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<br />7 <br />Page 1 <br /> <br />1 <br />2 <br />3 <br />4 <br />5 <br />6 <br />7 <br />8 <br />9 <br />10 <br />11 <br />12 <br />13 <br />14 <br />15 <br />16 <br />17 <br />18 <br />19 <br />20 <br />21 <br />22 <br />23 <br />24 <br />25 <br />26 <br />27 <br />28 <br /> <br />process. Such a process should provide adequate time for comment, <br />including continuances where appropriate. <br />In re The Cities of Bellflower et aI.. State Water Board Order WQ 2000-11, at *24 (Oct. 5, 2000) <br />(emphasis added). In the Bellflower case, the State Water Board admonished Regional Water Boards <br />to employ the proceedings for hearings set forth in section 648 of the Regional Board's regulations. <br />Id at *24 n.25 ("For future adjudicative proceedings that are highly controversial or involve complex <br />factual or legal issues, we encourage regional water boards to follow the procedures for formal <br />hearings set forth in Cal. Code of Regs., tit. 23, section 648 et seq.") Those regulations require the <br />Regional Water Board to allow interested parties the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses and <br />present contrary evidence. Cal. Code Regs, tit. 23, ~ 648.5(a). The Regional Water Board here <br />ignored the State Water Board's admonition. As a result, Petitioner has thus far been denied the right <br />to full and fair participation in the permitting process, as required under both federal and state law. <br />33 V.S.C. ~ 1351(e); Bellflower, WQ 2000-11. It should not be overlooked that these requirements <br /> <br />apply to 76 Permittees in the San Francisco Bay Region - that in itself provides for very complex and <br /> <br />controversial issues. <br /> <br />3. <br /> <br />The Regional Water Board Failed to Adequately Respond to <br />Comments on its Prior Draft Tentative Orders. <br /> <br />Federal permitting regulations require that states issuing NPDES permits seek, consider, and <br />provide responses to public comments on draft permits. 40 C.F.R. ~ 124.17(a). The Regional Water <br />Board failed to provide timely responses to comments submitted on its draft tentative orders, and <br />ignored or, at most, gave lip service to many comments suggesting pragmatic modifications that <br />would, among other things, help avoid wasting resources and/or mitigate the economic impacts of the <br />MRP on fiscally stressed municipalities.9 The Final Order indeed includes hundreds of pages of <br />charts containing purported responses to written comments received on earlier iterations of the MRP. <br /> <br />9 Despite prior specific direction from Regional Water Board members to the staff to expedite <br />getting responses to previously submitted written comments issued following the May 2009 hearing <br />on the February 2009 revised tentative order, the only responses to written comments submitted over <br />the five-year course of the MRP's development (totaling well over 1,000 pages) were issued less than <br />10 days prior to the Regional Water Board's October 14,2009 adoption hearing further depriving <br />Petitioner and others of a meaningful public participation opportunity. <br /> <br />sf-2748053 <br /> <br />11 <br />PETITION FOR REVIEW <br />