# Response to Public Comments

Water Quality Standards for the State of Florida's Lakes and Flowing Waters

November 14, 2010

40 CFR Part 131
Docket #: EPA

- HQ

- OW

- 2009

- 0596i 

## Table of Contents

Introduction

................................................................................................ ................................................. iii

A. Methodology EPA Used to Sort and Code Public Comment Letters

.................................................. iv

B. Components of a Coded Comment Letter

.......................................................................................... v

C. Locating Your Comments and EPA’s Response in the Final Document

............................................. vi

Get Familiar with the Types of Tables in Chapter 1

............................................................................ vi

Find Comments and Responses

......................................................................................................... ix

Fictional Example

................................................................................................ ................................ ix

D. Duplicates and Attachments

............................................................................................................... xi

Duplicates

................................................................................................ ........................................... xi

Attachments

................................................................................................ ........................................ xi

Chapter 1 – Public Comment Process

Table 1 – Iss ue Categories

.................................................................................................................. 1-1

Table 2 – Issue Category Page Ranges and Chapter 2 File Names

.................................................... 1-7

Table 3 – Index of Comments by Author

............................................................................................ 1- 14

Table 4 – Index of Comments by Organization

.................................................................................. 1-85

Chapter 2

Public Hearings

................................................................................................ .................................... 2-1

General Support

................................................................................................ ................................ . 2- 14

General Opposition

.......................................................................................................................... 2- 925

Back ground Scope Comment

........................................................................................................ 2- 1109

I. General Information

.................................................................................................................... 2- 1489

II. Background

................................................................................................ ................................ 2- 1509

III.A. General Information

............................................................................................................... 2- 1944

III.B. Lakes

................................................................................................ ..................................... 2- 2616

III.C. Rivers and Streams

............................................................................................................... 2- 3048

III.D. Springs

................................................................................................ .................................. 2- 3953

III.E. Canals

................................................................................................ ................................... 2- 4050ii III.F. Comparison of EPA and FDEP Rules

.................................................................................... 2- 4281

III.G. Applicability

........................................................................................................................... 2- 4297

IV. Conditions

................................................................................................ ................................ . 2- 4446

V. Alternate Regulatory Approaches

.............................................................................................. 2- 4447

VI. Proposed Restoration Standards

.............................................................................................. 2- 4568

VII. Statutory and Executive Orders

............................................................................................... 2- 4653

Technical Support Document (TSD)

.............................................................................................. 2- 4698

40 CFR 131

................................................................................................ .................................... 2- 4774

Economics

................................................................................................ ..................................... 2- 4780

Duplicates

................................................................................................ ...................................... 2- 5199

SNODA

................................................................................................ .......................................... 2- 5268Introduction

iii 

# Introduction

On January 26, 2010 EPA published proposed Water Quality Standards for the State of Florida's Lakes and Flowing Waters . On August 3, 2010, EPA published a Supplemental Notice of Data Availability and Request for Comment (SNODA). Between the two efforts, EPA received more than 22,000 comments.

EPA coded public comment letter s submitted in response to the January 26, 2010 proposal using issue categories developed for the proposed rule. EPA also coded public comment letters submitted in response to the August 3, 2010 SNODA using new issue categories (all start with SNODA ).

The final response to comments document consists of the following:

**•** Introductory Chapter : Familiarizes commenters with the process EPA used to divide comments into similar issues for response; helps commenters learn how to find their comments

**•** Chapter 1: A tool for commenters to find their comments (similar to a table of contents)

**•** Chapter 2: Al l the public comments broken out into issue categories, along with EPA responses

This Introductory Chapter describes the following:

A. Methodology EPA used to sort and c ode p ublic comment l etters
B. Components of a coded comment l etter
C. Locating your comments and EPA’s response in the final d ocument
D. Duplicates and a ttachmentsIntroduction

iv 

## A. Methodology EPA Used to Sort and Code Public Comment Letters

In responding to public comments, EPA used the following methodology to sort and code comment letters into similar topics for response (see next page for an explanation of terms, if needed):

