State Innovation Grant Program: Wyoming
Watershed Based WYPDES Permitting for the Powder River Basin
(2004 Competition)
ie innovation urani rrogram 10 support
efforts led by state environmental agencies to test innovative approaches
for achieving better environmental results and improved efficiency in
permitting programs. Between 2002 and 2007, the State Innovation Grant
program competition awarded over six million dollars to support 35 state
projects that test permitting innovation for a variety of regulated entities
including several small business sectors. Asummary of the awards by year
appears in the table below.
State Innovation Grant Program Statistics, 2002-2007
Competition Proposals Proposals Total Program
Year Submitted Selected Funding ($)
2002/2003
$618,000
$1.425 Million
$1.479 Million
Cumulative
$1.243 Million
$1.611 Million
$6.376 Million
"Innovation in Permitting" has been the theme of the State Innovation Grant
competition since its inception. In the last three competition cycles states
received awards for projects in the following three categories:
• The Environmental Results Program (ERP) is an innovative
approach to improving environmental performance based on a system
of the interlocking tools of compliance assistance, self-certification
(sometimes, where permissible, in lieu of permitting), and
statistically-based measurement to gauge the performance of an entire
business sector. The program utilizes a multimedia approach to
encourage small sources to achieve environmental compliance and
pollution prevention. (See: http://www.epa.gov/permits/erp/)
• Environmental Management System (EMS) is a system involving a
continual cycle of planning, implementing, reviewing and improving the
processes and actions that an organization undertakes to meet its
business and environmental goals. EMSs provide organizations of all
types with a structured system and approach for managing
environmental and regulatory responsibilities to improve overall
environmental performance and stewardship.
(See: www.epa.gov/ems/info/index.htm)
• Performance Track is a partnership that recognizes top
environmental performance among participating US facilities of all types,
sizes, and complexity, both public and private.
(See: http://www.epa.gov/performancetrack/)
NCEI has provided awards also for projects testing watershed-based
permitting, and for permit process streamlining in past competitions. For
more information on the history of the programs, including information on
solicitations, state proposals, and project awards, please see the EPA State
ittD://www.eDa.aov/innovation/statear
Project Background:
The Powder River Basin (PRB) covers roughly 9,000
square miles in Wyoming and is home to a range of
industrial activities including coal mining, oil and gas
treatment, and coal bed methane development.
Historically, the Wyoming Department of
Environmental Quality (WDEQ) issued individual
Wyoming Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
(WYPDES) permits for discharges into the PRB for
each industrial point source. However, recognizing
the significant potential for water quality impacts from
the combined discharges of these industrial sources,
WDEQ decided to fortify its WYPDES permitting
process by creating watershed-based permitting
tools to better protect water quality within the Powder
River Basin.
A watershed-based permit differs from traditional
permitting programs by making a cumulative
assessment of the potential impacts to water quality
in a basin, incorporating all sources of a pollutant of
concern into a single permit. Although there are a
range of industrial point sources in the PRB, WDEQ's
watershed-based permitting project is focusing
specifically on effluent from coal bed methane
recovery operations. WDEQ's watershed-based
permits are designed to address pollutant loadings
by introducing effluent limitations, as well as
allocating pollutant loads across the hundreds of coal
bed methane recovery sources in the Powder River
Basin within Wyoming. This pilot project is being
launched with the help of funding from EPAs State
Innovation Grant Program.
Project Description
WDEQ's watershed-based permitting project is
designed not only to achieve results in protecting
water quality in Wyoming, but also to address
emerging concerns over the quality of water in the
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NATIONAL CENTER FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION
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Powder River as it crosses the border into Montana.
Other project goals include:
• Establishing targets for water pollutant
concentrations and loading for the project area
based on the water quality targets for surface
waters that are deemed necessary to support
existing uses;
• Developing and implementing an efficient
permitting approach that incorporates the
collective impacts to water quality throughout the
watershed;
• Streamlining the WYPDES permit application
process and strengthening the WYPDES
regulatory mechanism to achieve compliance
with established water quality standards; and
• Developing a template for watershed-based
WYPDES permitting that is potentially
transferable to other watersheds in Wyoming and
other states with similar permitting issues and
watersheds.
and conducting watershed-based WYPDES permitting
stakeholder meetings. Building on these efforts,
WDEQ has finalized waste load allocations within the
Powder River Basin, and implemented several
watershed permits. Upon completing their pilot
project, WDEQ plans to produce a final report to help
transfer this approach to more watersheds and states.
Connection to EPA's Goals:
WDEQ's project directly supports EPA's Strategic Goal
#5, focused on compliance and environmental
stewardship, by promoting an innovative approach to
improve compliance and pollution prevention. The
project also supports EPA's Goal #3 to provide clean
and safe water, as well as the Cross-Goal Strategy of
promoting innovation and collaboration with states.
Project success will be measured through a number of
indicators including:
• Improvement in water quality, allowing discharge
drainages to maintain their designated uses;
• Reduction in an applicant's permitting cost by
eliminating site-specific permits once a
watershed-based permit is in place;
• Reduction in permit application processing
times; and
• Reduction in WDEQ operational costs from
reducing the personnel hours needed to
process permit applications.
To date, WDEQ has achieved several key project
milestones, including sponsoring the initial stakeholder
committee meetings for targeted areas of the Basin
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Project Contacts:
For more specific information on the
Wyoming State Innovation Grant,
please contact one of the individuals
below:
Kathy Shreve
Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality
122 West 25th Street, 4W
Cheyenne, WY 82002
307.777.6682
kshrev@state.wy.us
Program Contact:
Sherri Walker
State Innovation Grant Program
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20460 (MC1807T)
(202)-566-2186; FAX (202) 566-2220
walker.sherri@epa.gov
Dale Murphy
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Regions
Denver, CO
303.312.6126
murphv.dale@epa.gov
Gerald Filbin
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
National Center for Environmental Innovation
Washington, DC
202.566.2182
filbin.gerald@epa.gov
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Policy,
Economics and Innovation
(1807T)
May 2008
EPA-100-F-08-043
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