If you inherited a stormwater permit or just took over compliance at your facility, you have probably already run into SMARTS. It is where almost everything in a California industrial stormwater permit gets filed, and most people who open it for the first time describe the same thing: it is not intuitive. Knowing what belongs in SMARTS, when each item is due, and who has to click submit is most of the battle.
This guide covers what SMARTS is, what gets reported through it, where facilities tend to get stuck, and where the work actually has to stay with you. For how the permit fits together overall, start with our SWPPP and stormwater compliance overview.
What SMARTS Is
SMARTS stands for Stormwater Multi-Application and Report Tracking System. It is the State Water Resources Control Board’s online portal for everything tied to your Industrial General Permit. When a facility first enrolls, SMARTS is also where the Notice of Intent gets filed and where the State Water Board issues your WDID number, the identifier that follows your facility for as long as the permit is active.
After enrollment, SMARTS becomes the system of record. Your sampling results, your annual report, and any exceedance documents all live there. The Regional Water Quality Control Board and the State Water Board see your compliance history through SMARTS, which is why a missed upload or a filing left in draft can quietly become a problem long after the deadline passed. Regulators are not the only readers: SMARTS records are public, which is exactly what makes citizen-suit stormwater enforcement in California possible.
What Gets Reported in SMARTS
Most of the permit’s recurring obligations route through SMARTS on their own schedule. Here is what gets reported, when, and who is responsible for each piece. The table below uses a few permit acronyms covered in detail elsewhere: LRP (Legally Responsible Person), NEC (No Exposure Certification), ERA (Exceedance Response Action), and QISP (Qualified Industrial Stormwater Practitioner).
| Document | When | Who Submits | CDMS Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notice of Intent (NOI) | At enrollment | LRP | We prepare the NOI, SWPPP, and site maps and upload them for the LRP to certify |
| Sampling results | Within 30 days of obtaining all analytical results | LRP | We coordinate the lab, interpret results, and load the data |
| Annual report (SWAR, the Stormwater Annual Report) | By July 15 each year | LRP | We complete the report and the annual facility evaluation, then stage it for submission |
| NEC certification / recertification | At enrollment, then annually | LRP | We run the No Exposure Certification evaluation and file it |
| ERA documents (Level 1 / Level 2) | Per exceedance deadlines | LRP | Our QISP prepares the evaluation, action plan, or technical report |
The pattern holds across all of them: CDMS prepares and uploads the work, and your Legally Responsible Person provides the final certification. That split is not a CDMS preference. It is how the State Water Board built the system.
The Submit Click Belongs to Your LRP
This is the part that surprises people. The State Water Board requires your Legally Responsible Person, the LRP, to log in and personally click submit on certain filings. A consultant cannot complete the certification step on the LRP’s behalf without proper authorization, no matter how much of the work the consultant did.
We get added to your SMARTS account as the Data Entry Person. That role lets us build the NOI, load sampling data, complete the annual report, and stage everything so it is ready to go. But the certification step stays with your LRP. We line it up, tell you exactly what to click, and work around your LRP’s schedule so a deadline never comes down to one person being out of the office. The most common reporting failure we see when we take over an account is not bad data. It is a finished filing that someone prepared correctly and then never certified, sitting in the queue while the deadline came and went.
Not sure whether your SMARTS filings are actually submitted or just sitting in draft? Call (925) 551-7300 or request a consultation. We will review your account, confirm what has been certified and what hasn’t, and tell you where the gaps are.
Where SMARTS Trips People Up
A few issues come up over and over when we walk into a facility’s SMARTS account.
Auto-determination is not reliable. SMARTS will sometimes tell you no Level 1 ERA is needed when your sample data clearly says otherwise. We have seen it both ways. We verify exceedance status against the actual numbers rather than relying on what the system flags, because the burden stays with the facility regardless of what the portal displays. If your results have come back high, the path forward is its own process, which we cover in our guide to stormwater exceedance response and ERA Level 1 and Level 2.
The 30-day window on results. Sampling data has to be uploaded to SMARTS within 30 days of obtaining all analytical results for the sampling event. When sample collection and reporting are handled by different people, this is where things slip. The samples get collected, the lab returns the numbers, and the upload waits because nobody owns that step. For how the sampling side connects, see our guide to SWPPP sampling in California.
Account roles and access. Facilities frequently have an LRP who left the company, a login nobody can find, or a Data Entry Person role that was never assigned to whoever now handles compliance. Sorting out who has access, and at what level, is often the first thing we do before any filing can move.
How CDMS Handles SMARTS
For our annual stormwater clients, SMARTS is not something you have to learn. We hold the Data Entry Person role, prepare every filing, and load it into the portal. You collect samples when it rains, and your LRP clicks submit when we tell you it is ready. We track the deadlines so the 30-day result windows, the July 15 annual report, and the annual NEC recertification do not catch anyone off guard.
We also reach out near the end of each season to line up the next one. As a rule, we contact our clients before the Water Board sends its notifications, so you are working ahead of the agency rather than reacting to an email from it. Group knowledge sits behind that: you are not depending on one person remembering one account.
Want SMARTS reporting handled for your California facility instead of managing the portal yourself? Call (925) 551-7300 or request a consultation. We will review your permit and SMARTS status, give you a fixed-price quote with a timeline, and take the reporting off your plate.
