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Alaska seeks NPDES primacy Bill would allow Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to apply to EPA to handle wastewater permitting now handled by federal agency Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
Alaska is primed to take over wastewater permitting from the Environmental Protection Agency under provisions of a bill introduced by the governor in mid-February.
Three years ago the Legislature authorized the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to study the costs and benefits of the state taking primacy for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits, a part of the federal Clean Water Act that requires permitting of discharges to surface waters.
When the Legislature authorized the study, acting Commissioner Kurt Fredriksson said Feb. 17, “they wanted to know what it would cost, what would be the benefits.” The department met with industry and municipalities that have to get those federal permits, and reported back in January.
On Feb. 16, Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski submitted legislation authorizing the department to apply to EPA for primacy.
“Alaska,” the governor said, “would join 45 other states that now perform this important task.”
The Legislature had already authorized the department to pursue primacy over NPDES permits for the timber industry and this year’s legislation would extend state primacy to all industries.
Alaska applicants can wait as long as 31 months for an NPDES permit, compared to Washington, which has primacy, and where the wait is about eight months, the governor said. “Without primacy, we are stuck with a cumbersome federal permitting program, run out of Seattle, that does not serve Alaska’s conditions or needs, and over which we have little or no control,” he said.
“Currently, the EPA decides how to apply Alaska’s water quality standard, priorities, process and scheduling. My proposal would give Alaskans the power to issue permits that reflect our priorities and unique conditions. In other words, permits that make sense to Alaska,” the governor said.
The legislation introduced by the governor provides that the Department of Environmental Conservation would file an application for NPDES primacy with the EPA by June 30, 2006. State has been working issue In the spring of 2002 the Legislature directed the department to evaluate the consequences of assuming primacy. The department issued a report in January 2004, and the governor assembled a working group of industry and local government officials to consider the costs and benefits of assuming primacy over NPDES permitting. That group finished its work in January with a general consensus to proceed.
The department said the group identified a number of potential benefits of state primacy, including time and cost savings to permit new facilities due to working with a single agency; permit requirements tailored to Alaska conditions; an appeals process where filing an appeal on a new permit does not automatically stay the entire permit; replacing time-consuming formal consultation processes with faster, less formal processes; Alaska-specific guidance documents; and the use of on-line permit applications and electronic data submittal.
The group also identified potential concerns, including: permit fees are expected to increase on average by a factor of 1.8; the state might not direct appropriate resources and funding to adequately implement the program; NPDES primacy could be temporary if future administrations and Legislatures do not support it; the state may not be able to hire and retain staff with the expertise to permit complex programs; responsibility to implement the NPDES program may come at the cost of other programs and priorities; and a state program may not provide the degree of certainty currently in place at EPA. Timber already authorized The department was authorized in 2004 to take action to assume primacy for the Clean Water Act NPDES program for the timber industry. This, the governor said in a transmittal letter accompanying the legislation, was recognized as “a good first step on the road to broader assumption of primacy for the NPDES program.”
The bill submitted in mid-February, the governor said, “would remove the timber-sector limitation … thereby allowing the DEC to take the actions necessary to assume primacy for all of the NPDES program delegable to the state.”
The bill also allows for financing of a portion of the state NPDES program through user fees.
The department said in a fiscal note that it projects a one-year effort, in fiscal year 2006, to complete development of the primacy application to EPA, with EPA review and approval the following year. The department would take over management of more than 2,300 permits, and said it “anticipates taking over permit issuance and compliance from EPA in a phased approach” as its own staff gains experience in the program.
The program would be supported, in part, by fees from users, owners/operators of facilities with wastewater discharges: municipal sewage treatment plants, utilities, mines, seafood processing plants, oil and gas operations, municipal storm water and construction projects with storm water discharges.
When the issue was before the Legislature in 2002, Fredriksson said, the regulated community, industry and municipalities, “wanted to know what it would cost, what would be the benefits.”
Cost is an issue because there is no fee for the federal permits. “EPA does not charge for their permits,” Fredriksson said, “they basically charge each and every taxpayer of the United States to run that permit program.” The state would use a combination of state general funds and program receipts, fees paid by those receiving permits.
Fredriksson said it is big projects that take some 31 months to get NPDES permits from the EPA, and the state should be able to reduce the time for big projects to 18 months.
There is some backlog, he said, “64 small community wastewater systems that are currently in some hiatus with the federal permitting process just because the … EPA doesn’t have the staff to really address some of those smaller operations.” Larger projects are either permitted or administratively extended. State would take responsibility for five components There are six components to the NPDES permit program, and it is proposed that the state take responsibility for five, excluding only the bio-solids management program which regulates disposal of sewage treatment byproducts or sludge. This is a small component of the NPDES program in Alaska, the department said in a fact sheet, and states have the option whether to take primacy for this part of the program.
The five components for which the state would take responsibility are: developing, issuing, modifying and renewing NPDES permits; permitting storm water discharges from construction and industrial activities as well as permitting storm water collected and discharged by large municipal storm sewer systems; compliance and enforcement; permitting discharges from federally owned facilities; and the pre-treatment program for regulating highly toxic discharges into sewage systems.
There are 2,132 authorizations in Alaska under general NPDES permits and 155 individual permits.
The department said it will require an additional $1.5 million a year to operate the program, with an estimated $300,000 per year coming from program receipts once the program is operational.
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