Does a commercial office space need to file a Certification for No Exposure under EPA’s Multi-Sector General Permit for stormwater discharges associated with industrial activity?
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It is unlikely that you will need to submit a no exposure certification.
Under EPA’s 2015 Multi-Sector General Permit for stormwater discharges associated with industrial activity, submitting a no exposure certification (NOE) is dependent on your site operations. The permit states that a condition of no exposure exists at an industrial facility when all industrial materials and activities are protected by a storm resistant shelter to prevent exposure to rain, snow, snowmelt, and/or runoff.
The 2015 MSGP’s certification of no exposure is not necessarily dependent upon whether or not your site participates in an “industrial activity,” but whether industrial materials and activities are exposed to precipitation events. Since you are an office building, it is likely you do not have materials or activities exposed to precipitation.
Further, the permit states that industrial materials and activities include material handling equipment or activities, industrial machinery, raw materials, intermediate products, by-products, final products or waste products. Also, material handling includes storage, loading and unloading, transportation or conveyance of any raw material, intermediate product, final product or waste product.
The occasional delivery of goods, however, may require you to submit a no exposure certification. If the vehicles in delivery or the materials or products during unloading/loading may be exposed to precipitation now or in the foreseeable future, you are not eligible for no exposure certification.
If you keep materials outside in tightly sealed drums, barrels, tanks or similar containers and the containers are not deteriorated nor leak, you do not need a storm resistant shelter. You also do not have to submit a certification of no exposure. In addition, you do not need a storm resistant shelter for vehicles if the vehicles are adequately maintained.