and fund the new requirements, including developing stormwater utilities in addition to the water and wastewater utilities already in place.The common link between the individual utilities is water. Water is both a very valuable and a very heavily regulated resource. Often the focus is on water quality, however more and more emphasis is being placed on water quantity issues as well, and the linkage between water in the form of discharges and the need to protect water as a drinking water source is also being raised.Over the past few years, EPA has put a significant amount of effort into describing and publicizing its vision of Integrated Planning, including issuing policy memos and a framework for how to implement the approach.