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September 1997
The Environmental Protection Agency's rules
on permits for "Industrial Facilities" will change this
month. The NPDES storm water baseline industrial general permit
will not be renewed. Cities and counties that operate facilities
that are considered to be "industrial activities" and
that received a permit for stormwater discharges under the baseline
general permit should consider seeking coverage under the multi-sector
permit or an individual permit.
Most "industrial activities" are
conducted by the private sector. However, facilities typically
owned by local governments that are considered to be industrial
activities include airports, wastewater treatment plants and landfills.
When the industrial activities permitting program
first began, facilities that were required to obtain a permit
generally had two options - obtain an individual facility permit
(which could be costly) or to participate in a group application.
EPA rules had allowed groups of similar facilities to jointly
submit applications, thereby saving considerable sampling and
testing costs. Many local governments throughout Florida had
participated in one or more group permits.
After the group permit process was underway,
EPA authorized the baseline general permit as a second alternative
to the individual permit. Also, after many of the final group
applications had been submitted to EPA and were awaiting approval,
the agency dropped the group permit process and substituted the
multi-sector general permit in its place. Data obtained from
the many group applications (approximately 700 groups representing
over 50,000 facilities) that were submitted to EPA was used to
prepared the multi-sector permits. The multi-sector permits were
more industry specific than the baseline general permit but compliance
costs were not as burdensome as with an individual permit. Additionally,
the multi-sector rule was developed based upon actual collected
data as opposed to best professional judgement.
Local governments that operate industrial facilities and wish
to transfer permit coverage to the multi-sector permits should
submit a Notice of Intent to EPA in Washington, DC. For more
information, contact Floyd Wellborn at EPA in Atlanta (404/562-9296).
The law requires persons bringing actions must prove negligence
to recover damages. For the purposes of the tank law, noncompliance
with this act, or any of the DEP rules is prima facie evidence
of negligence. |