For the Marin County Stormwater Pollution Prevention Program, preserving the aquatic health of Marin County is paramount. “Everything we do is meant to reduce pollution in stormwater, making sure water flowing from creeks to the bay is as clean as it possibly can be,” said Rob Carson, the county’s stormwater program administrator. The program, known as MCSTOPPP, enforces county stormwater permits, which allow discharge from storm drain pipes into creeks, bays and oceans in exchange for compliance with a host of regulations. The program recently ramped up its activity in advance of new state trash regulations; in a presentation to the Board of Supervisors last week, Mr. Carson discussed the impending rules and what the program has accomplished over the last five years. Created in 1993, MCSTOPPP is overseen by the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District. It supports 12 municipal stormwater programs—for West Marin, the county holds the permit—that aim to minimize water-quality impairments like sediment and pesticides from construction sites, municipal operations and development projects. The latest statewide stormwater permits, known as Phase II permits, were issued in 2013 and required the development and implementation of over 30 tasks before the end of 2018—a target Mr. Carson said the program had accomplished across Marin’s municipalities. Under the 2013 permit program, MSCTOPPP trained over 150 county staff members in storm water management, investigated over 300 illegal-discharge or creek-violation reports, developed spill and enforcement plans to respond to pollution, and corrected water-quality issues in pipes that carried stormwater to waterways. The permit ended in July 2018, and Mr. Carson hopes the new one—which comes with one major change—will be issued this year. Statewide trash-reduction regulations adopted in 2014 will be incorporated into the permit through a 10-year program to prevent trash as small as 5 millimeters from being discharged from public storm drains into areas classified as priority land uses, whether as commercial, industrial, high-density, residential or transit stops. According to Mr. Carson, this can be done using full trash capture devices installed within storm drains or through controls like street sweeping and trash abatement. MCSTOPPP has already prepared trash reduction implementation plans, which priority land-use areas will have to implement by 2020. Based on state projections, the program will cost the county an estimated $5.48 million.