Situated at the confluence of the Santa Margarita River with Murrieta and Temecula Creeks, the City of Temecula, Calif., acts like a catch basin. Any polluted runoff up-stream eventually enters the city, then the river.The area gets no snowmelt, and rainfall averages 12 inches a year, mostly from January through March. So developers typically paid little attention to construction runoff and over-irrigation.Although the city abided by its MS4 permit requirements, it had no formal NPDES program until it hired Aldo Licitra in 2003. As an associate engineer in the Public Works Department, his job was to expand everyone’s knowledge of
