Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plans

In 1972, Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, also known as the Clean Water Act, to restore and maintain the quality of the nation's waterways. The ultimate goal was to make sure that rivers and streams were fishable, swimmable and drinkable.

In 1987, the Water Quality Act added provisions to the CWA that allowed the EPA to govern storm water discharges from industrial activities. EPA published the final notice for Phase I of the Multi-Sector General Storm Water Permit program (Federal Register Volume 60 No. 189, Sept. 20, 1995, page 50804) in 1995 which included provisions for the development of a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan by each industrial facility discharging storm water, including freight trucking terminals.

Development, implementation and maintenance of the SWPPP will provide the tools to reduce pollutants contained in storm water discharges and comply with the requirements of the General Storm Water Permit. The primary goals of a SWPPP is to:

• Identify potential sources of pollutants that affect storm water discharges from the site;
• Describe the practices that will be implemented to prevent or control the release of pollutants in storm water discharges and
  
• Create an implementation schedule to ensure that the practices described in this SWPPP are in fact implemented and to evaluate the plan's effectiveness in reducing the pollutant levels in storm water discharges.

A sample storm water pollution prevention plan for a freight terminal is available for viewing in PDF format here.