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MEMORANDUM

TO: Public Record for the NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule

EPA Docket Number EPA-HQ-OECA-2009-0274 (www.regulations.gov)

FROM: Carey A. Johnston, P.E.

USEPA/OECA/OC

ph: (202) 566 1014

johnston.carey@epa.gov

DATE: 3 February 2014

SUBJECT: Notes from State Technical Workgroup Meeting (30 January 2014) [DCN 0128]

Overview 

This was the kick-off meeting for an EPA-state technical workgroup that will discuss key 

issues related to the proposed NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule. These discussions will help 

inform the upcoming supplemental Federal Register notice and will also continue afterwards to 

help EPA address state comments. These technical workgroup meetings are likely to be held on 

Thursdays at 1pm (Eastern). EPA plans to work with the group to identify the agenda for each 

meeting in order to focus these discussions. EPA participants will include the OECA eRule Team 

as well as representatives from EPA’s Office of Water and Office of Environmental Information. 

State technical workgroup members are listed in Table 1 and the agenda for this meeting is also 

provided below. 

EPA is engaging with the states to help clarify issues where there is confusion, explore 

the issues of most concern to the states, and solicit state input on the issues and scenarios that 

they would like to highlight in the forthcoming supplemental Federal Register notice. The 

supplemental notice will be accompanied by another public comment period, which gives the 

Agency more time and flexibility to craft the final rule. In general, changes to any proposed rule 

are to be expected during the notice-and-comment process; however, such changes to a 

proposed rule must develop as a "logical outgrowth" of the proposed regulation and public 

comments. EPA will highlight the most important issues and scenarios in the forthcoming 

supplemental Federal Register notice. 

EPA is summarizing the notes from these discussions for the docket in order to provide 

transparency on EPA’s outreach during the rulemaking process. The OECE eRule team will also 

be available for any other stakeholder group that would like to discuss the eRule.
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Meeting Notes

For the first meeting EPA’s Deputy Assistant Administrator, Steve Chester, provided an 

overview and suggested goals for this technical workgroup. He re-stated the importance of the 

NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule and the importance of EPA to engage with states. He noted 

the following goals:

 The goal of this EPA-state workgroup discussion is to clarify issues where there is 

confusion, explore the issues of most concern to the states, and solicit state input on the 

issues and potential solutions that could be highlighted in the forthcoming supplemental 

Federal Register notice. 

 EPA does not expect to have resolution of these issues prior to publication of the 

supplemental Federal Register notice but does want to make sure to include the most 

important issues and potential regulatory options. 

Mr. Chester noted that EPA staff from our Office of Water and Office of Environmental 

Information will also be part of our discussions. He noted that this will help ensure that the 

necessary IT and NPDES programmatic experts are on hand in each call to explore potential 

options. He also noted that EPA would like to continue this dialogue after publication of the 

supplemental notice, as an on-going and meaningful exchange between EPA and the states is 

critical to the success of the eRule. 

With respect to these on-going discussions Mr. Chester noted that EPA is open to 

discuss any aspect of the comments on the rule with states, and we will work with ECOS and 

ACWA to develop the agenda for each meeting. He also asked that the technical workgroup 

members think more broadly than the interests of an individual state. EPA’s job is to balance 

the perspectives of all stakeholders. He also noted that this technical workgroup is not a FACA; 

EPA is interested in input and ideas from the workgroup, but that this group is not a decisionmaking body.

Finally, Mr. Chester stressed the importance of working expeditiously towards 

agreement on electronic reporting. He reference an article from the September 1993 edition of 

the Environmental Protection magazine that quoted George Gray, former chief of EPA’s 

compliance evaluation section in the Office of Water, as saying “In the near future, EPA will 

establish a protocol that will enable dischargers to electronically submit their DMR data and 

help expedite form processing.” Mr. Chester emphasized that EPA and states need to move as 

quickly as possible to electronic reporting to unlock the many benefits of electronic reporting.

He then turned the meeting over to Mr. John Dombrowski, EPA’s Division Director for the 

Enforcement Targeting Data Division.

Mr. Dombrowksi outlined the following ground rules for this technical workgroup:
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 The technical workgroup is not a formal decision-making body. The workgroup is 

expected to develop, research, and evaluate options for consideration by EPA and state 

senior management.

 There are no formal quorum rules for the workgroup. Scheduled teleconferences will 

proceed with whichever workgroup members call in to participate.

 There will be no formal voting or consensus of the workgroup. Instead, the workgroup is 

expected to try to develop recommendations reflecting their various perspectives, not 

achieve consensus.

 Summaries of the workgroup’s discussions will be prepared for and reviewed by the 

workgroup, for presentation to EPA senior management and other states. The 

discussions summaries will outline the major elements of the discussions, areas of 

agreement and any dissenting views.

