CNU Letter to the EPA on Stormwater System Reform

This letter, sent by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the summer of 2010, requested a meeting between the two bodies to discuss reforms to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The letter suggested that current NPDES standards and policies had the unintended side effect of promoting sprawl, and suggested concrete solutions to this problem, to be achieved through reform to the NPDES. In the fall of 2010, the EPA responded to the letter and requested a meeting with the CNU and with the leaders of the so-called "Rainwater Initiative" who originally spearheaded the campaign. The EPA requested data on stormwater discharge in urban redeveloped areas and for ways to improve the NPDES so that it no longer inadvertently promotes sprawl.