In May, E-Enterprise for the Environment hosted a webinar to spotlight work by states and EPA related to the development and deployment of various National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting applications and workflows.
The workshop featured:
Nevada: An overview of Nevada’s Division of Environmental Protection (DEP) state-developed E-Permitting system and NetDMR system. The NetDMR system builds on initial work from Texas using Exchange Network funding. Nevada has built and deployed its own E-Permitting system that gathers state and federal NPDES permit information and can flow federal NPDES permit information to EPA. Regulated entities may then use NetDMR to provide Discharge Monitoring Reports. The system went live six to seven years ago, includes validations for data fields, allows for simultaneous peer review, and can compare permit limits to reported limits. The code is available to other states. Speakers: Andrew Dixon, Stormwater Supervisor, Stormwater Branch, Bureau of Water Pollution Control, and Gursharan Gill, Lead Systems Developer, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.
EPA Office of Water (OW): An overview of the revised EPA OW NPDES Individual Permit Application forms stemming from the February 2019 NPDES Updates Rule. OW also provided an overview of its current work to enable users to fill, sign, and submit these revised forms electronically (i.e., via web-based interfaces). Speakers: Kevin Weiss, Chief of the National Program Branch, Water Permits Division, and Pravin Rana, Project Manager, Office of Water Project Management Office, OW.
EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) and Rhode Island: A review of EPA OECA’s NeT reporting tool for NPDES general permits and program reports such as the Construction General Permit and Multi-Sector General Permit. Speakers included staff from Rhode Island who discussed efforts working with EPA to develop the first state-specific general permit application in NeT (see related story). OECA discussed additional plans to build other IT applications in NeT and to expose tools through the E-Enterprise portal. Speakers: Randy Hill, Director, Enforcement Targeting and Data Division, OECA, and Joe Haberek, PE Supervising Sanitary Engineer, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Office of Water Resources.
For more information, please contact Beth Graves of ECOS and Sarah Abramowitz of Ross Strategic.