Mr. Dombrowksi then turned over the meeting to Mr. Carey Johnston who provided a 

high level summary of the public comments on the proposed NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule. 

See attached slides. After this presentation Mr. Johnston asked the technical workgroup to list 

the topics they would like to discuss.

 Oklahoma recommended a re-evaluation of the data elements in Appendix A and the 

option of phasing in these data elements.

 New Jersey asked if EPA could recognize the different capabilities between state NPDES 

programs to implement electronic reporting. He suggested that Performance 

Partnership agreements could be used to implement electronic reporting.

 Texas noted that their concerns are related to the implementation of the NPDES 

Electronic Reporting Rule. They suggested allowing states to develop their own 

implementation plans and that the overall workload would be less if electronic reporting 

was done via the five-year NPDES permit cycle. Mr. Dombrowski noted that EPA would 

need more specifics and that this could not be an open-ended option with no final 

deadline for electronic reporting.

 Oklahoma (Shellie Chard-McClary) asked about the schedule for the supplemental 

notice and if that could be delayed. Mr. Dombrowski noted that EPA has a tight deadline 

and needs to move forward in as practical a manner as possible.

 Florida asked if the EPA-state MOU for the NPDES program could be a vehicle to 

implement electronic reporting.
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 Indiana (Tom Easterly) noted that having a phase-in implementation process is 

important as is a “level playing field.” He noted that there is a disincentive for states to 

be the first to implement electronic reporting for fear of additional EPA oversight. He 

also asked if there were any incentives that EPA could offer to encourage facilities to 

adopt electronic reporting. Mr. Dombrowski noted that EPA has limited incentives but 

will continue to thing about this question.

 Arkansas noted that EPA should discuss the QA/QC requirements for electronically 

reporting data and the roles of EPA and states as data stewards. He specifically asked 

who would be the data steward if EPA were to be the initial recipient for a data flow. 

Mr. Dombrowski noted that EPA will make the roles of data stewards clear in the 

supplemental notice. He noted that this rule does not change the current arrangement 

of data in ICIS-NPDES, which is that states are the data stewards for NPDES facilities in 

their states regardless of the initial recipient status. For example, facilities that use EPA’s 

NetDMR tool (Federal instance) actually send their data first to EPA but that the local 

state NPDES program is the responsible data steward. Arkansas also noted that the 

proposed schedule is too ambitious.

 Delaware (Bob Zimmerman) asked if EPA could clarify the ‘initial recipient status’ from 

the proposed rule as well as any flexibility in the rule’s implementation.

 Colorado asked if EPA could clarify the Phase I data that are required to be submitted 

electronically.

Next Steps

EPA agreed to summarize the meeting notes as well as summarize and compile a few 

example public comments on a topic. EPA will share these materials with the technical 

workgroup in advance of the next meeting (6 February 2014).
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State Technical Workgroup Meeting – NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule

30 January 2014

1pm Introduction/Roll Call

1:05 Overview from Steve Chester, OECA/DAA

1:10 Workgroup Logistics & Schedule

1:20 High Level Summary of Comments on Proposed Rule

1:30 Listing of Initial Topics for Discussion (examples provide below)

o Implementation (schedule, initial recipient status, state readiness criteria),

o CROMERR,

o CAFO related data

o Data from stormwater regulated stormwater entities,

o Waivers, and

o Other topics?

1:40 Beginning Discussion of Implementation (or another topic chosen by states)

2:00 End of Call
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Tab le 1: State Technical Workgroup Members

Name State or 

Organization Email

Sean Rolland ACWA srolland@acwa-us.org

Christy Monk AL cvm@adem.state.al.us

Teresa Marks AR marks@adeq.state.ar.us

Andy Putnam CO andrew.putnam@state.co.us

goff@adeq.state.ar.us

Elisa Willard CO elisa.willard@state.co.us

Bob Zimmerman DE robert.zimmerman@state.de.us

stephanie.bower@state.de.us

Beth Graves ECOS bgraves@ecos.org

Lee Garrigan ECOS lgarrigan@ecos.org

Chris Klena FL chris.m.klena@dep.state.fl.us

Tom Easterly IN teasterl@idem.in.gov

ckoontz@idem.in.gov

John Murphy NEIWPCC jmurphy@neiwpcc.org

Jason Lonardo NJ jason.lonardo@dep.state.nj.us

Joe DiMura NY jxdimura@gw.dec.state.ny.us

Shellie Chard-McClary OK shellie.chard-mcclary@deq.ok.gov

Kim Wilson TX kim.wilson@tceq.texas.gov

Jerome Brooks VA jerome.brooks@deq.virginia.gov

Nancy Kmet WA nkme461@ecy.wa.gov