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Tennessee UIC Primacy Public Hearing

L&C Tower, 17th Floor, Conference Room B 

401 Church Street, Nashville, Tennessee

June 7, 2012 - 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. CDT

Opening Statement:

Good afternoon and welcome! My name is Fred McManus, Chief of the Ground Water and Safe 

Drinking Water Act Enforcement Section, of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4 in 

Atlanta, Georgia. And attending with me today is Nancy Marsh, Environmental Engineer on my staff and 

she has primary responsibility for coordinating the review of Tennessee’s Department of Environment 

primacy application. So Nancy thank you for coming up here with me today. Nancy did a lot of work 

setting this up, so thank you for all of your work.

EPA is conducting a public hearing today on the State of Tennessee’s application to obtain primacy 

enforcement authority for the underground injection control or UIC program. The notice of a complete 

primacy application was published in the Federal Register on May 3, 2012. Tennessee is seeking 

primacy for Class I, II, III, IV and V wells, but not Class VI wells (Class VI are those wells that inject 

carbon dioxide). 

Comments received today and all written comments received by the deadline of June 14, 2012, will be 

considered by EPA in making its decision and will become part of the administrative record. 

Notice of this public hearing and the comment period was provided in the previously mentioned May 3, 

2012, Federal Register and the announcement was published in newspapers in Knoxville, Memphis and 

Nashville. We also mailed or emailed the announcement to other interested parties. The purpose of this 

public hearing is to allow interested persons the opportunity to make oral or submit written 

comments on Tennessee’s UIC primacy application.

For your information, I would like to provide a brief description of the next steps in the process to finalize

Tennessee’s primacy application: first, EPA will compile all public comments and share them with State

of Tennessee; next, to the extent possible, Region 4 will work with the State to revise the primacy 

application to address the public comments received; next, Region 4 will forward the final primacy 

application to EPA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. for review, along with Region 4’s recommendation 

to approve or disapprove the application; then, EPA will initiate rule-making to approve or disapprove the 

application; and we are also going to finally, EPA’s decision will be published in the Federal Register as 

well as the newspapers mentioned previously. In addition, a responsiveness summary of all oral and 

written comments received by the EPA will be included in the administrative record and transmitted to 

those who testified and others that request the summary.

Before we proceed with the receiving of oral and written comments, I would like to ask everyone here who

did not register, there is a signup sheet on that that side of the room in the back before entering the 

conference room, to please do so before you leave. 
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This hearing is being recorded by video and audio recording devices. We will hold the transcript of the 

hearing as well as any written comments received as a matter of public record at the EPA Regional Office 

in Atlanta; this information will be part of the administrative record. This hearing will be conducted 

informally; therefore, formal rules of evidence will not apply and both written and oral comments will be 

accepted. Any and all persons present and desiring to make oral comments or submit written comments 

will be allowed to do so. And normally in these circumstances we allow 5 minutes per commenter, but 

Nancy I think we have only 1 person who signed up to give comments today so, in that case I’m going to 

extend that 5 minute period up to 10 minutes

I will ask each person making a statement to step up to the microphone when I call out your name. Please 

not that the audience will not be permitted to ask questions of those persons commenting. The EPA 

representatives may ask questions of those presenting comments only when it is felt necessary to clarify 

the nature of the comments. I ask that you state your name for the record, spell it if necessary, and state 

your interest or the organization you are representing. 

There is no opportunity for questions and answers in an official EPA public hearing such as this. And 

what we talked about is having a informal question and answer session after this public comment period 

we spoken with Mr. Pickeny and I think that Mr. Pickney you have given us the information that you 

wanted to give to us today you will be submitting it is my understanding written comments with that one 

specific question that you did mention to Nancy and I. So if no one else and there are no other commenters

and Mr. Pickney it is still OK with you we will forgo that informal question and answer session after the 

public hearing.

Before we proceed with oral comments, I would like to recognize any local, state or national elected 

officials and then of course any of the TDEC officials that are present today who would like to make a 

statement. (Pause given)

Now we’ll proceed with the statements of registered persons who would like to make comments. 

As you come forward, please remember to state your name, spell it if necessary, and state your interest or 

the organization you are representing.

COMMENTS FROM AUDIENCE: Hearing Officer calls the names of those registered to make oral 

comments.

Mr. Bob Pickney:

My name is Bob Pickney I’m the chief technical officer of the Deems Group and also Chairman of the 

technical review committee of the Tennessee Wastewater Industry Group.

We appreciate the opportunity to make our comments today. And for you all to accommodate us. It was 

very nice of you. 

