Modification to 2022 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Construction General Permit (CGP) for Stormwater Discharges From Construction Activities

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 122</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2021-0169; FRL-12219-01-OW]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Modification to 2022 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Construction General Permit (CGP) for Stormwater Discharges From Construction Activities</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification; request for public comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing a narrow modification to its 2022 CGP to expand the list of areas eligible for coverage to include construction projects in Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction. This modification is necessary because the EPA is the permitting authority in Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction, and when the CGP was issued on February 17, 2022, the permit did not specifically provide eligibility for all of these areas. The proposed modification would also clarify the CGP requirements that apply to projects that discharge to receiving waters within Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction. The EPA seeks comment only on the proposed permit revisions and the accompanying fact sheet. The fact sheet and proposed permit modification can be found at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater-discharges-construction-activities.</E> </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the proposed permit modification must be received on or before January 13, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2021-0169, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, Office of 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> Greg Schaner, EPA Headquarters, Office of Water, Office of Wastewater Management at (202) 564-0721 or by email at <E T="03">schaner.greg@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This section is organized as follows: <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. General Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Does this action apply to me?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Finalizing the Proposed Permit Modification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Who are the EPA Regional Contacts for This Permit?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Permit Modification Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Permitting of Stormwater Discharges From Construction Activities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Background on Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Why is a Modification to the 2022 CGP Necessary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Summary of Proposed Permit Changes</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Public Notice of Clean Water Act Section 401 Certification for Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. 2022 CGP Incremental Cost Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 14094: Modernizing Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. 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">IX. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">X. Executive Order 13211: Actions That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">XI. Compliance With the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) General Permit for Discharges from Construction Activities </FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Information</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this action apply to me?</HD> This proposed permit modification covers the following entities, as categorized in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), where they are conducting construction activities in Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction: <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="xs72,r50,23"> <TTITLE>Table 1—Entities Covered by This Proposed Permit</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Category</CHED> <CHED H="1">Examples of affected entities</CHED> <CHED H="1"> North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code </CHED> <ROW RUL="n,s"> <ENT I="01">Industry</ENT> <ENT A="L01">Construction site operators disturbing one or more acres of land, or less than one acre but part of a larger common plan of development or sale if the larger common plan will ultimately disturb one acre or more, and performing the following activities:</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="22"> </ENT> <ENT>Construction of Buildings</ENT> <ENT>Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction</ENT> <ENT>237</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The EPA does not intend the preceding table to be exhaustive but provides it as a guide for readers regarding the types of activities the EPA is now aware of that could potentially be affected by this action. Other types of entities not listed in the table could also be affected. To determine whether your site is covered by this action, you should carefully examine the definition of “construction activity” and “small construction activity” in the existing EPA regulations at 40 CFR 122.26(b)(14)(x) and (b)(15), respectively. If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult one of the persons listed for technical information in the preceding <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Public Participation</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Written Comments</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2021-0169, 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. 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="HD3">2. Will public hearings be held on this action?</HD> The EPA has not scheduled any public hearings to receive public comment concerning the proposed 2022 CGP modification. However, interested persons may request a public hearing concerning the proposed 2022 CGP modification pursuant to 40 CFR 124.12. Requests for a public hearing must be sent or delivered in writing to the same address as provided above for public comments prior to the close of the comment period. Requests for a public hearing must state the nature of the issues proposed to be raised in the hearing. Pursuant to 40 CFR 124.12, the EPA shall hold a public hearing if it finds, on the basis of requests, a significant degree of public interest in a public hearing on the proposed 2022 CGP modification. If the EPA decides to hold a public hearing, a public notice of the date, time, and place of the hearing will be made at least 30 days prior to the hearing. Any person may provide written or oral statements and data pertaining to the proposed 2022 CGP modification at any such public hearing. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Finalizing the Proposed Permit Modification</HD> After the comment period closes, the EPA intends to issue a final modification to the 2022 CGP sometime in early 2025. The EPA's responses to public comments received will be included in the docket as part of the final permit issuance. Once the final modification becomes effective, eligible operators of construction projects within Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction may obtain coverage under the 2022 CGP. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Who are the EPA regional contacts for this permit?</HD> For EPA Region 1, contact Meridith Finegan: Email at <E T="03">finegan.meridith@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 2, contact Sieglinde Pylypchuk: Email at <E T="03">pylypchuk.sieglinde@epa.gov,</E> or for ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 37k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━