3464 Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 13 / Thursday, January 21, 2010 / Notices 

for revision of its EPA-authorized 

program under title 40 CFR. EPA 

reviewed NCDENR’s request to revise its 

EPA-authorized program and, based on 

this review, EPA determined that the 

application met the standards for 

approval of authorized program 

revisions set out in 40 CFR part 3, 

subpart D. In accordance with 40 CFR 

3.1000(d), this notice of EPA’s decision 

to approve North Carolina’s request for 

revision to its authorized program is 

being published in the Federal Register. 

Specifically, EPA has approved the 

State of North Carolina’s request to 

revise its Part 52—Approval and 

Promulgation of Implementation Plans 

authorized program for electronic 

reporting of air emissions information 

under 40 CFR part 51, for electronic 

submissions that do not include an 

electronic signature, but instead provide 

for a handwritten signature on a 

separate paper submission report. 

NCDENR was notified of EPA’s 

determination to approve its application 

with respect to the authorized program 

listed above. 

Dated: January 7, 2010. 

Lisa Schlosser, 

Director, Office of Information Collection. 

[FR Doc. 2010–1103 Filed 1–20–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6560–50–P 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

[FRL–9104–8] 

Notice of a Regional Project Waiver of 

Section 1605 (Buy American) of the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act of 2009 (ARRA) to Gwinnett County 

Department of Water Resources, 

Gwinnett County, GA 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The EPA is hereby granting a 

waiver of the Buy American 

requirements of ARRA Section 1605 

under the authority of Section 

1605(b)(1) [inconsistent with the public 

interest] to Gwinnett County 

Department of Water Resources, 

Gwinnett County, Georgia (‘‘County’’) for 

the purchase of a foreign manufactured 

submersible pump. This is a project 

specific waiver and only applies to the 

use of the specified product for the 

ARRA project being proposed. Any 

other ARRA recipient that wishes to use 

the same product must apply for a 

separate waiver based on project 

specific circumstances. The County’s 

tunnel and tunnel lift station project 

will include installation of two 

submersible pumps as well as the 

purchase of one spare pump. The 

project was originally designed between 

2003 and 2006, and bids were taken on 

March 1, 2007. The County 

standardized ITT Flygt Corporation as 

the sole manufacturer of submersible 

pumps in 2003, when design of the 

project started. At the time of design, 

the County already had in operation 88 

Flygt pumps out of the 106 pumps in 

the system. The County has submitted a 

detailed memorandum dated October 

17, 2003, explaining the rationale for 

standardization. According to the 

memorandum, the County desired to, 

‘‘standardize on a single brand of 

submersible pumps for wastewater 

pump stations in order to provide 

greater reliability in the operation of 

pump stations and avoid the increased 

costs of inventory, service, maintenance, 

and engineering associated with using 

several different brands.’’ This is a 

project whose earlier phases began prior 

the enactment of ARRA and was 

undertaken for the principal purpose of 

Clean Water Act compliance. The 

procurement for those prior phases 

standardized on a particular 

manufactured good that is subject to 

ARRA section 1605 requirements for its 

ARRA-funded phase but the 

performance from and operation and 

maintenance of such good in the 

performance of the facility would be 

detrimentally affected by a requirement 

to use a non-standardized good(s). 

Based on the review of the information 

provided, EPA has concluded that a 

waiver of the Buy American provisions 

is justified. The Assistant Administrator 

of the Office of Administration and 

Resources Management has concurred 

on this decision to make an exception 

to Section 1605 of ARRA. This action 

permits the County to purchase Flygt 

submersible pumps, manufactured by 

ITT Flygt Corporation, as specified in its 

September 1, 2009, request. 

DATES: Effective Date: December 18, 

2009. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Cynthia Y. Edwards, Project Officer, 

Grants and SRF Section, Water 

Protection Division (WPD), (404) 562– 

9340, USEPA Region 4, 61 Forsyth St. 

SW., Atlanta, GA 30303. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 

accordance with ARRA Section 1605(c), 

the EPA hereby provides notice that it 

is granting a project waiver of the 

requirements of Sections 1605(a) of 

Public Law 111–5, Buy American 

requirements, to Gwinnett County 

Department of Water Resources, 

Gwinnett County, Georgia, for the 

purchase of Flygt submersible pumps, 

manufactured by ITT Flygt Corporation 

of Sweden. EPA has evaluated the 

County’s basis for standardizing to the 

Flygt submersible pumps. Based on the 

information provided by the applicant, 

EPA has determined that it is 

inconsistent with the public interest for 

the County to pursue the purchase of a 

domestically manufactured submersible 

pump. 

Section 1605 of the ARRA requires 

that none of the appropriated funds may 

be used for the construction, alteration, 

maintenance, or repair of a public 

building or public work unless all of the 

iron, steel, and manufactured goods 

used in the project is produced in the 

United States, or unless a waiver is 

provided to the recipient by the head of 

the appropriate agency, here the EPA. A 

waiver may be provided if EPA 

determines that (1) applying these 

requirements would be inconsistent 

with public the interest; (2) iron, steel, 

and the relevant manufactured goods 

are not produced in the United States in 

sufficient and reasonably available 

quantities and of a satisfactory quality; 

or (3) inclusion of iron, steel, and the 

relevant manufactured goods produced 

in the United States will increase the 

cost of the overall project by more than 

25 percent. 

