Public notice
The MTA Bridges & Tunnels (MTA B&T) 2020 Annual Storm Water Report has been completed and is available for public review and comment. This report has been prepared in accordance with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation SPDES General Permit for Storm Water Discharges from Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s), GP-0-10-002. The Annual Report for the MTA B&T covers the Storm Water Management Program for the Reporting Period of March 10, 2019 to March 9, 2020.
Interested parties may provide their comments to MTA B&T via email.
Background: SPDES General Permit for Storm Water Discharges from Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s), GP-0-10-002, requires that agencies or municipalities identified as Regulated Small MS4s must develop a Storm Water Management Program to address six Minimum Control Measures. This public notice serves to comply with the "Public Involvement/Participation" Minimum Control Measure.
About the report
A Phase II Storm Water Management Program (SWMP) has been prepared by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Bridges and Tunnels for its facilities. The aim of this program is to control storm water runoff discharges from a number of facilities to the waters of the United States in accordance with the requirements of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Phase II storm water regulations promulgated under the federal Clean Water Act.
This Phase II program coverage is for storm water discharges applicable to a number of MTA Bridges and Tunnels facilities and hundreds of miles of roads under its jurisdiction (see Table 1). MTA Bridges and Tunnels also operates additional facilities that are not subject to the Phase II Program since storm water is discharged into the municipal sewer system. In addition, this program is in support of MTA Bridges and Tunnels’ filing of a Notice of Intent (NOI) to be covered by a Phase II State Pollution Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) General Permit available through the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) for such discharges.
The aim of the Clean Water Act, the federal Phase II storm water regulations and the program proposed in the MTA Bridges and Tunnels’ SWMP is to reduce to the “maximum extent practicable” pollutants in storm water discharges. The concern for controlling storm water discharges can be traced to the 1972 Clean Water Act Section 208 provisions for evaluating the impacts of and recommending controls for point and nonpoint source discharges in conjunction with the development of area-wide water quality management plans known as “208 plans.” These plans were completed in the late 1970s/early 1980s and for the most part, identified the need to study further the specific impacts of urban runoff and alternative control measures to alleviate or prevent those impacts.
As a result of the findings of many of the 208 plans, particularly those in the northeast and in and around urban areas of the nation, a nationwide pilot program known as Nationwide Urban Runoff Program (NURP) studied 26 urban localities in detail. In 1983, through the NURP, the USEPA concluded that urban runoff was indeed causing significant water quality impacts and that a wide range of controls were possible to address those impacts.
MTA Bridges And Tunnels facilities covered by Phase II SPDES storm water program
Facility |
Location |
Nature |
|---|---|---|
Bronx Whitestone Bridge |
Ferry Point Park, Bronx, NY 10465 |
Upper East River Bridge Crossing – 6 lanes |
Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge |
2050 Cross Bay Boulevard, Broad Channel, NY 11693 |
Broad Channel–Jamaica Bay Bridge Crossing – 6 lanes |
Marine Parkway Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge |
2901 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11234 |
Jamaica Bay Bridge Crossing – 4 lanes |
Throgs Neck Bridge |
Harding Avenue & E. 177th St., Bronx, NY 10465-3831 |
Upper East River Bridge Crossing – 6 lanes |
Verrazano Narrows Bridge |
Lily Pond Avenue & Staten Island Expressway, Staten Island, NY 10305 |
Hudson River-New York Harbor Narrows Bridge Crossing – 12 lanes |
Henry Hudson Bridge |
Dyckman Street, New York, NY 10034 |
Harlem River Bridge Crossing – 7 lanes |
Robert F. Kennedy Bridge |
Randalls Island, NY 10035-5199 |
3 Bridges Crossing Harlem and Upper East Rivers |
In 1985, two additional studies confirmed the NURP findings. This included a nonpoint source assessment conducted by representatives of state agencies and an urban storm water database study of 22 metropolitan areas that was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. These various studies resulted in Congress amending the Clean Water Act in 1987 to require the permitting and control of urban storm water discharges.
The above studies, as well as a number of other similar studies, identified a variety of pollutants in storm water discharges. These pollutants include suspended solids, sediment, bacteria, nutrients, pesticides, herbicides, toxics, floatables, oil, grease, heavy metals, synthetic organics, petroleum hydrocarbons and oxygen demanding substances. The adverse impact of these pollutants in storm water discharges include closed beaches, closed shellfish areas, toxic contamination causing fish consumption bans, beach and shoreline litter, and floatables, siltation of marina and shipping channels, habitat/wetland degradation, and stream bank erosion.
The sources of pollutants in storm water runoff include urban streets, lawns, driveways, parking lots, gas stations, bus depots, golf courses, construction sites, marinas, trash, sand/salt commercial and industrial areas, highway yards, atmospheric fallout, direct rainfall (i.e., acid rain) and a variety of other activities such as landfills, recycling facilities, transportation, and manufacturing and industrial facilities. The EPA’s 1996 National Water Quality Inventory reported that urban runoff was a leading cause of water quality problems in the country, causing impairment in 469 of the nations estuaries; 21 percent of the lakes, ponds and reservoirs; and 13 percent of the rivers and streams.
Under the USEPA’s December 1999 Phase II storm water regulations, thousands of communities across the country with populations under 100,000 were required to control urban storm water discharges. The Phase II regulations were issued nearly 10 years after the agency issued its Phase I regulations. The Phase I regulations required the control of storm water discharges from larger communities with populations greater than 100,000, and from 11 categories of industrial activity, including construction sites disturbing more than 5 acres.
Under USEPA’s Phase II program, the thousands of communities (villages, towns, cities, etc.) across the nation are required to develop and implement a six-part program that reduces pollutants in storm water runoff to the “maximum extent practicable.” This program must include a public education program, a public involvement program, detection and elimination of illicit/illegal connections, controls for construction sites disturbing more than 1 acre, controls for new developments and redevelopment, and pollution prevention/good housekeeping practices as part of the operation and maintenance of the communities’ storm sewer systems.
In New York State, discharges from hundreds of municipal separate storm systems (MS4s) that serve under 100,000 people, and are covered by USEPA’s Phase II program, can receive permit coverage through a SPDES General Permit, provided that a NOI is filed by the municipality (such as MTA Bridges and Tunnels) to be covered by the General SPDES Permit and an SWMP is developed and implemented to satisfy the USEPA requirements. The MTA Bridges and Tunnels has filed its NOI and completed a six-part SWMP for discharges from its storm sewer systems at its facilities and roads to the waters of the United States.
The State’s General SPDES Permit for MS4s that provides this coverage is Permit No. GP 02-02 issued pursuant to Article 17, Titles 7, 8 and Article 70 of the State’s Environmental Conservation Law. This Permit’s effective date is January 8, 2003, and its expiration date is January 8, 2008. A related permit that addresses construction runoff from sites having disturbances from more than one acre is the State’s General SPDES Permit for Construction Activity: Permit No. GP-02-01. The effective date of this permit is also January 8, 2003, and the expiration date is January 8, 2008.
Examples of control measures (also referred to as best management practices) contained in the MTA Bridges and Tunnels’ SWMP include hazardous waste and materials management, roadway and plaza cleanups, construction site runoff controls, recycling, and catch basin and storm drain system cleaning, just to name a few.