Canton faces $50,000 EPA fine for storm-water runoff

All Massachusetts communities are required to file annual reports with the EPA on the steps they’ve taken to improve storm-water systems - such as mapping their drainage systems and figuring out exactly what’s going into those drains - under a permit system put into place six years ago.

According to the EPA, Canton was slow getting started on meeting the required steps and failed to do enough before the permit’s five-year period expired a year ago.

Canton is hardly the only town with such problems. Last year the EPA penalized Randolph for not filing its annual report, and in previous years actions were taken against Norwood and Rockland because their sewer systems overflowed into storm-water drains.

Federal officials and local environmental groups agree municipal drainage systems, while easily overlooked, are a huge factor in the push to improve water quality.

“It’s well documented that storm water is a major source of pollution,’’ said Kathleen Woodward, a senior attorney with the EPA, who handled her agency’s decision to penalize Canton and seven other Massachusetts communities this year for storm-water permit violations.

“Did we need to send a message that we take this permit seriously? Yes, we did,’’ Woodward said.

Environmentalists say storm-water pollution is a significant threat to such areas as the Neponset River watershed, which includes Canton, Dedham, Foxborough, Milton, Norwood, Randolph, Quincy, Sharon, Stoughton, Walpole, and Westwood.

Ian Cooke, director of the Neponset River Watershed Association, pointed to his organization’s water sampling program that tests water quality at various points in the watershed.

When the sun is shining, tests show that 80 percent of the water samples meet water quality standards.

But when it’s raining, Cooke said, only 20 percent of the samples do because rainwater runs off streets and parking lots into drains, carrying pollution sources into the watershed’s rivers, streams, ponds, marshes, and bays. Public beaches close as a result when bacteria levels in the water spike sharply upward.

“And it rains a lot here,’’ Cooke said, citing a figure of 75 to 100 rain days a year.

The correlation between storm-water runoff and water quality is clear to environmentalists. When a North and South Rivers Watershed Association ecologist planned to swim 3 miles in the North River this summer to demonstrate improvements in water quality, organizers said that too much rain in days before the swim would force a cancellation.

Association director Samantha Woods said storm-water pollution is a major reason many local water bodies don’t meet the standards for such designated uses as swimming and fishing. For example, residents cannot take freshwater shellfish from many regional rivers, including the North and South rivers, and area bays.

Cooke said the EPA permit program was “an important step,’’ but while it required communities to do “basic things’’ - map their drain systems, locate outfalls, find illicit connections and stop them - some believed they could put them off from year to year.

And while Canton was the only area town penalized this year, Woodward said enforcement resources are limited and inspectors passed over rural towns to concentrate on larger ones. Just because their town wasn’t penalized, residents cannot assume it is doing enough to reduce storm-water pollution, Woodward said.

Canton officials met with the EPA earlier this month to assert that the town has accomplished more than regulators believe, and they won a 30-day extension to mid-October before the fine takes effect.

To back up its case that it has made sufficient progress toward meeting the permit’s goals, the town has reissued its storm-water system map with the location of outfalls noted, and is documenting its past efforts to search for illegal connections.

“We are on the right track with them,’’ Town Administrator Bill Friel said last week.

But while the talks might result in a less severe penalty against Canton, Woodward said she expects the town will pay a fine.

She said public education remains an important goal of the program, along with technical improvements.

“Sometimes people innocently believe they can dump something [like used motor oil] down a drain and it’ll be treated, but that’s not the case,’’ she said.

Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox2@gmail.com.