Title 33Navigation and Navigable WatersRelease 119-73

§1274 Watershed pilot projects

Title 33 › Chapter CHAPTER 26— - WATER POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL › Subchapter SUBCHAPTER I— - RESEARCH AND RELATED PROGRAMS › § 1274

Last updated Apr 6, 2026|Official source

Summary

The Administrator, working with the States, may give technical help and grants to cities or local agencies to run pilot projects in six areas. These include managing sewer overflows and stormwater on a watershed basis; testing cost-effective, new ways to control pollution from separate storm sewers (including ways to soak in, evaporate, or reuse stormwater on site); working with property owners to reduce nonpoint pollution; making integrated plans for surface water, groundwater, and stormwater; making citywide plans for where to put stormwater controls; and checking and strengthening public treatment works against disasters, extreme weather, and sea-level rise. Municipalities in the pilots must be allowed to try new practices, such as combining separate wet-weather controls under one permit. By October 1, 2015, the Administrator must send Congress a report on the pilot results and whether they could be used nationwide.

Full Legal Text

Title 33, §1274

Navigation and Navigable Waters — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Administrator, in coordination with the States, may provide technical assistance and grants to a municipality or municipal entity to carry out pilot projects relating to the following areas:
(1)The management of municipal combined sewer overflows, sanitary sewer overflows, and stormwater discharges, on an integrated watershed or subwatershed basis for the purpose of demonstrating the effectiveness of a unified wet weather approach.
(2)The control of pollutants from municipal separate storm sewer systems for the purpose of demonstrating and determining controls that are cost-effective and that use innovative technologies to manage, reduce, treat, recapture, or reuse municipal stormwater, including techniques that utilize infiltration, evapotranspiration, and reuse of stormwater onsite.
(3)Efforts of municipalities and property owners to demonstrate cooperative ways to address nonpoint sources of pollution to reduce adverse impacts on water quality.
(4)The development of an integrated water resource plan for the coordinated management and protection of surface water, ground water, and stormwater resources on a watershed or subwatershed basis to meet the objectives, goals, and policies of this chapter.
(5)The development of a municipality-wide plan that identifies the most effective placement of stormwater technologies and management approaches, to reduce water quality impairments from stormwater on a municipality-wide basis.
(6)Efforts to assess future risks and vulnerabilities of publicly owned treatment works to manmade or natural disasters, including extreme weather events and sea-level rise, and to carry out measures, on a systemwide or area-wide basis, to increase the resiliency of publicly owned treatment works.
(b)The Administrator, in coordination with the States, shall provide municipalities participating in a pilot project under this section the ability to engage in innovative practices, including the ability to unify separate wet weather control efforts under a single permit.
(c)Not later than October 1, 2015, the Administrator shall transmit to Congress a report on the results of the pilot projects conducted under this section and their possible application nationwide.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Amendments

2014—Pub. L. 113–121, § 5011(1), struck out “Wet weather” before “Watershed” in section catchline. Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 113–121, § 5011(2)(A), in introductory provisions, substituted “to a municipality or municipal entity” for “for treatment works” and struck out “of wet weather discharge control” after “the following areas”. Subsec. (a)(2). Pub. L. 113–121, § 5011(2)(B), substituted “to manage, reduce, treat, recapture, or reuse municipal stormwater, including techniques that utilize infiltration, evapotranspiration, and reuse of stormwater onsite” for “in reducing such pollutants from stormwater discharges”. Subsec. (a)(3) to (6). Pub. L. 113–121, § 5011(2)(C), added pars. (3) to (6). Subsecs. (c), (d). Pub. L. 113–121, § 5011(3)–(5), redesignated subsec. (d) as (c), substituted “
October 1, 2015,” for “5 years after
December 21, 2000,”, and struck out former subsec. (c) which authorized appropriations to carry out this section.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

33 U.S.C. § 1274

Title 33Navigation and Navigable Waters

Last Updated

Apr 6, 2026

Release point: 119-73