Mobile Detailers are required to prevent water from entering a storm drain while washing and detailing cars. Most professional detailers know this but few understand where these laws came from. Here is the history behind where these laws and rules came from.

It all it all started many years ago when Congress passed the Federal Clean Water Act of 1972. This was in response to major pollution issues involving polluting the nation's waterways from factories, strip mining and sewage treatment plants or lack thereof. It was actually quite a problem. It was an ecosystem disaster causing disease and death to wildlife and some people. When it was discovered just how bad the problem really was, the Federal Government empowered the states to take care of the issues within their state. The states enacted state laws to help fix the problem. Meanwhile, the Federal Government tightened standards forcing states to tighten their standards or be in violation. With the threat of withholding federal monies to the states, the state continued to make more and more laws. Industry obviously wasn't happy and even government agencies were unable to comply. So, target dates were enacted to give time for everyone to comply. Overnight environmental consulting firms sprung up along with a whole new industry of environmental equipment and product manufactures, many of whom weren't in compliance themselves.

The State of California was the first to adopt rules for mobile washers and surface cleaners. They did this after they divided the state into nine different regions realizing that each region had different pollution problems based on industry types in the areas, shortly there after mobile washers were identified as a non-point source discharge and they decided to stop these wash water flows in to the storm drains. These nine regions were called ‘Regional Water Quality Control Districts', RWQCD. These were all controlled by the State Board that was defined by the Federal Clean Water Act as the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB).

The SWRCB was formed in California and is commonly called ‘The State Board'. The State Board regulates Water Quality Control, which is any activity or factor that might affect the quality of waters of the state and includes the prevention and correction of water pollution and nuisance. This sounds very encompassing and the State Board has too much power. Luckily, now they understand the issues enough to make an intelligent decision.

Recently, the State Water Quality Control Districts ten years ago the counties to submit for approval and receive permits to discharge the same waters they've been discharging for years. These permits were called NPDES permits. This stands for National Pollution Discharge Elimination System. Usually the counties will assign an existing department to work on this permit. More likely than not, it is the county's Flood Control Department. Unfortunately, this part of the county deals with permits for land development, bridges, infrastructures, etc. Until now, they knew very little about pollution. The NPDES permits are approved by the state for local county urban runoff discharges. Each city in each county through municipal codes is supposed to pass ordinances and a plan for controlling their local runoff/pollution. The county remains responsible to the state and the states to the Federal Government. The NPDES requirements are an offspring of the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency even though they are enforced, permitted and regulated locally by cities, counties and states.

Many municipalities have unique ordinances dealing with various types of runoff. Some of these ordinances were written before lawmakers really knew what they were doing. Many, therefore, may be on the books but not ever enforced.

The basic rule of thumb is very simple; "Do Not Allow Wash Water Run-off to enter a storm drain, gutter or allow flows into a creek, river, lake or the Ocean. Block the water, dam it up or divert it, then all it to evaporate, flow into vegetation or vacuum it up. Simple, do it right, stay out of trouble and don't pollute.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs