The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) have issued a plea for action against the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed revision to their Construction General Permit regarding new regulations for stormwater runoff from construction sites. An AGC newsletter released yesterday states:
“The proposed changes to the current permit would greatly increase its complexity and the cost of complying with its terms and conditions, putting you and your company at a new and unprecedented level of risk of non-compliance, including fines of up to $37,500 per day. The proposed permit would rigidly prescribe the stormwater controls that you had to put in place, require you to sample and test runoff for compliance with a new limit on turbidity, leave you liable for non-compliance with that limit even if you have implemented all of the prescribed measures, and require you to self-report any non-compliance to a publicly accessible database within 24 hours.”
In the following video, AGC’s Mike Kennedy explains some of the details of the new EPA rule.
AGC has provided a letter for contractors to modify for their particular companies and then submit to the EPA to protest these changes. On their website, anyone may fill in a few text boxes with name, company name and address, etc. and the AGC will then generate a letter ready to send. Even though the proposed changed would not affect all construction in the US, the AGC newsletter asserted:
“While the federal permit directly applies to only a few states and other jurisdictions, history reveals that the remainder of the states are certain to follow the federal lead. EPA’s proposal threatens ALL construction contractors, in every state.”
The EPA is accepting comments on the proposed permit through Monday July 11.
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