West Virginia Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program; Class VI Primacy

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 147</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2024-0357; FRL 12000-01-OW]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>West Virginia Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program; Class VI Primacy</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) has received a complete Underground Injection Control (UIC) program revision package from the State of West Virginia (State), requesting approval of a revision to the State's Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) section 1422 UIC program to include Class VI injection well primary enforcement responsibility (primacy). The proposed revision would allow the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) to issue UIC permits for geologic carbon sequestration facilities as Class VI wells and ensure compliance of Class VI wells under the UIC program. The EPA proposes to issue a final rule approving West Virginia's application to implement the UIC program for Class VI injection wells located within the State, except those on Indian lands. The EPA proposes amendments to reflect this proposed approval of West Virginia's Class VI primacy application. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before December 30, 2024. <E T="03"> Public hearing:</E> The EPA will hold a public hearing on December 30, 2024. Please refer to the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for additional information on the public hearing. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2024-0357 by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov/</E> (our preferred method). Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, Water Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004. The Docket Center's hours of operations are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday (except Federal Holidays). <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the Docket ID No. for this rulemaking. Comments received may be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/,</E> including personal information provided. For detailed instructions on sending comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the “Public Participation” heading of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Colin Dyroff, Drinking Water Infrastructure Development Division, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (4606M), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: (202) 564-3149; or Himanshu Vyas, Water Division, Source Water & UIC Section (3WD22), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 3, Four Penn Center, 1600 JFK Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19103; telephone number: (215) 814-2112. Both can be reached by emailing <E T="03">WVClassVI@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Written Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Participation in Public Hearing</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Public Participation Activities Conducted by West Virginia</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Introduction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. UIC Program and Primary Enforcement Authority (Primacy)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Class VI Wells Under the UIC Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. West Virginia UIC Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Legal Authorities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. The EPA's Evaluation of West Virginia's Program Revision Application</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Environmental Justice in Class VI Permitting</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Summary of the EPA's Comprehensive Evaluation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. The EPA's Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Class I-V Codification—No Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Statutory and Executive Orders Reviews</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 14094: Modernizing Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Executive Order 13132: Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From Environmental Health and Safety Risks</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Executive Order 13211: Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations and Executive Order 14096: Revitalizing Our Nation's Commitment to Environmental Justice for All</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. References</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Written Comments</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2024-0357, at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> (our preferred method), or the other methods identified in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from the docket. The EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit to the EPA's docket at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI), Proprietary Business Information (PBI), or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. If you need to submit CBI, contact Himanshu Vyas with the contact information available in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary submission ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). Please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets</E> for additional submission methods; the full EPA public comment policy; information about CBI, PBI, or multimedia submissions; and general guidance on making effective comments. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Participation in Public Hearing</HD> A public hearing is anticipated to be held on December 30, 2024. The EPA expects to announce the location, time of the hearing, as well as any updates made to any aspect of the hearing online at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-region-3-mid-atlantic#pn.</E> The hearing can also be attended virtually at <E T="03">https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1600637199.</E> While the EPA expects the hearing to go forward as set forth above, please monitor our website or contact Himanshu Vyas at (215) 814-2112 or <E T="03">WVClassVI@epa.gov</E> to determine if there are any updates or for additional information regarding the public hearing. The EPA does not intend to publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing updates. The EPA will begin pre-registering speakers for the hearing upon publication of this document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . To register to speak at the hearing, please contact Himanshu Vyas at (215) 814-2112 or <E T="03">WVClassVI@epa.gov</E> and indicate whether you will be attending in-person or virtually. The last day to pre-register to speak at the hearing will be December 23, 2024. Prior to the hearing, the EPA will post a general agenda for the hearing that will list pre-registered speakers in approximate order at: <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-region-3-mid-atlantic#pn.</E> The EPA will make every effort to follow the schedule as closely as possible on the day of the hearing; however, please plan for the hearings to run either ahead of schedule or behind schedule. Additionally, requests to speak will be taken the day of the hearing at the hearing registration desk. The EPA will make every effort to accommodate all speakers who arrive and register, although preferences on speaking times may not be able to be fulfilled. The EPA encourages commenters to provide the EPA with a copy of their oral testimony electronically by emailing it to <E T="03">WVClassVI@epa.gov.</E> The EPA also recommends submitting the text of your oral comments as written comments to the rulemaking docket. The EPA may ask clarifying questions during the oral presentations but will not respond to the presentations at that time. Written statements and supporting information submitted during the comment period will be considered with the same weight as oral comments and supporting information presented at the public hearing. The EPA will not provide audiovisual equipment for presentations unless we receive special requests in advance. Commenters should notify Himanshu Vyas when they pre-register to speak that they will need specific equipment. If you require the services of an inte ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 51k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━