The Clean Water Act and NPDES permitting, the Safe Drinking Water Act, state primacy, NEPA environmental review, Section 404 wetlands permitting, and MS4/construction stormwater permits — and how each one drives a specific design number.
Nearly every design decision in this program is bounded by a regulatory requirement the engineer did not choose — a treatment plant is sized to meet an effluent limit, not the other way around. This module covers the federal regulatory framework a water resources engineer works inside every day: the Clean Water Act's NPDES permit system, technology-based versus water-quality-based limits and TMDLs, the Safe Drinking Water Act's MCLs and treatment technique requirements, state primacy and delegated permitting, NEPA environmental review, Section 404 wetlands permitting, and MS4 and Construction General Permit stormwater requirements.
By the end of this module you should be able to read a permit and identify which requirement is actually binding a specific design decision — a skill Module 16's infrastructure design criteria and Module 18's real-project case studies both depend on directly.