ARA Calls for EPA to Rescind Guidance on Stormwater Permitting Memorandum

The Automotive Recyclers Association, (www.a-r-a.org) (ARA) Manassas, Va., is calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to retract its November 2010 Guidance Memorandum that, the association claims, encourages state permitting authorities to measure industrial stormwater discharges through numeric effluent limits, rather than use the traditional best management practices approach.

"This memorandum goes well beyond simply updating a policy as EPA suggests," says Michael Wilson, ARA's CEO. "Rather, it appears to represent a major shift in how best to measure stormwater discharges - a change that ARA believes to be wholly unnecessary and done in an inappropriate manner."

According to a release, ARA made the request in response to EPA's invitation to stakeholders to comment on its Memorandum. In its communication, ARA voiced concerns about the process surrounding the memo, as well as the potential negative impacts of EPA's stormwater measurement recommendations on both the environment and automotive recycling industry.

In its letter, the ARA says that it believes that rulings of past court cases and the provisions of both the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 and recent Presidential Executive Orders require that EPA follow the formal notice and comment rulemaking process for a change of this significance.

ARA’s also asserts that if the appropriate rulemaking procedures had been followed initially then EPA would have heard real world examples of how the process of measuring stormwater discharges through best management practices and benchmarks is far more effective than the proposed system of numeric effluent limits.