NGWA convened a group of volunteers to prepare comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on its draft “Interpretive Statement on Application of the Clean Water Act National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Program to Releases of Pollutants from a Point Source to Groundwater.”
The comments were submitted to the EPA on June 10.
The draft statement resulted from an effort started in 2018 to elicit feedback on groundwater’s applicability to the NPDES program. That year, NGWA prepared comments arguing the NPDES program should not apply to groundwater, as other federal and state regulations sufficiently cover discharges to groundwater. The EPA’s draft statement agreed with this point, which NGWA reinforced in its response to the draft.
NGWA provided an overview of the regulatory landscape for groundwater and discussed the intent of the Clean Water Act to create a partnership between states and the federal government.
Because the draft statement does not have regulatory authority, actions by the EPA to redefine Waters of the United States under the Clean Water Act and a case pending before the Supreme Court this fall are likely to have greater ramifications for interested parties.
A copy of NGWA’s comments is available here.