Blue Earth County, MN Environmental Rules: Stormwater Management (2026)

Blue Earth County adopted its illicit discharge detection and elimination ordinance on December 12, 2017 to control what enters the county's municipal separate storm sewer system, or MS4, in unincorporated Blue Earth County. Sec. 6-621 prohibits throwing, draining or otherwise discharging any pollutant other than stormwater into the MS4, though it carves out common non-polluting flows such as landscape irrigation, uncontaminated ground water, air conditioning condensation, non-commercial vehicle washing, and dechlorinated swimming pool water under one PPM chlorine, plus any discharge covered by a valid NPDES permit.

Sec. 6-622 separately bans constructing, using, maintaining or simply leaving in place any illicit connection to the storm drainage system, including a pipe that conveys sewage into the MS4, and that prohibition reaches connections made in the past even if they were legal when installed. The department that administers the article can inspect any facility with industrial or construction-related stormwater discharge under Sec. 6-627 through 6-629, require monitoring equipment, and order corrective best management practices under Sec. 6-630. A property owner who fails to correct a violation after a written notice under Sec.

6-641 faces county abatement at the owner's expense with the cost assessed as a lien on the property under Sec. 6-644, and the county can also seek injunctive relief and treat the violation as a public nuisance under Sec. 6-645. On top of those civil remedies, Sec. 6-646 makes any violation of the article a misdemeanor criminal offense, punishable by up to a $1,000.00 fine, up to 90 days in jail, or both, and each day a violation continues or is permitted to exist counts as a separate offense.