Provisions of the 1987 Clean Water Act require National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for storm water discharges. Section 402 (p)(3)(B)(ii) of the law requires that permits for municipal separate storm sewers (MS4s) shall include a requirement to prohibit problematic non-storm water discharges into storm sewers. Thus affected agencies must identify and locate sources of non-storm water discharges into storm drains so that appropriate actions for their elimination may be instituted. To provide support and guidance, primarily to Phase II NPDES MS4 communities, for the establishment of Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination (IDDE) programs, the Environmental Protection Agency funded the development of a manual, “Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination, A Guidance Manual for Program Development and Technical Assessments.” The manual also has application for Phase I communities looking to modify existing programs and for groups such as watershed organizations that are interested in watershed restoration activities. This course is based on the first 10 chapters of the manual, which focusses on the major considerations needed to begin an IDDE program. This course is based on Chapters 1-10 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency document, “Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination, A Guidance Manual for Program Development and Technical Assessments” by E. Brown, D. Caraco, and R. Pitt, October, 2004. The Technical Appendices from the manual are included as reference material.

Learning Objectives

• Basics of illicit discharges
• Components of an effective IDDE program
• Auditing existing resources and programs
• Establishing responsibility and legal authority
• Developing program goals and implementation strategies
• Searching for illicit discharge problems in the field
• Isolating and fixing individual illicit discharges
• Preventing illicit discharges
• IDDE program tracking and evaluation