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DRAFT – 1/22/10 

Office of the Indiana State Chemist (OISC) comments on the EPA deliberative draft 

Pesticide General Permit (PGP) dated January 13, 2010. 

OISC is the pesticide state lead agency for the State of Indiana. We have operated under a 

pesticide cooperative agreement with the US EPA for approximately thirty years. Most of 

the following comments are intended to reflect our experience during that time period 

regulating the industries and individuals that will ultimately be impacted by this 

permitting program. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this document. 

The document is, in general, a reasonable attempt to provide a general permit process that 

will provide for pesticide applications to, over and near waters of the United States in a 

way that meets the requirements of the Clean Water Act. If there is one theme to 

characterize the intent of many of our following comments it is “simpler is better.” It has 

been our experience that a rule/permit of this scope requires a great deal of voluntary 

compliance to achieve its stated goal. That having been said, the EPA should take 

advantage of every opportunity to make the PGP as simple and as straightforward as 

possible. That will help minimize frustration and confusion for both impacted pesticide 

applicators and implementing/enforcing agencies. 

1.1.1 Activities Covered 

 

It should be made clear in this section or in the definitions section whether you 

intend to include in your definition of covered pesticides items such as pond 

dyes/colorants and barley straw used for algae control, vinegar used for weed 

control, and a variety of home remedies that are not labeled or marketed as 

pesticides but may be used as such. These items probably meet the criteria as a 

pollutant under CWA, but may fall out of the FIFRA definition and regulatory 

scheme. 

 As written, it appears that the EPA has decided to limit the PGP to four activities, 

or pesticide use patterns. Pesticide applications other than these that result in 

discharges to waters of the US (other than through drift, ag storm water runoff, 

and irrigation return water) would apparently require individual permits. 

Although, delegated states can expand their PGPs to include these other activities, 

USEPA should reconsider their approach and provide for an “other” category that 

will cover pesticide applications not otherwise specified. Of particular concern are 

grassed waterways in farm fields and ditches at the edge of farm fields. We need 

to clarify whether grass waterways are considered ditches or better yet more 

clearly define ditches. 
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The term ditches is used under two of the currently stated activities/use patterns. 

We suggest clarifying that coverage does not apply to application to ditches that 

do not contain water at the time of application and does not apply to application to 

ditches and other areas where the pesticide will not enter the water by force of 

gravity at the time of application. 

It is not a good idea to not include other pesticide applications that could enter 

waters of the US since these would then be subject to individual permits or 

violations of the CWA.This is especially applicable to the issue of homeowner’s, 

private property owners other than farms and ranches, etc. If these entities are not 

included in the PGP,albeit without NOI, reporting ,IPM , etc. requirements, any 

applications they make to waters of the US are illegal without an individual 

permit. The USEPA hopefully does not want to make applications that are 

allowed under FIFRA to become illegal under the CWA and subject potentially 

millions of people to prosecution under the CWA for otherwise legal pesticide 

applications. 

1.1.2.4 Endangered and threatened species... 

We note that this entry has been provided as merely an example, but it must be far 

simpler and much more straightforward if left in, otherwise it will be ignored. 

1.2.2. Operators required to submit a Notice of Intent – 

Delete the first four bulleted items. The rational for filing an NOI and then all that is 

required after that should be based on thresholds, not the ability of the applicator/operator 

to perform that required activity. It is way too convoluted as presented. Any of the 

currently listed bulleted entities should be allowed to file an NOI and then do all of the 

other activities that kick in as a result of filing if they so choose. However, these entities 

should not be required to do so just because of who they are. A city or town may wish to 

jump through all of the hoops for purposes of limiting their liability or public perception, 

and that is OK. But the folks we most want to track, monitor, and insure compliance for 

are the pesticide users who exceed the thresholds. The proposed requirements are too 

broad as presented. This permit would be much simpler and much more straight forward 

if you just establish acceptable thresholds and stick with them. The rationale is also much 

more practical. 

 In addition, the proposed requirement of a threshold of 640 acres total treatment, to 

include terrestrial application, any portion of which results in a discharge to waters of the 

US is way too broad. For example, there are commercial pest control applicators who 

perform mosquito control applications for private landowners, property owner’s 

associations, resorts, etc. These companies can easily total more than 640 acres treatment 

in a year of terrestrial applications. In the event that these companies occasionally make 

applications of larvacides as part of their operation, they would then be required to file an 
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NOI. This requirement would result in the perverse result of discouraging mosquito 

control applicators from using larvacides, in order to avoid triggering these requirements. 

The proposed threshold level is too low – should be 1000 acres of application to or over 

jurisdictional waters.As proposed, too many persons will be required to file an NOI. 

2.1. Minimize pesticide discharges... 

We understand and agree with the concept of doing everything possible to minimize 

discharges. But frankly terms like “minimize”, “to the extent achievable”, and 

“economically practicable” are all vague, subjective, and ultimately unenforceable. 

As long as we understand and accept that these are goals and not real measuring sticks for 

compliance, I guess they are OK. 

2.1.1 thru 2.1.3

Identifying maintenance and calibration schedules is a good thing but also difficult to 

enforce. The people that need those things the most are also the ones that will just pencil 

whip a record keeping form. In addition, maintenance and calibration schedules are going 

to be very dependant on frequency of use of equipment. What if I use my equipment 

every day but use that equipment around water only one day ever two months? Does my 

schedule apply only to the water applications? We need to make that clear if we leave this 

in the permit. 

