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

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 122</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2021-0169; FRL-12219-02-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 of final modification. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finalizing, largely as proposed, a narrow modification to its 2022 Construction General Permit (CGP) to expand the list of areas eligible for coverage to include construction projects in all 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 these areas as a class. The modification also clarifies the CGP requirements that apply to projects that discharge to receiving waters within Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction in response to the Supreme Court's recent decision in <E T="03">City and County of San Francisco</E> v. <E T="03">EPA.</E> The permit modification and accompanying permit fact sheet can be found at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/npdes/2022-construction-general-permit-cgp.</E> </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> For EPA Regions 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, this final modification became effective on April 8, 2025. For EPA Regions 1 and 3, this final modification may become effective at a later date in accordance with the actions outlined in section IV of this document. In accordance with 40 CFR 23.2, this permit modification shall be considered issued for purposes of judicial review for EPA Regions 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 on April 8, 2025. For EPA Regions 1 and 3, the modification, if finalized, would be considered issued for purposes of judicial review on the date each Region, consistent with this notice of final modification, issues a final permit decision modifying the 2022 CGP, prior to its expiration. See section IV of this document for additional information on judicial review, permit appeal procedures, and challenges in the course of civil or criminal proceedings to enforce this permit. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2021-0169. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://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 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">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <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> <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. Who are the EPA regional contacts for this permit?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. 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 Final Modification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Effective Dates of Final Modification</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</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. Executive Order 13211: Actions That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</FP> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Information</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this action apply to me?</HD> This 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,nj,i1" CDEF="xs60,r100,23"> <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 of which the EPA is now aware 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 the person listed in the preceding <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section or the contact listed for the appropriate Region in the following section. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. 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 Puerto Rico, contact Sergio Bosques: Email at <E T="03">bosques.sergio@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 3, contact Shana Stephens: Email at <E T="03">stephens.shana@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 4, contact Michael Mitchell: Email at <E T="03">mitchell.michael@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 5, contact Krista McKim: Email at <E T="03">mckim.krista@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 6, contact Suzanna Perea: Email at: <E T="03">perea.suzanna@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 7, contact Mark Matthews: Email at: <E T="03">matthews.mark@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 8, contact Amy Maybach: Email at: <E T="03">maybach.amy@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 9, contact Eugene Bromley: Email at <E T="03">bromley.eugene@epa.gov.</E> For EPA Region 10, contact Jill Seale: Email at <E T="03">seale.jill@epa.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Permitting of Stormwater Discharges From Construction Activities</HD> Under Clean Water Act section 402(p)(2) and (p)(6) and 40 CFR 122.26(a)(1)(ii) and (a)(9)(i)(B), stormwater discharges from certain construction activities into waters of the United States must be authorized by a State or EPA-issued National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. 33 U.S.C. 1342(p)(2), (p)(6). More specifically, NPDES permits are required for discharges from projects that cause one or more acres of land disturbance and for discharges from smaller land disturbances that are part of a common plan of development or sale if the discharges will ultimately disturb one or more acres of land. Id.; 40 CFR 122.26(a)(9), (b)(14)(x), (b)(15). Under these authorities, since 1992 the EPA has issued an NPDES Construction General Permit for stormwater discharges from construction activities (referred to as the “CGP”). The CGP provides permit coverage in areas where the EPA is the NPDES permitting authority. The EPA issued its most recent CGP on February 17, 2022, for stormwater discharges from eligible construction projects in three States (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico); the District of Columbia; Federal facilities in four States (Washington, Colorado, Delaware, and Vermont); all U.S. territories, except the U.S. Virgin Islands; all Indian Country, except in Maine; and Denali National Park and Preserve. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The EPA is also the permitting authority for stormwater discharges from regulated construction activities that take place on all “Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction.”  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  87 FR 3522 (January 24, 2022); 2022 CGP, Appendix B, available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2022-01/2022-cgp-final-appendix-b-areas-of-permit-cover.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  33 U.S.C. 1342(a), (b) (providing that the EPA shall issue permits for the discharges of pollutants unless a State receives approval to administer its own permit program “for discharges into navigable waters within its jurisdiction”). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Background on Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Definition of Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction</HD> Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction are lands in ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 40k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━