CARLSBAD — City Council approved new storm water regulations March 25, drawing some praise from local environmental groups.

With a 4-0 vote, and Mayor Bud Lewis absent, council voted to make several changes to the municipal code.

Changes include new enforcement and maintenance requirements for privately owned storm water facilities to comply with the new storm water protection requirements from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Carlsbad is one of 17 cities countywide to update regulations for storm water runoff.

The new regulations are part of multimillion-dollar effort, adopted in 2007, which requires cities to do more to clean up the storm water that eventually runs into nearby waterways.

“There are a number of changes,” said David Hauser, deputy city engineer for Carlsbad. “But one of the biggest changes (to the municipal code) is the one dealing with annual inspections of private storm water pollution control devices by the city.”

Hauser said the city identifies the projects with a high potential threat to storm water quality.

The city is requiring that private property owners, such as commercial, industrial and residential builders, have their storm water control devices verified annually.

“The major impact of these ‘new regulations,’ many of which are not actually new requirements at all, is that they will force developers, architects, planners and decision-makers to consider water quality impacts at the very earliest stages of project design,” said Ken David, communications coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation. “Instead of requiring best management practices as conditions of project approval at the end of the process, the permit will now require infiltration and detention mechanisms to be built into the site design and layout of buildings, parking lots and landscaped areas.”

These changes will eventually benefit the nearby lagoons and waterways.

The runoff from construction projects flows downstream and usually ends up in one of three lagoons located within the city.

Over the years, the lagoons have filled with silt, creating lower water levels.

In addition, heavy rains push debris down the storm drains, which also ends up in the lagoons.

The Agua Hedionda and Buena Vista lagoons have been identified as negatively “impacted” by local agencies.

Hauser said the city is trying to improve water quality across the board, while eliminating the two lagoons from the list of impacted waterways.

The 600-acre Batiquitos Lagoon Foundation, in southern Carlsbad, was recently awarded a grant from the city for a study and a plan to dredge the lagoon. However, that lagoon is not on the impacted list.