Diver's Environmental Conservation Organization v. State Water Resources Control Board

This is an appeal from an order denying a petition for a writ of mandate. The petition challenged a discharge permit respondent California Regional Water Quality Control Board, San Diego Region (the Regional Board), issued to real parties in interest United States Department of the Navy et al. (Navy). We affirm. Although the Regional Board could have issued a permit that imposed numeric limits on chemicals in the Navy’s stormwater discharges into San Diego Bay, under provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act ( 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq.), commonly known as the Clean Water Act (CWA), and applicable regulations, the Regional Board was authorized to instead require that the Navy limit its stormwater chemical discharges by employing so-called “best management practices” (BMP’s). Given these circumstances, we reject appellant Divers’ Environmental Conservation Organization’s (Divers’) contention that the permit was defective for its failure to analyze or impose numeric limits on chemicals in the Navy’s stormwater discharges.

SUMMARY

In November 2002 the Regional Board issued a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to the Navy governing…