United States 

Environmental 

Protection 

Agency

User Guide to the Docket for the Proposed 

Effluent Limitation Guidelines & Standards for

the Oil & Gas Extraction Point Source Category 

(40 CFR 435)

EPA Docket Number EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598 (www.regulations.gov) 

April 2015

DCN SGE01032
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1.0 OVERVIEW

Under the Clean Water Act (CWA), EPA establishes technology-based national 

regulations, termed “effluent limitations guidelines and standards,” to reduce pollutant 

discharges from categories of industrial facilities to waters of the United States. Under the CWA, 

EPA similarly establishes technology-based regulations, termed “pretreatment standards,” to 

reduce pollutant discharges from industrial facilities to waters of the United States.

This document provides information on the docket supporting the Proposed Effluent 

Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Oil and Gas Extraction Point Source Category. See 

the Federal Register Notice presenting EPA’s proposed regulations for the Oil and Gas 

Extraction Point Source Category, 80 Federal Register 18557 (7 April 2015). EPA has prepared a 

subject outline of the documents included in this docket to help you locate documents that 

address related topics or subjects. The subject outline for the docket is provided in Attachment 1. 

Attachment 2 is a complete record index listing for all of the documents supporting the proposed 

rulemaking for the Oil and Gas Extraction Point Source Category sorted by subject outline 

number. Attachment 3 is a crosswalk between DCN, citation, and EPA docket number for all 

documents supporting the Proposed Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Oil 

and Gas Extraction Point Source Category. Attachment 4 lists the references cited in the Federal 

Register Notice for this proposed rulemaking by DCN and EPA Docket Number.

2.0 BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE DOCKET

What is the Docket and How Can I Gain to Access It?

Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598 is the official docket for EPA’s Proposed 

Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Oil and Gas Extraction Point Source 

Category. The official docket consists of the documents specifically referenced, any public 

comments received, and other related information supporting this action.

The official public docket is the collection of electronic and hard copy materials that is 

available for public viewing at the Water Docket in the EPA Docket Center, (EPA/DC), located 

in the EPA Headquarters Library, EPA West, Room Number 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW, 

Washington, DC. An electronic version of the public docket is available through a federal-wide 

electronic docket management system located at www.regulations.gov (Regulations.gov). You 

may use the Regulations.gov website to view public comments, access a listing of the contents of 

the official docket, and access those documents in the public docket that are available 

electronically.

What Materials are Included in the Docket?

EPA’s dockets, specific to regulatory actions, contain items that are collected and 

developed during the development of a rulemaking effort. For the Oil and Gas Extraction Point 

Source Category proposed rule, the docket includes information collected on the oil and gas

industry, unconventional oil and gas wastewater characterization, and unconventional oil and gas 

wastewater management practices; correspondence and meeting summaries with industry (e.g., 

site visits), vendors, and other stakeholders; and analyses conducted to support the proposed rule.
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Certain documents are not available in the electronic version of the public docket. These 

documents include but are not limited to copyright-protected material; physical objects such as 

maps, aerial photographs, colored charts; and information that have been claimed as confidential. 

Although not all docket materials may be available electronically, you may still access any of the 

non-confidential publicly-available docket materials at the EPA Docket Center.

Although it is a part of the official docket, Confidential Business Information (CBI) or 

other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute is not included in the publiclyavailable docket materials. Some documents are classified as CBI because entities providing the 

information specifically claimed certain information (e.g., operating or financial data) as CBI. 

Other documents are classified as CBI because release of these documents could indirectly 

reveal information claimed as confidential.

In support of this proposed rule, EPA conducted site visits, conference calls, and 

meetings with industry representatives, UOG operators, CWT facilities, and Native American 

tribal groups. Information in the site visit reports, conference call notes, and meeting notes may 

be claimed as CBI. The CBI documents are not available for public viewing. However, in an 

effort to make as much information available as possible, EPA has prepared “sanitized” versions 

of the reports. These sanitized versions, which are available for public viewing, have all CBI 

redacted from the text. This allows the public to view the non-CBI information within the 

reports.

3.0 ACCESSING INFORMATION IN THE DOCKET

How do I Find Documents in the Docket?

Water Docket in the EPA Docket Center

The official public docket is the collection of electronic and hard copy materials that is 

available for public viewing at the Water Docket in the EPA Docket Center, (EPA/DC), located 

in the EPA Headquarters Library, EPA West, Room Number 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW, 

Washington, DC. The Public Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday 

through Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Public Reading Room is 

(202) 566–1744, and the telephone number for the Water Docket is (202) 566–2426. You can 

also contact the Water Docket via e-mail: OW-Docket@epa.gov.