I guess I want to make a statement or two to lead into this.

Tennessee currently has I guess a little bit convoluted method of protecting the ground water. We 

currently have three divisions. The ground water protection division as their name implies protection of 

ground water. They typical permit the small commercial residential septic systems.
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We have Water Pollution Control who has, at least in their minds, primacy of all waters of the state of 

Tennessee ground water and stream water and then we have the UIC program which has the charge of the 

drinking water protection. 

By coincidence all three divisions claim all the water of the state of Tennessee for all practical purposes. 

So they are all regulating the identical water in different ways.

The main challenge/problem/conflict with the Tennessee wastewater industry group is we are now having 

2 permits for every system we build. We believe decentralized systems has its permit through ground 

water. We have a ground water permit followed by a UIC permit. We do a decentralized pressure 

compensating drip system that has a water pollution control permit followed by a UIC permit.

We feel that it is certainly improper and unwarranted to have 2 permits for the same system to protect the 

same resource.

That’s the bottom line to what we object to in the program. Now I understand that this may not be an EPA 

issue, certainly having a double permits certainly does not meet the EPA intent with the prescribed 

primacy requirements.

The main challenge that we had is actually having input into the EPA UIC Program here in Tennessee. We 

have really had n notice during the development of regulations, promulgation of regulations and then we 

fell like there has been disinformation along the way. 

The main challenge that we see is that Tennessee has chosen the double permitting route when it would 

have been just as acceptable to EPA to simply have an inventory of all systems. 

We believe, and we do, that ground water protection issues a valid permit that protects the ground water. 

That there is absolutely not need to issue a separate UIC permit to do that same thing. So to simply have an 

inventory of all ground water permits that meet the UIC requirements, i.e., serves twenty people or more 

would have been acceptable. And we wouldn’t have 2 agencies permitting the same activity and charging 

two fees for that activity for each agency.

Likewise Water pollution control permits all of the decentralized systems, we have small ones that serve 

three of four homes to big ones that serve several thousand homes, but they again issue state operating 

permits that are protective of the ground water, protective of drinking water source and certainly cover the 

???. We like these too should have been permitted by rule and simply and inventory of these systems 

maintained. There is no need, should be no need to permit again a decentralized fluid distribution system 

by two divisions of the state of Tennessee. 

Question that we are going to ask in writing is what is the requirements that EPA has, i.e., do you have to 

have a separate permitting program or simply an inventory of all of these systems that are permitted by 

other agencies would be acceptable. We plan to submit that definition in writing. 

In conclusion, I guess the main problem that we’ve had, and continue to have, is that the Water Quality 

Board was told that this was a requirement by EPA that we have to double permit systems. We do not 

believe that this is the case. It’s just that simple. So we are going to try to get that resolved. And we 
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understand the Commission’s office is involved with this in trying to understand all of the issues in play. 

But it makes no sense financially to have two agencies or three agencies doing the same work times 2 and 

then charging permits time two. 

So, in a nutshell that’s our interest we understand that it may not be directly to your primacy case, but we 

think they are important and we want to get this, I guess, on the record and in play. 

That’s all I have.

Is there anyone else who would like to comment?, OK

END OF COMMENTS*******************************************

The Hearing Officer asks Mr. Pickney do you or does anyone else in the room are your aware of any other 

person that is planning to attend this public hearing today and make comments?

Mr. Pickney replied “not that I am aware of”. 

Hearing Officer: Anyone else aware of any person that might wish to make comments. Ok

I think, you Nancy we are going to stick around for awhile so if someone else does happen to show up we 

will be here until at least 2:00 and may be later.

 

Closing Statement:

I want to thank each of you for your participation in this public hearing. The comments received today will 

be carefully considered and evaluated as we make our determination regarding the proposed action. We 

will hold the hearing record open to allow for written comments until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 

Thursday, June 14, 2012. Therefore, if you did not comment and wish to do so, there’s still ample 

opportunity to submit written comments. All those that submit written comments by the deadline or 

otherwise make a request, will have their names added to our mailing list and will be notified concerning 

future actions on this proposed action. Comments may be sent to Nancy Marsh or preferably submitted 

through www.regulations.gov, the docket number appears on the website.

Nancy Marsh: Docket Number is on the notice in the back.

Hearing Officer: and Nancy brought several copies of the Federal Register Notice and that is what she is 

speaking of and the information with this website is on that piece of paper.

Thank you again for your participation. This hearing is adjourned at 1:16 p.m. CDT.