2.2.1.1 Identify the problem 

 The definition of “treatment area” needs to be based on the area of responsibility of the 

entity required to meet this condition of the permit. For example, if the “treatment area” 

for a mosquito control district is the area encompassed by the district, or subunits 

determined by the district, this is workable. If the “treatment area” is the area for each 

individual treatment, this becomes unworkable. If interpreted this way, the permit 

conditions would result in a major increase in record keeping and documentation 

workload, and would not provide any useful information for the regulatory programs 

charged with oversight in this area. 

Again, if the regulatory requirements for larvaciding (collective low environmental 

impact) become too onerous we will drive operators to adulticiding (collective higher 

environmental impact). 

2.2.1.3 – Pesticide Use – 

Sections 2.2.1.3.1 – 2.2.1.3.3 – acceptable. We support this language. 
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Section 2.2.1.3.4 – The use of the term “primary” is not acceptable. This creates a permit 

condition that requires mosquito control operators to establish larvaciding as the basis of 

their control program. Larvaciding is not appropriate control methodology in many 

situations, and is only appropriate when integrated pest management practices result in 

the selection of larvaciding as the appropriate methodology, and, more specifically, 

selects the locations, timing, rates, etc. 

It would be much more logical to use the term “preferred” control “where practicable and 

effective”. 

Requiring larvaciding as a condition of the permit could have two unintended 

consequences: 

1. Districts may select to only conduct terrestrial ULV applications to avoid having 

any regulated discharge to waters of the US, and therefore not have to meet the 

conditions of the PGP. This could result in increases in the total amount of the 

adulticides applied in a district. The fact that larvacides cost anywhere from 10 

times to 100 times more that adulticides to apply will drive this process. 

2. Districts may be required to use larvaciding in ways that are not appropriate if 

IPM principles are considered. For example, areas may be treated where 

application of larvacides is a marginally effective practice, or, at times when it is 

not most effective, in order to meet the requirement that larvaciding is the 

“primary” method. This will result in a waste of public resources, as well as 

result in the need to still conduct adulticiding operations. This could result in an 

overall degradation in the quality of the mosquito control provided to a 

community for no good purpose. 

The language should be modified to clarify that larvaciding is not required to be the 

“primary” method of mosquito control, but a preferred method when effective. 

4.0 Site Monitoring 

If a state has a regulatory program that provides for spot checking of applicators during 

the application process to insure compliance with the targeted water protection activities, 

including monitoring these provisions should be recognized and allowed under the 

permitting program. 

In addition, the permit must make it clear that monitoring for observable adverse effects 

applies only to aquatic adverse effects, not terrestrial adverse effects completely 

disassociated with the water part of the pesticide application.
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5.0 Pesticide Discharge Management Plan 

In general, we support and understand the need for a PDMP. However, if we make the 

requirement too cumbersome and too vague it will evolve into a paper plan that is 

developed for the sake of having a plan but never gets implemented. Simpler is better. 

Also, providing sample industry specific plans may make this four long pages of stuff 

appear more reasonable and doable. 

6.0 Corrective Action 

The proposed language in this section is reasonable and appropriate. There will likely be 

reports of adverse incidents that are ultimately found to be not factually based. 

Corrective actions based on adverse incidents should not be required unless the adverse 

incident is determined after appropriate investigation to be related to the application 

activity. The PGP should clearly state that permittees can not be penalized for failure to 

report to the Agency reports of adverse incidents that are not factually based. 

The permit should also specify that any reporting of incidents are only those that affect 

water quality, not incidents such as spills or equipment malfunctions at sites removed 

from jurisdictional waters. 

7.0 Annual reporting 

We do not support this requirement. No meaningful analysis of the information being 

required can be performed and no Agency/State resources are available to attempt such 

an analysis. We would suspect that most pesticides covered by this permitting program 

are not going to be found in much if any of the ambient monitoring data that has been 

conducted to date. If the purpose of the reporting requirement is to target applicators for 

compliance inspections couldn’t that be done just as easily by reviewing the list of NOIs 

filed? Before including an annual reporting requirement we should point to examples of 

other permitting programs where the annual reports have resulted in a tangible and useful 

data set and determine how similar or dissimilar this program is to that. 

8.0 Recordkeeping 

8.2 – The “Pest Management Log” currently does not exist and there is no need to create 

such an entity. If there are records that need to be kept in order to determine compliance 

with the conditions of the permit, these can be specified, but there is no need to require 

them to be compiled into one document. These records need to provided on request and 

accessible for inspection. Failure to provide the records would be the basis for a 

violation of the conditions of the permit. There is no need to specify locations, method of 

recordkeeping, etc. 

The records listed as required in this section should be evaluated to determine which are 

necessary to determine compliance with the conditions of the permit. The following 

appear to be reasonable: 
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NPDES permit number 

Times and dates of pest management activities 

Method of pest management used 

Pesticides used 

- EPA ID numbers of products used 

- Rates/amounts used 

- Locations applied – which can be specified as coordinates or other designations 

- Surveillance records 

o Methods used 

o Results 

- Adverse incident records 

- Calibration records – maintenance and cleaning records are superfluous and not 

useful information 

In general, EPA and States should be allowed to consider whatever pesticide 

recordkeeping requirements are already in place and duplicate or build on that to 

avoid confusion by the applicator/operator. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. Questions may be directed to Dave Scott 

at 765-494-1593 or scottde@purdue.edu.