The Firm has a broad reaching, well-respected, and expanding stormwater practice.  The Firm is one of only a handful of California law firms specializing in this area of law.  The Firm has long been a leader in the field, representing private entities facing enforcement actions brought by Federal, State, and local regulatory agencies. Members of the Firm have also been active in addressing the ever-changing and ever-controversial regulatory framework on which California’s stormwater rules are based.

The Firm has substantial experience in representing its clients in a variety of stormwater contexts, although the foremost aspect of the practice is representing private parties who have been accused of violating stormwater regulations.   Members of the firm have represented a broad variety of clients, ranging from Northern California wineries to Chula Vista auto recyclers, and have represented clients in enforcement actions brought by local agencies to the US Environmental Protection Agency, with most of California’s Regional Water Quality Control Boards in between.  Recently, we represented one of the Firm’s clients in the first US EPA stormwater enforcement action ever brought in California, addressing nine different sites.  After an exhaustive investigation by the EPA, the Firm’s members were able to negotiate an amicable resolution whereby the client paid only a relatively small fine and agreed to take on a Supplemental Environmental Project (“SEP”).  After the SEP was completed, the EPA and the Firm’s client held a joint press conference outside one of the client’s facilities to announce the success of the client’s SEP, to praise the client’s efforts, and inform the public of the substantial environmental benefits that were expected to flow there from.  We also represented two construction industry trade associations in a pending dispute with the NRDC and the Waterkeeper Alliance over the scope of the EPA’s obligations under the Clean Water Act, and whether the EPA had authority to refuse to impose numeric effluent limits on stormwater discharges from construction sites. 

The Firm’s members are also active participants in the crafting of stormwater policy and regulation in California.  We were instrumental and successful in the original effort to create a stormwater monitoring group program whereby industry members can band together to meet their collective stormwater monitoring and training requirements.  The Firm is currently counsel to two of California’s longest standing and most successful stormwater monitoring groups: the Metal Recyclers Monitoring Group (“MRMG”) and the California Wineries Monitoring Group (“CWMG”), regularly counseling its members as to their stormwater obligations, options, and strategies, as well as representing the individual group members in their dealings with the stormwater regulatory community.

At the 2005 California Bar Association Environmental Conference in Yosemite, California Tal Finney served as the moderator for a panel discussion on the issue of numeric effluent limits on stormwater dischargers.  The panel featured Jason Booth of the Firm, who represented the interests of the regulated communities, as well as counsel for the NRDC, and a member of the State Water Resources Control Board.  We have also appeared before the State Water Resources Control Board and given testimony on numerous occasions on behalf of the industry members subject to California’s stormwater regulations, arguing in favor of a more practical, financially feasible approach to stormwater regulation, and against the imposition of unworkable and potentially devastating numeric effluent limitations.  The Firm will be submitting comments to the ongoing discussion of the numeric limit issue currently pending before the State Board, as it determines whether numeric limits should be included within the long-ago expired General Industrial Stormwater Permit.