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

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 147</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2024-0357; FRL 12000-02-OW]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>West Virginia Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program; Class VI Primacy</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is approving an application from the State of West Virginia (the State) to revise the State's Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) section 1422 underground injection control (UIC) program to include Class VI injection well primary enforcement authority (primacy). This final rule allows 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 will remain the permitting authority for all well classes in Indian lands within the State and will also oversee West Virginia's administration of its UIC Class VI program as authorized under SDWA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on March 28, 2025. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of March 28, 2025. For judicial purposes, this final rule is promulgated as of February 26, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2024-0357. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> confidential business information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically through <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> . <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. 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 Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Legal Authorities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. West Virginia's Application for Class VI Primacy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Public Participation Activities Conducted by West Virginia</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Summary of the EPA's Comprehensive Evaluation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Public Participation Activities Conducted by the EPA</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Public Comments and the EPA's Response</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Public Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. The EPA's Response to Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. The EPA's 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</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. Congressional Review Act (CRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. References</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. UIC Program and Primary Enforcement Authority (Primacy)</HD> The SDWA protects public health by regulating the nation's public drinking water supply, including both surface and groundwater sources. The SDWA requires the EPA to develop requirements for effective state and Tribal UIC programs to prevent underground injection of fluids (such as water, wastewater, brines from oil and gas production, and carbon dioxide) from endangering underground sources of drinking water (USDWs). In general, USDWs are aquifers or parts of aquifers that supply a public water system or contain enough groundwater to supply a public water system. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 144.3. The UIC program regulates various aspects of an injection well project. These include technical aspects throughout the lifetime of the project from site characterization, construction, operation, and testing and monitoring through site closure, as well as permitting, site inspections, reporting, and enforcement to ensure well owners and operators comply with UIC regulations. SDWA section 1421 directs the EPA to establish requirements that states, territories, and federally recognized Tribes (hereafter referred to as primacy applicants) must meet to be approved for primary enforcement responsibility or “primacy” for implementing a UIC program, including a Class VI program. A primacy applicant seeking primacy under SDWA section 1422 for a Class VI program must demonstrate to the EPA that the primacy applicant's Class VI program meets the Federal requirements, including requirements for permitting, technical criteria and standards for injection wells, compliance evaluation programs, and enforcement authority, and is protective of USDWs. A primacy applicant agency must also demonstrate jurisdiction over underground injection and the administrative, civil, and criminal enforcement authorities required by the SDWA and EPA regulation. After the EPA approves a primacy applicant for UIC primacy, the primacy applicant's UIC program may be revised with EPA approval. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 145.32. When an applicant that already has primacy under SDWA section 1422 seeks to add Class VI primacy to its existing program, the application and review process takes the form of a program revision. The EPA conducts a comprehensive technical and legal evaluation of each primacy application to assess and confirm that the proposed program meets Federal regulatory requirements and to evaluate the effectiveness of the primacy applicant's proposed program. The EPA likewise conducts a comprehensive evaluation of a proposed revision to an existing UIC program, particularly a revision as substantial as adding Class VI primacy. West Virginia's Class VI application included the following elements: West Virginia's Class VI-related UIC statutes and regulations; documents describing West Virginia's public participation process when adopting its proposed Class VI program; a letter from the Governor of West Virginia requesting Class VI primacy; a Program Description that explains how the State intends to carry out its Class VI responsibilities; a state Attorney General's Class VI statement of enforcement authority; an interagency Memorandum of Agreement between the West Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the West Virginia Geologic and Economic Survey (WVGES); an interagency Memorandum of Agreement between the West Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the West Virginia Department of Health; and an amended addendum to the existing UIC Memorandum of Agreement between the EPA and West Virginia describing the administration, implementation, and enforcement of the West Virginia's Class VI program. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Class VI Wells Under the UIC Program</HD> Class VI wells are used to inject carbon dioxide into deep rock formations for the purpose of long-term underground storage, also known as geologic sequestration. The geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide through UIC Class VI wells is used in carbon capture and storage to prevent carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources from reaching the atmosphere. Class VI injection wells are regulated under an existing, rigorous SDWA permitting framework that protects USDWs. The UIC Class VI program provides multiple safeguards that work together to protect USDWs and human health. Owners or operators that wish to inject carbon dioxide underground for the purpose of geologic sequestration must demonstrate that their injection well and related injection activities will meet all UIC regulatory requirements and receive a Class VI permit for each injection well. The UIC Class VI program requires permit applicants to meet strict technical, financial, and managerial requirements to obtain a Class VI permit, including: <FP SOURCE="FP-1">—Site characterization to ensure the geology in the project area will contain the carbon dioxide within the zone where it will be injected;</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">—Modeling to delineate the predicted area influenced by injection activities through the lifetime of oper ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 46k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━