COMMENTS ON NPDES DRAFT GENERAL PERMIT Texas Department of Agriculture

Pesticide Division

The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) commends EPA on the extensive work and thought given to the development of the draft general permit. TDA believes that the draft general permit provides a solid point of refe rence as well as being a good source of

information for individual states to use in making determinations and developing a general permit that will m eet the needs of users in the state without being unduly

burdensome.

TDA would offer the following comments for co nsideration that could improve selected areas of the draft general permit document:

1.1.1 Area-Wide Pest Control – 15 contiguous acres is a small area, especially in a state with the landmass as large as exists in Texas. The threshold limits should be significantly increased, at a minimum, but we would prefer that a state be given the flexibility and latitude to determine its own threshold values, as well as the criteria to use in setting those values. Most area-wide pest control efforts are required to conduct environmental impact statements prior to the implementation of the program. We would suggest the dele tion of the text “and in an area greater than 15 contiguous acres”.

1.2.2 Operators required to subm it a Notice of Intent (NOI) should only be based on threshold areas for the four designated pest icide use patterns. Otherwise, it is too confusing for the operators to determine whether or not they are required to

submit a NOI.

We would prefer that a state be given the flexibility and latitude to determine its own threshold values, as well as the criter ia to use in setting those values. We

would recommend deletion of this section in favor of the NOI being threshold driven only.

2.1.1 Determining the lowest effective amount of pesticide product per application to control the target pest while minimizing the potential for de velopment of pest resistance is difficult for most applicat ors. This data was accumulated by the pesticide registrant and was the source of the product label instructions. We suggest changing to “use lowest amount of product listed on the pesticide label for the target pest(s)”.

5.1.3 The actual brand name(s) and EPA Regist ration number(s) may not be available when the NOI is submitted. Many pesticide active ingredients are produced by multiple manufacturers, are sold under diffe rent brand names, and therefore have different EPA registration numbers. Ma ny entities must go through a bid process for purchasing and the products purchased may vary each time. It may be best tolist the active ingredient the entity exp ects to use. The brand name(s) and EPA Registration number(s) should be required in the record keep ing after the product has been applied.

6.3.1 The document states that once a permittee is informed of an adverse incident,

notification of EPA must occur. We would suggest modifying the definition for

adverse incident to be “means an incident, which you have observed upon inspection or of which you have been made aware in which a person or non-target organism suffered a toxic adverse effect”.

6.3.2 This section requires that th e adverse incident written re port should be sent to the state lead pesticide agenc y. The adverse incident written report should require that the report be sent to the permitting agency since they will most likely have jurisdiction if a violation occurred. The permitting agency can then include other agencies if necessary for enforcement.

7.0 Annual reporting – Pests controlled should be deleted. Pesticide applications occur in some states until the end of December. February 15 may not allow enough time to compile annual reports. March 1 would allow more time to

prepare reports.

Although we understand the need for some type of annual reporting requirement, we believe that this should be as simple as possible, and where possible require a total parameter, such as total amount of each product used and total area of discharge.

8.2 Recordkeeping – We suggest modification of this section to allow the permittee to maintain records of pesticide use consistent with their state law or regulations that require maintenance of pesticide applicat ion records. This would reduce adding additional requirements above what they are already doing.

In Texas, licensed commercial and nonc ommercial applicators must maintain application records of all pesticides applied. Licensed private and certified private applicators are require d to maintain application records of all restricteduse and state-limited-use pesticides and regulated herbicides applied.