1. Reviewed each letter in its entirety and assigned each letter an Author ID.
2. Identified the major subjects addressed in each letter and assigned them to specific issue categories, resulting i n multiple comment IDs for most letters.
3. Drafted a response in each issue category, by comment ID.

a. Comments (comment IDs) were grouped for response based on similar issues. Responses were then provided for each group of similar issues.
b. Multiple responses might be included in a single issue category if there are multiple groups of issues.

c. If a comment ID applies to more than one group of issues in a single issue category, it will be responded to under each grouping.

In the next section, learn how your coded comment letter looks after it has been coded (so you can find your comment and its response). Note, your comment letter may have been split up into multiple comment IDs, which have associated responses.Introduction

v 

## B. Components of a Coded Comment Letter

The following diagram illustrates the components of a coded letter once they have been entered into the
comments database. Refer to the section below on Locating Your Comments and EPA’s Response in the
Final Document to learn how to find your comment and the respo nse.

Comment Letters with No Attachments

Comment ID: composed of the author ID and comment ID; a unique ID in the database to identify a particular comment Author ID (first four numbers) : Sequential numbering of comment letter authors Comment ID (last three numbers) : Sequential numbering of individual thoughts/comments within a letter Issue Category : Reflects the subject area addressed by the comment

Comment Letters with Attachments

If

your comment letter had an attachment, the numbering will look like the example below (for

attac hment 1).

Attachment Number: When multiple documents were submitted by an author at the same time, they were assigned an attachment numberIntroduction

vi 

## C. L ocating Your Comments and EPA’s Response in the Final Document

To locate comments and their associated responses, refer to the following discussion about tables you can use to find comments and steps you should take once you have the information you need from the tables. Note that the tables below are just excerpts of much larger tables and are only being used as examples. The tables appear in their entirety in Chapter 1.



### Get Familiar with the Types of Tables in Chapter 1

Table 1. Issue Categor ies : Comment ers can see which issue categories were used to parse comments into. The table is a listing of all issue categories used for coding (for both the proposed rule and SNODA). An example is provided below (an excerpt).Introduction

vii Table 2. Comments Sorted by Issue Category: Commenters can obtain the page numbers where the issue categories are located. An example of Table 2 is provided below. Table 2 lists the page range of the comments and responses in a particular issue category. The comments are grouped together at the beginning of the issue category and the responses are grouped together at the end of the issue category. Table 2 also indicates the name of the Chapter 2 file that the commenter should open to find their
comments and associa ted responses.

Issue Category Page Range: Page number range where the comments for a particular issue category and the associated responses
can be found within Chapter 2 Chapter 2 File Name: Indicates the file
name where the comments and associat ed responses are locatedIntroduction

viii Table 3 . Index of Commenters and Page Numbers (by Author Name) : Commenters should use this table to find their author ID(s) and the page numbers for their comments (by author name). The table is sorted alphabetically by last name and the author ID appears after the name in parentheses. An example
of Table 3 is listed below.

Table 4 . Index of Commenters and Page Numbers (by Organization) : If commenters are interested in searching for comments by organization, they should use Table 4 to find author ID(s) and the page numbers for the comments. The table is sorted alphabetically by organization and the author ID appears after the organization in parentheses. An example of Table 4 is listed below. Note that Table 4 contains the same information as Table 3, it is just formatted by organization (instead of individual author).Introduction

ix 

### Find Comments and Responses

1. Identify author IDs and page numbers for comments you are interested in (use Table 3 or Table 4 depending on if you are interested in searching by author name (Table 3) or organization name (Table 4) ). Make sure to look at the comment in case there are multiple people with the same first initial and last name

. a. If your comment was considered a duplicate you will need to find the parent letter ID by going to the Chapter 2 report for the issue categor ies DUP or SNODA.DUP . Once you find the comment ID of the parent letter, repeat step 1.
2. Compare author IDs and page numbers obtained from Tables 3 and 4 with Table 2 to determine which issue categories the comments are located in (based on page number).
3. Find the Chapter 2 report you are interested in (by issue category and page number). The f ile names of these Chapter 2 reports are listed in Table 2 as well.
4. Open the issue category report and search for the author ID. All responses are grouped at the end of each issue category.