Regulations.gov

You will find instructions for using Regulations.gov on its Internet home page

(http://www.regulations.gov/#!home). Regulations.gov provides limited electronic search 

capabilities. If you know the Document ID Number (e.g., EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598-0001) of the 

document you wish to view, you can type that number directly into the field beneath the 

“SEARCH for: Rules, Comments, Adjudications or Supporting Documents” heading and click 

Search.

If you do not know the specific Document ID Number, you can input the docket 

identification number (EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598) in the field beneath the “SEARCH for: Rules, 

Comments, Adjudications or Supporting Documents” heading and click Search. You will now 
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see a listing of the contents of the official docket in the public record. The listing includes the 

Document Title (e.g., “Technical Development Document for Proposed Effluent Limitations 

Guidelines and Standards for Oil and Gas Extraction – DCN SGE00704”), Document ID 

Number (e.g., EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598-0683), Date Posted (e.g., “04/07/2015”), Document 

Type (e.g., “Supporting & Related Material”), and other information. 

You have several options to narrow your search within the docket listing by using the 

filters under the “Filter Results By...” heading. For example, you can specify the Document 

Type (e.g., Proposed Rule; Supporting & Related Material; Public Submission).

How are Documents Organized in the EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598 Docket?

Each document in the docket has two document identification numbers. One is the 

Regulations.gov Document ID Number (e.g., EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598-0683) that was assigned

when EPA added the document to the official docket. The last four digits are the unique 

consecutively assigned Regulations.gov Document ID. The second is EPA’s internal document 

control number (DCN) that was assigned during the development of the proposed rulemaking 

(e.g., DCN SGE00704). In documents prepared for the docket, EPA typically identified 

references by their DCN. The DCN appears at the end of the document titles in the Document 

Title field listed in Regulations.gov (e.g., “Technical Development Document for Proposed 

Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for Oil and Gas Extraction – DCN SGE00704”).

What is the Docket EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598 Subject Outline?

EPA prepared a subject outline of the documents included in EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598 to 

help you locate documents that address related topics or subjects. The subject outline for EPAHQ-OW-2014-0598 is provided in Attachment 1. 

What is the Docket EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598 Record Index? 

The docket EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598 record index is a list of documents in the docket, 

sorted by subject outline section, available as Attachment 2 to this document. The record index 

summarizes certain information for each document, including the subject outline section, 

Regulations.gov Document ID Number, EPA DCN, document title, author, and abstract. EPA 

assigned each document to a subject outline section during the development of the proposed 

rulemaking. 

The record index for the docket includes the fields shown in Table 1: 

Table 1. Definitions of Fields in the Docket Record Index

Field Name Description

Subject Outline Section Section number from docket subject outline.

EPA Docket Number

(Regulations.gov Document ID

Number) 

Unique document number assigned when EPA added the document to the

official docket. The Document ID Number includes the Docket Number

followed by a consecutive document number.

Title Title of document.

Abstract Additional description of document.

Author Author of document.
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Table 1. Definitions of Fields in the Docket Record Index

Field Name Description

Date Date of publication, issue, edition, or version. Actual date of meeting or 

telephone call. 

Copyrighted (Yes/No) – Materials that are copyright protected (e.g., books and other 

published material). These documents are not available through 

Regulations.gov but are only available in hard copy at the EPA Docket Center. 

CBI (Yes/No) – Materials that are claimed to be Confidential Business Information. 

These documents are not available through Regulations.gov or in hard copy at 

the EPA Docket Center.

DCN Unique document control number (DCN) assigned during the development of 

the proposed rulemaking. 

How do I Use the Subject Outline to Find Documents in the Docket?

Review the subject outline to determine which section may contain the documents of 

interest. Then, locate documents for that section in the record index and note their 

Regulations.gov Document ID Number. Documents available electronically can be accessed 

through Regulations.gov. Other documents can be reviewed at the Water Docket in the EPA 

Docket Center in Washington, DC. See information on the Water Docket above. You may also 

be able to locate copyright protected materials (e.g., books) at an academic or public library.

4.0 FURTHER INFORMATION

The primary contact regarding questions or comments on Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW2014-0598 and the Proposed Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Oil and Gas 

Extraction Point Source Category is provided below: 

Lisa Biddle

Environmental Engineer 

U.S. EPA Office of Water

Engineering and Analysis Division 

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW 

Washington, DC 20460 

(202) 566-0350 (telephone)

biddle.lisa@epa.gov