The County has requested a waiver 

from the Buy American Provision for 

the purchase of the foreign made 

submersible pumps as part of its tunnel 

and tunnel lift station project. The 

purchase of the submersible pumps is 

part of a project that, according to the 

County, ‘‘consists of a wastewater 

conveyance and linear storage tunnel 

from the existing Jack’s Creek 

wastewater treatment facility to the 

existing No Business Creek pump 

station to convey wastewater flows from 

the tunnel to the pump station and a lift 

station to lift the flow from the tunnel 

invert to the pump station. The tunnel 

is an approximate 16,000 linear feet, 12- 

foot diameter hard rock bore. The lift 

station is constructed inside an 

approximate 180 feet deep shaft 

constructed through hard rock and lined 

with concrete and shotcrete. The 

completed project will have a design 

flow capacity of 7.5 million gallons per 

day (mgd) and overflow storage capacity 

in excess of 13 million gallons of raw 

sewage.’’ 

The project requires the installation of 

two submersible pumps, plus an 

additional spare submersible pump. The 

pumps are specified at a maximum 335 

hp and 5.5 mgd pumping capacity at a 

total head of 207 feet. The project 

specification provided prospective 

bidders with one acceptable 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 13 / Thursday, January 21, 2010 / Notices 3465 

manufacturer of submersible pumps: 

ITT Flygt Corporation. ITT Flygt was 

specified as the sole acceptable 

manufacturer of submersible pumps 

because the County had standardized on 

such pumps in 2003, when the project 

started. At the time, 88 out of 106 pump 

systems in the County were equipped 

with Flygt submersible pumps. The 

County standardized to these pumps, 

according to the standardization 

agreement with ITT Flygt Corporation, 

to provide greater reliability in the 

operation of pump stations and avoid 

the increased costs of inventory, service, 

maintenance, and engineering 

associated with using several different 

brands of pumps. Additionally, 

according to the County, 

standardization would allow the County 

to further its efforts to avoid sanitary 

sewer overflows by allowing maximum 

flexibility to interchange pumps during 

emergencies. Due to the difference in 

the design of pumps, guide rail systems, 

and electrical control systems, pumps 

from one manufacturer cannot be 

installed in a pump station outfitted for 

a different manufacturer’s pumps. If 

there is a catastrophic failure or 

concurrent failure of pumps at a given 

station, interchangeability allows the 

immediate replacement of the failed 

pumps in one station with little-used 

pumps removed from other comparably 

sized stations. This ability is, according 

to the County, critically important in the 

event of a catastrophic failure or 

concurrent pump failures. This 

minimizes the downtime of the failed 

pump station and mitigates the risks of 

a major wastewater overflow. It also 

eliminates the necessity of maintaining 

spare pumps as a contingency measure 

against such situations. EPA has 

determined that the County has 

provided ample cause for 

standardization. Furthermore, 

standardization took place well before 

ARRA funding was available, so such a 

decision by the County was clearly not 

an attempt to avoid application of the 

Buy American provisions of ARRA. 

The purpose of the ARRA is to 

stimulate economic recovery by funding 

current infrastructure construction, not 

to delay projects that are already ‘‘shovel 

ready’’ by requiring SRF eligible 

recipients such as the County to revise 

their design standards and 

specifications. The imposition of ARRA 

Buy American requirements in this case 

would result in unreasonable delay for 

this project, and an unnecessary burden 

to the County, in the form of increased 

maintenance costs in the future, as well 

as decreased performance of its system 

due to incompatible pumps. To delay 

this construction would directly conflict 

with a fundamental economic purpose 

of ARRA, which is to create or retain 

jobs. 

The information provided is sufficient 

to meet the following criteria listed 

under Section 1605(b) of the ARRA, 

OMB’s regulations at 2 CFR 176.60– 

176.170, and in the April 28, 2009, EPA 

Memorandum: Applying the Buy 

American requirements of ARRA would 

be inconsistent with the public interest. 

The March 31, 2009, Delegation of 

Authority Memorandum provided 

Regional Administrators with the 

authority to issue exceptions to Section 

1605 of ARRA within the geographic 

boundaries of their respective regions 

and with respect to requests by 

individual grant recipients. 

Having established both a proper 

basis to specify the particular good 

required for this project and that 

application of the Buy American 

requirements would be inconsistent 

with the public interest, the County is 

hereby granted a waiver from the Buy 

American requirements of Section 

1605(a) of Public Law 111–5. This 

waiver permits use of ARRA funds for 

the purchase of the specified ITT Flygt 

Corporation submersible pumps 

documented in the County’s waiver 

request submittal dated September 1, 

2009. This supplementary information 

constitutes the detailed written 

justification required by Section 1605(c) 

for waivers based on a finding under 

subsection (b)(1). 

Authority: Public Law 111–5, section 1605. 

Dated: December 18, 2009. 

A. Stanley Meiburg, 

Acting Regional Administrator, Region 4. 

[FR Doc. 2010–1119 Filed 1–20–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6560–50–P 

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS 

COMMISSION 

Sunshine Act Meeting; Deletion of 

Agenda Item from January 20, 2010, 

Open Meeting 

Date: January 15, 2010. 

The following item has been deleted 

from the list of Agenda items scheduled 

for consideration at the January 20, 

2010, Open Meeting and previously 

listed in the Commission’s Notice of 

January 13, 2010. This item has been 

adopted by the Commission. 

ITEM NO. BUREAU SUBJECT 

2 WIRELESS TELE– COMMUNICATIONS ........ TITLE: Amendment of Parts 15, 74 and 90 of 

the Commission’s Rules Regarding Low 

Power Auxiliary Stations, Including Wireless 

Microphones (WT Docket No. 08–166) 

SUMMARY: The Commission will consider 

an Order and Further Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking to complete an important component of the DTV transition by prohibiting 

the further distribution and sale of devices 

that operate in the 700 MHz frequency and 

setting a date by which existing devices 

must clear the band to enable the rollout of 

public safety services and accelerate the 

deployment of next generation wireless networks. 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES