The first major United States water pollution law was the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) of 1948, which in California was followed by the Dickey Water Pollution Control Act of 1949, that established the State Water Pollution Control Board and nine California Regional Water Quality Control Boards (RWQCBs). The State Board was subsequently renamed the State Water Quality Control Board and combined with the State Water Rights Board, in 1967, to become the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). Following a major oil spill, in 1969, off the coast of Santa Barbara the State Legislature enacted the Porter Cologne Water Quality Act, while, after the Cuyahoga River, in Ohio, caught fire repeatedly, the United States Congress and President Richard Nixon established the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) in 1970. Following the State Portor-Cologne Act, the United States Congress and President Richard Nixon amended the FWPCA in 1972, which was formally amended and renamed the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1977. The CWA allowed the USEPA to delegate several types of National Pollutant Discharges Elimination System (NPDES) Permits to approved state agencies, such as the California SWRCB, which subsequently delegated the NPDES Permit authorities to the nine RWQCBs, locally the State RWQCB, Los Angeles, more commonly known as the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (LARWQCB).
In 1989, the USEPA required Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Phase I NPDES Permits for agencies servicing populations of 100,000 or greater, such as the Los Angeles County Flood Control District (LACFCD) and the 84 cities, some with much smaller populations, that are serviced by the District. On March 15, 1990, Los Angeles County and a subset of Cities, submitted a Report of Waste Discharge (ROWD), otherwise known as a NPDES Permit Application, to the LARWQCB, which responded by issuing Waste Discharge Requirements (WDRs) for Stormwater/Urban Runoff Discharges for Los Angeles County and Co-Permittees on June 18, 1990. The State has issued the City of Montebello progressively more costly and restrictive MS4 NPDES Permits on July 15, 1996; December 13, 2001; November 8, 2012; and July 23, 2021.
The LARWQCB 2012 MS4 NPDES Permit offered cities the opportunity to be deemed permit compliant, in exchange for joining with other Permittees to fully implement Watershed Management Program (WMP) Plans. The City of Montebello joined with the Upper Los Angeles River (ULAR) WMP Group, led by the City of Los Angeles, with an estimated WMP Plan implementation cost of approximately $300M, of which the City has expended nearly $5M on projects. As required by LARWQCB 2021 MS4 NPDES Permit Attachment E, Part XIV.A.2, Watershed Management Program Progress Reports are posted by the City of Los Angeles at the following website https://www.lastormh2o.org/, while the ULAR MWP Progress Report is summarized in English at https://www.lastormh2o.org/watershed/upper_la_river/. The ULAR WMP Plan Progress is also summarized in other languages by selecting the “Select Language” pull down menu on the right side of the last webpage.