Salinas, CA Environmental Rules: Erosion Control (2026)

Salinas Municipal Code Sec. 29-15 sets the city's stormwater reduction-of-pollutants program, built around low impact development (LID) as the city's maximum-extent-practicable standard. Subsection (d), Best Management Practices for Construction Sites, is the operative erosion rule: contractors must comply with the city's separately adopted Standards to Control Excavations, Cuts, Fills, Clearing, Grading, Erosion and Sediments and keep debris and dirt out of the storm drain system. The authorized enforcement officer, typically the city engineer's staff, may require a stormwater pollution prevention plan (SWPPP) before the final subdivision map is approved or before a building permit issues, whichever comes first.

Subsection (e) layers on post-construction duties for new development and significant redevelopment: a stormwater control plan showing how site drainage will be managed must be included in the building permit application and becomes a permit condition, and any stormwater treatment feature needs a recorded, enforceable operation-and-maintenance agreement before a certificate of occupancy issues. The city engineer can waive LID requirements only under a formal waiver program, and only where implementation is infeasible or provides no water-quality benefit. This program implements the city's NPDES municipal stormwater permit and the Porter-Cologne Act, and it sits alongside separate littering, abutting-property, and parking-lot cleaning duties in the same section.