BB&K In The News

BB&K Attorney Andre Monette Talks about Desalination, Proposed Standards for Stormwater Runoff

Water regulations, greenhouse gas emission controls and litigation over alleged cancer-causing chemical exposure have given San Diego attorneys specializing in those areas plenty of work.

Andre Monette, a local attorney with Best Best & Krieger LLP specializing in water regulations, sees plenty of client demand for legal advice. Fueling it is low local water supplies and complex compliance requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act and the Clean Water Act.

With continued levels of future local water supplies from the San Joaquin Delta unclear, combined with regional drought conditions, Monette sees a dire need for new local water supplies to be developed to fill the gap.

Those sources, he says, need to be from more groundwater systems and more desalination plants.

“There’s a lot of salty groundwater near the coast the water districts are starting to tap,” he said. “It doesn’t have the same (environmental) impact as a desalination plant, the water’s not as salty and it’s easier to treat.”

Among the water issues to be resolved are local requirements for the “total maximum daily load” of allowable stormwater runoff into lakes and streams. Storm drains have to meet the standards to get permits.

If the established total maximum daily load pollution target is unachievable, says Monette, “A lot of good money gets thrown at a bad target.” But different runoff waters have different pollution levels, so arriving at standards, he adds, is “very tough.”

Proposed standards are put out for public review, comments on them gathered, and eventually the standards are adopted.

Attorneys like Monette lobby for the standards to be reasonable enough for clients to comply with in the long run. Otherwise, the option is to litigate if the adopted rules are seen as unworkable.