RE: Working Draft EPA's NPDES Pesticides General Permit

Alan Tinney to: Jack Faulk 01/25/2010 03:01 PM

Cc: Tom Porta, Jon Palm, Alex Lanza , Jeryl Gardner, Charles 

Moses

Jack,

As per your request below, please consider the following comments to the 

"Working Draft EPA's NPDES Pesticides General Permit" from the Nevada Division 

of Environmental Protection (NDEP):

1- NDEP reserves the right to comment on the proposed "Working Draft EPA's 

NPDES Pesticides General Permit" at a future date based on the following 

information:

 a- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not provide all 

the pertinent documents associated with this 

NPDES permit in order for NDEP for proper revision and 

comments. For example, a Factsheet, which 

is an essential document to the permit, was not made 

available.

 b- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not provide NDEP 

with proper turn around time in order for the Division to 

make meaningful comments.

2- After reading the proposed document, NDEP is not clear about how 

"drift" situations will be addressed or if will be included in the permit.

 a- NDEP would like to know more about EPA's reasoning on the 

"drift" issue and how it will be addressed in or 

excluded from the permit.

 b- "Drift" seems to be against recommended use in all pesticide 

labels prohibit drift or request that applicators 

"avoid' drift, yet we know that some unintentional 

drift does occur.

 c- In some instances we can prevent drift, utilizing best 

management practices - BMPs. 

3- The short turn-around time for comments does not allow NDEP enough time to 

determine if treatment area thresholds established are reasonable and 

workable.

4- The short turn-around time for comments does not allow NDEP enough time to 

determine if other criteria might be more suitable for those entities required 

to file NOI's.

5- The short turn-around time for comments does not allow NDEP enough time to 

research the validity of scientific claims and rational on which this permit 

is based.

6- NDEP believes that "Tier - 3" prohibitions included in this permit are too 

restrictive and EPA should make provisions for reasonable alternatives to 

working in such areas. The same reasoning applies to working in or near "303d 

listed" waters.
7- NDEP believes that establishing uniform monitoring, reporting and record 

keeping formats will be challenging.

8- NDEP believes that all different regulated industry groups - manufacturers, 

local regulatory agencies, department of agriculture, NRCS and applicators - 

should also be involved and fully considered when developing this program.

9- NDEP believes that "Aquatic Nuisance Animal Control" activities as defined 

in part 1.1.1 of the proposed "Working Draft EPA's NPDES Pesticides General 

Permit" should be left out of the permit.

Thanks

Alan Tinney, P.E.

Nevada Division of Environmental Protection

Bureau of Water Pollution Control

901 South Stewart Street

Carson City, NV 89701

Phone: 775-687-9414

email: atinney@ndep.nv.gov

-----Original Message-----

From: Faulk.Jack@epamail.epa.gov [mailto:Faulk.Jack@epamail.epa.gov] 

Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 3:48 PM

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Subject: Working Draft EPA's NPDES Pesticides General Permit

All,

Attached is a copy of EPA's current working draft NPDES Pesticides

General Permit (PGP) for your review and comment. First, we ask that

you not share this draft, either electronically or in paper form, with

others. This permit, by nature of the discharge, is not a typical NPDES

permit and, as you know, we are working through some challenging issues.

Until we feel comfortable with our approach, we'd prefer not to have to

discuss the details of our working drafts with entities outside of our

co-regulator family. We hope to receive that input from you directly!

We will be public noticing the draft permit around the end of April 2010

at which point anybody and everybody, including states, will have an

opportunity to review and comment on that version of the permit. We do

not have a copy of the permit fact sheet to share with you. The permit

writing has been quite a dynamic process and trying to keep up with a

fact sheet has not been so successful. We hope, although cannot

guarantee, to be able to share a copy of a draft fact sheet with you at

some point before issuance of the permit. Thanks for your

understanding.

Tomorrow, January 14, from 1-3 pm eastern time, we will be discussing

this permit on a free webcast, to prepare folks for reviewing the permit

and for participating in our two-day face-to-face meeting in Dallas On

January 20-21. If you have not yet done so, you can register to

participate in the webcast (must be done in advance) at

http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=183080&s=1&k=17604CA8BF94523AA10DE0009E2B2EFF

. You can register for the meeting in Dallas at

http://www.tetratech-ffx.com/npdes_pesticides/.

We would like your comments on this working draft but ask that you

submit those comments electronically no later than close of business

Monday, January 25, 2010. Please send those comments to me at

faulk.jack@epa.gov. We plan to read and consider all comments we

receive from you by that time. We will also be documenting the

discussion in Dallas and considering those comments as well.

One additional item to consider. This permit includes several comments

asking for your specific input on certain permit language. If you have

limited time for which to review the permit, we would ask that you at

least take a look at those few comments and provide your thoughts on

those.

Thanks for your patience and understanding and enjoy your reading.

(See attached file: PGP working draft 011310 pm.doc)

Jack
Water Permits Division

US Environmental Protection Agency

EPA East (4203M)

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20460

Telephone (202) 564-0768

Fax (202) 564-6431