A recent federal court ruling will intensify future stormwater discharge regulations in California and beyond.
In a recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, the court in Natural Resources Defense Council v. County of Los Angeles held that entities that control a "point source" will need to treat polluted stormwater before it is dishcarges in watercourses, even if they have not contributed to the pollution.
Check out this summary article, published by Ecology Law Quarterly.
These "entities" that the court refers to are your local city and county governments. Local governments will be required to implement stricter stormwater discharge regulations in order to comply with their National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits. These entities are going to need your tax dollars to implement the necessary stormwater treatment measures.
As a further consequence of the ruling, local governments are going to increasingly regulate stormwater discharges from residential, commercial, and industrial properties. This means that anybody applying for a building permit will also be required to retrofit their surface drainage systems to limit potential pollutants and runoff totals.
In my experience, most developers tend to forget about the cost of drainage improvements with their attention focused on the grandiose architectural features of the project. Not for long, this ruling means big cost impacts for everybody everywhere, not only in California.