Oregon Sea Grant

This report is on a project initiated by a partnership between the Department of Enviornmental Quality and Oregon Sea Grant to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the State’s current MS4 Phase 1 permit program, draw conclusions, and provide essential recommendations for future permit development.

Oregon Sea Grant’s mission is to serve as a catalyst that promotes discovery, understanding and resilience for Oregon coastal communities and ecosystems. While most urban areas in Oregon are well away from the coastal zone, Oregon Sea Grant recognizes that water quality issues upstream have considerable impacts to coastal ecosystems and seeks to better understand sources of water pollution. Thus the partnership falls well within the mission scope of both entities. Oregon Sea Grant provided assistance by funding a Natural Resource Policy fellow to work with DEQ to explore these issues with municipal stormwater quality programs. The fellow served as a stormwater analyst – assessing the methods, quality assurance protocols, and the results prepared by each Phase 1 permittee in their 2014-2015 annual reports. In addition to analyzing the reports, the fellow provided a set of recommendations to DEQ in order to better inform their permit development program.