Redding, CA Environmental Rules: Stormwater Management (2026)

Redding's Storm Water Ordinance (Title 14, Chapter 14.19) is the local hook for compliance with two overlapping state regimes. The first is the federal Clean Water Act NPDES program as delegated to California - the State Water Board issues Redding its Small MS4 Phase II General Permit covering the Six Minimum Control Measures (public education, public participation, illicit-discharge detection and elimination, construction-site runoff, post-construction stormwater management, and pollution prevention/good housekeeping). The second is California's Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act (Water Code §13000 et seq.), which gives the State Water Board and the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board authority over all discharges to waters of the State (a broader category than federal 'waters of the U.S.'). The receiving water for nearly all of Redding's stormwater is the Sacramento River, which supplies a significant share of California's drinking and irrigation water - the City sits directly on the river, and tributaries Clear Creek, Cow Creek, Churn Creek, and Stillwater Creek drain through town to the river. The City's Post-Construction Standards Plan (administered by Public Works Environmental Management) triggers permanent on-site BMPs - bioretention, infiltration trenches, swales, hydromodification controls - whenever a project creates or replaces 2,500 sq ft or more of impervious surface. Construction-phase erosion and sediment control is concurrently governed by the statewide Construction General Permit (Order 2022-0057-DWQ), which kicks in at 1 acre of soil disturbance.