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54 preparing the SWPPP, with tenants covered un- der it and the airport overseeing compliance. Some of the strategies employed by airport au- thorities for tenant implementation of SWPPPs include: ⢠Airport authority prepares the SWPPP and all tenants must comply with its provisions. ⢠Airport authority prepares an SWPPP and all tenants must comply with its provisions or allow tenants to prepare their own, provided it meets the minimum requirements of the airportâs plan. ⢠Airport and tenants jointly implement the SWPPP. ⢠Airport authority reviews the SWPPP of ten- ants required to have their own permit and SWPPP. ⢠Tenants prepare and implement their own SWPPP. All respondents indicated that the airport au- thority conducts inspections of tenant facilities. Approximately one-half of the respondents have tenant reporting requirements, and one-third of the respondents require tenants to submit their self-inspections to the airport. Most of the respondents indicated the use of some form of enforcement mechanisms. The ma- jority use warnings or notices of violation or de- mands for corrective actions to comply with lease obligations. Half of respondents use lease termi- nation, while one-third use fines. One respondent reported the use of Water Quality Investigators who are licensed Special Police Officers by the city and county and have the authority to issue cita- tions. The offending party is then required to ad- dress the citation in court. Many airport authorities have also imple- mented a variety of initiatives to promote tenant compliance with stormwater permit requirements or SWPPP. Almost all of the airports use training and other initiatives, including awareness pro- grams and meetings. Some of the challenges cited regarding tenant compliance with the stormwater permits include: ⢠Tenant turnover. ⢠Pursuing enforcement action over third party contractors or subtenants. ⢠Oversight and following up on noncompliance issues. ⢠Having lease language that requires tenants to comply with federal, state, and local environ- mental regulations, but not specifying what hap- pens if there is noncompliance. When notices of alleged violations have been issued, all of the respondents indicated the notice has been issued to the airport authority, and to a lesser degree, the notice has been issued to ten- ants. From the exceptions noted, in one case the airport authority negotiated with the stateâs envi- ronmental authority to issue the notice to the air- port authority, rather than the airport and all its tenants. The airport authority paid the penalty, and costs were passed to tenants in the form of rates and charges. In the cases where the alleged violation was re- solved via corrective action, the majority of the respondents indicated that the airport authority was responsible for implementing the corrective action. In a few cases, either the tenants imple- mented the action, or the solution was jointly im- plemented. IV. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 4.1 Conclusions Legal research conducted as part of this project suggests that the onus for permit compliance and potential violations by tenants is typically on the airport authority. The airport is therefore left to develop operating agreements and BMPs to en- force tenant compliance. Because general permits are issued for specific groups of regulated entities, their conditions tend to be fairly general to ensure that they are appli- cable to as many of those entities as possible. Air- ports fall under Sector S âtransportation facilitiesâ that conduct vehicle or aircraft maintenance, equipment cleaning, or airport deicing operations. Tenant requirements are typically not a large component of general permits. Even so, the air- port is often responsible for overall permit com- pliance. Individual permits are tailored to the actual physical and operational characteristics at the permitteeâs facility, require a thorough analysis of site-specific conditions, and therefore contain spe- cific requirements based on the airportâs actual operations. The legal research identified several cases ad- dressing the applicability of EPAâs stormwater discharge permitting requirements to various categories of industrial activity, although none that specifically address air transportation facili- ties. On the state level, the only case referencing an air transportation facility was in New York. The renewal of JFKâs SPDES Permit went before an ALJ. Comments on the draft permit were sub-
55 mitted to NYSDEC, which subsequently referred the modification proceeding and issues conference before the ALJ. The parties worked cooperatively over several months to resolve their respective concerns, and as a result there was no adjudica- tory hearing, and NYDEC issued a modified per- mit. The Port Authority desired to add the air- lines to the permit as co-permittees but was ultimately unsuccessful. Common BMPs that the surveyed airport representatives consider to be effective include lease language referencing compliance with stormwater regulations, preparation of an SWPPP by the airport authority with mandatory compli- ance by tenants, inspections of tenant facilities by the airport authority, and warnings or fines for noncompliance. 4.2 Recommendations The goal of this research is to provide valuable information to assist airports in implementing a defensible approach to airport and tenant NPDES permit compliance. BMPs or other compliance mechanisms deemed to be effective by airport au- thorities have been identified and could be devel- oped into a guidebook providing practical solu- tions for enforcing tenant compliance with stormwater discharge permits at airports. The guidebook would provide a basic overview of stormwater regulations and practices that can be easily understood, example BMPs that could be applied to a variety of airport settings, and types of effective enforcement mechanisms. An easy-to- use guidebook would provide defensible, consis- tent, and implementable approaches to airport and tenant NPDES permit compliance.