### Fictional Example

To better understand how to find comments and EPA’s response to them, follow this fictional example. Using the excerpt of Table 3 above, T. Brant finds that his/her comments were assigned author IDs 0524, 0556, and 0901. Using the letter with the author ID 0901, T. Brant finds the associated page numbers for this letter to be pages 198, 1592, 1745, 1868 (twice), 3597, and 4953. This means that letter 0901 was parsed into 7 unique ideas that are coded under one or multiple issue categories (depending on the issues).

Using the excerpt of Table 2 above, T. Brant learns that those comment IDs were coded in issue categories GEN SUPP (page 198), II.A.2 (page 1592), II.D.1 (page 1745), II.D.2 (page 1868), etc.

T. Brant would then go to the Chapter 2 reports for these 4 example issue categories and search for his/her comments (using comment ID 0901 for the search). To find the appropriate report, use Table 2 (matches issue categories and file names). For example, Table 2 shows that issue category II.D.2 is
located i n the file called ‘1509

- 1943 - II.Background.pdf’. An example of what T. Brant’s comment 0901 looks like in Chapter 2 (issue category II.D.2, file name ‘1509

- 1943 - II.Background.pdf’) is below. Use the Search Function t o Find Your Comment

Comments and responses are in
Adobe PDF format. P erform searches for your comments and EPA’s

response using the s earch button

. Refer to the Docket for this rulemaking to view the comment letters in their entirety.Introduction

x Chapter 2, page 1868

For many issue category responses, EPA provides a call out for specific comment IDs. For other issue categories, a single response was provided to address all comment IDs. In this case, the comment ID will only appear in the comment section (and not be called out in the response). The example below shows how EPA responded to comment 0901.001.005. Note that all public comments are sorted by issue category in Chapter 2 (is broken into multiple reports by major issue categories because of file size). Responses are always at the end of each issue category.

Called out comment ID 0901. 001.005 in the response section in Chapter 2, page 1940 Chapter 2, page 1514Introduction

xi 

## D. Duplicates and Attachments

Duplicates

Note that comments were considered duplicates when the comment letter (not the attachment/data) was an exact duplicate of another comment letter (i.e., the parent letter ). All identified duplicates were coded under the issue category DUP or SNODA.DUP. For all duplicates EPA identified the comment ID of the parent letter. Note that only parent letters are coded under non duplicate issue categories.

Commenters whose comments appear under DUP or SNODA.DUP can find the response to their
comment under the issue category for the parent letter identified with their comment letter. Note that in some cases, cover letters were included under DUP.

In the example below, the commenter can find the response to their comments (identified as comment ID 0992.001.001) under the response generated for the letter with the comment ID 0973:

Comment ID 0992.001.001

This comment letter is a duplicate of another comment letter submitted to the docket. See
Comment ID 0973 for the coded comments.



### Attachments

Attachments that were considered additional data/information, and not a comment, were always coded into a designated issue category , as described below.

Issue Categories for Data/Information Data/Information Type Issue Category

**General**

– non waterbody

- type specific data/info rmation III.A.2.Q.2

**Lakes**

– additional data/info rmation on lakes III.B.5

**Rivers/Streams**

– additional data/information rivers/streams III.C.1.Q.1
**Springs/Clear Streams**

– additional data/info rmation on springs/clear streams III.D.3.Q.2

**Canals**

– additional data/info rmation on canals III.E.3.Q.2

**Data for SNODA**

– additional data submitted for the supplemental notice of data availability (SNODA) SNODA.DATA