CRWA in the NewsState agrees to storm-water management plan; Deal with two advocacy groups avoids lawsuitBy Lucas Wall, Boston Globe August 13, 2005 Two environmental groups announced yesterday that they have reached an agreement with Massachusetts to change the way it manages storm water that runs off state land and pollutes major waterways such as the Charles River, avoiding a lawsuit the advocates had threatened to file earlier this year. Article Tools Printer friendly E-mail to a friend Mass. RSS feed Available RSS feeds Most e-mailed Reprints/permissions More: Globe City/Region stories | Latest local news | Globe front page | Boston.com Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts The state's Department of Conservation and Recreation is trying to renew its Clean Water Act permit with the US Environmental Protection Agency for regulating storm-water discharge. The EPA rejected the department's application in April, calling it ''substantively deficient." The state agency submitted a revised application yesterday. Next week it plans to sign a binding agreement with the Conservation Law Foundation and the Charles River Watershed Association committing itself to carrying out the extensive storm-water management plan for its urban and state parks. In a joint statement, the two advocacy groups called the pending agreement ''a significant step toward protecting the state's water from storm-water pollution." Eloise Lawrence, a staff attorney with the law foundation, said the deal will lay out what steps the department plans to take by 2010 to better control storm-water runoff. Those include increased sweeping of parkways to remove sand, salt, oil, and other pollutants that could drain into a water source during a heavy rain; increased cleaning and maintenance of catch basins designed to swallow runoff and divert it from rivers and streams; repair of broken drainage pipes; and better temporary drainage at construction sites. DCR has also committed to an environmental audit of all of its facilities to look for other improvements that could be made. ''Storm water has become a major source of pollutants into our already impaired waters," Lawrence said. ''It's especially troublesome when this pollution is coming off the lands of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, which is supposed to be the steward for our park system." She commended the department for ''making real strides. We're very hopeful about the progress they are making." The law foundation notified the state in April of its intent to sue to force compliance with the Clean Water Act if the department failed to revise its storm-water management plan to the satisfaction of the EPA. Next week's agreement will eliminate the need for court action as long as DCR does what it pledges, Lawrence said. Stephen Pritchard, state secretary of environmental affairs, praised the deal in a statement. ''We are moving DCR into the 21st century in terms of storm-water management practices," Pritchard said. ''We've come a long way in bringing together coherent and proactive efforts to more fully comply with the federal Clean Water Act." Pritchard's spokesman, Joe O'Keefe, said the department acknowledges the last application filed with the EPA after new federal rules came out in 2003 -- shortly after DCR was created by merging two former agencies -- was ''woefully inadequate." The new plan will help divert storm water from critical water supplies, he said. ''It means healthier water for those drinking water supplies and for those using the water for recreational purposes," O'Keefe said. David Deegan, an EPA spokesman in Boston, said the federal agency will carefully review the state's latest application, but that he could not comment on it yesterday because it had just been filed. DCR is still working to fund its proposal. The Legislature, after lobbying from environmental groups, appropriated $500,000 to the department this fiscal year for storm-water management. ''It's a good start, but we estimate just the initial steps that are outlined would cost at least $1 million in this fiscal year '06 and even more in subsequent years," O'Keefe said. ''We are in conversations with the administration as well as the Legislature on the appropriate funding." The EPA had a goal of making the 80-mile Charles River swimmable by this year, but measurements have shown that pollution makes swimming unhealthy about half the time. ''We're never going to get to the point where we can swim in the Charles River if we don't, at the very least, prevent these types of pollutants from entering," Lawrence said. Lucas Wall can be reached at lwall@globe.com. © Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.
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