Comparison of NPDES program findings for selected cities in the United States

Abstract

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under section 402 (p) of the Water Quality Act of 1987, has required municipalities with populations of more than 100,000 to obtain National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for urban stormwater discharge. This regulation is intended to minimize pollutant loadings from urbanized areas and preserve the quality of streams that receive stormwater. To apply for a NPDES permit, a municipality must monitor the chemistry of stormwater from basins having residential, commercial, and industrial land uses, and estimate storm- and annual pollutant loads and event-mean concentrations of 12 selected properties and constituents. The properties and constituents include biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids, dissolved solids, total nitrogen, total ammonia plus organic nitrogen, total phosphorus, dissolved phosphorus, total recoverable cadmium, total recoverable copper, total recoverable lead, and total recoverable zinc. These estimates will be used by the municipalities to evaluate the magnitude of pollutant loadings and the ef ficiency of management strategies that are intended to reduce pollutant loads. As part of a national synthesis of the study units in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) NPDES program, data were compiled on concentrations of the 12 properties and constituents required for load calculations. This report presents a comparison of these data.