Texas State Overview

The state of Texas and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) were granted delegated authority by the EPA to administer their own National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permitting Program for wastewater and stormwater discharges associated with construction activity, industrial activity as well as Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) activity. Because the EPA and The Clean Water Act required a program for addressing the pollution caused by stormwater discharges, The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality implemented and managed the Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (TPDES) Permitting Program to fulfill all Clean Water Act and federal mandates. The TPDES provides a process for project owners and operators to attain permit coverage allowing the discharge of stormwater and wastewater into Texas surface waters.

The Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (TPDES) Construction General Permit authorizes point source discharges of stormwater from: (1) construction activities (clearing, grading, filling and excavating, borrow pits and stockpile/material storage areas containing erodible material, or other similar construction activities) that result in the disturbance of one (1) acre or more of total land area or projects or developments of less than one (1) acre of land disturbance but construction activities at the site are part of a larger common plan of development or sale that comprise at least one (1) acre of land disturbances; (2) small and large construction activities; as well as (3) construction support activities (concrete batch plants, rock crushers, asphalt batch plants, equipment staging areas, material storage yards, material borrow areas, and excavated material disposal areas).

If a project site owner or operator is engaging in the aforementioned types of construction activities, he/she is required to apply for TPDES Construction General Permit coverage before any construction or land disturbing activity can commence on site. To obtain coverage an owner or operator of a project site must submit a complete Notice of Intent (NOI) (electronically on the TCEQ website) to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality along with a developed Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWP3) to address discharges authorized under the CGP that will reach waters of the U.S. The SWP3 must also define the implementation of practices that will be used to minimize the pollutants in the discharge of stormwater associated with construction activity and non-stormwater discharges as described in the general permit.