In a victory for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently sent a memorandum to the states describing how nitrogen, phosphorus, chlorophyll and turbidity – collectively referred to as nutrient criteria, for lakes, rivers and streams are to be developed and adopted into their water quality standards.

Last year, the EPA published standards which states were directed to adopt as part of their water quality standards by 2004. Those would have affected builders and developers if the measurable levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the storm water they discharged exceeded the nutrient criteria.

Most troubling, monitoring data from the National Stormwater Database showed that even with storm water best management practices in place, discharge exceeded the EPA’s lowest turbidity criteria for rivers and streams about 92 percent of the time; exceeded the lowest nitrogen criteria almost 99 percent of the time, and exceeded the lowest phosphorus criteria about 93 percent of the time.

NAHB concluded that the EPA’s nutrient criteria could have increased dramatically the number of impaired lakes, rivers, and streams without considering how these levels were affecting them. This would have necessitated the development of a large number of Total Maximum Daily Loads, and the construction industry would have had to reduce turbidity, nitrogen and phosphorus and would have faced storm water permits denials.

NAHB and others who would have been affected by these criteria presented data and arguments against the approach taken by the EPA. After hours of public and private meetings with the agency, the EPA responded by giving the states the go-ahead to develop nutrient criteria using more appropriate methods and by giving them a longer, more realistic timeframe in which to do so.