Next Steps for the Three NPDES Policies: the ICIS-NPDES Policy
Statement, the Wet Weather Significant Non-Compliance Policy,
and the NPDES Compliance Monitoring Strategy
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Office of Compliance
Washington, DC 20460
October 2007

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Attachment 3
Next Steps for the Three NPDES Policies:
the ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement, the Wet Weather Significant Non-
Compliance Policy, and the NPDES Compliance Monitoring Strategy
September 28, 2007
Overview
The Clean Water Act National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)
program has evolved through the years to include important wet weather pollution
sources. To keep the enforcement and information management components of the
NPDES program in alignment with the current NPDES program regulatory structure,
EPA has been working with the States to update its policies, guidance, and database.
The relationship between the program's regulatory structure, EPA's past policies and
their revision, and program implementation and management was explained in an April
30, 2007 paper.1 On this same date, EPA distributed the following three NPDES policies
to States, the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) and the Association of State and
Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators (ASIWPCA) for review and comment:
o the Integrated Compliance Information System for NPDES (ICIS-NPDES) Policy
Statement;
o EPA's Significant Non-Compliance (SNC) Policy for CWA Violations
Associated with Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs), Sanitary Sewer Overflows
(SSOs), Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), and Stormwater
Point Sources (aka "Interim Wet Weather SNC Policy"); and
o CWA NPDES Inspection Frequency Guidance for the Core Program and Wet
Weather Sources (aka "NPDES Compliance Monitoring Strategy").
There are several commonalities between these policies. Each policy:
•	Promotes both national consistency and flexibility in NPDES program
management and implementation.
•	Focuses resources to the most critical programmatic and environmental areas.
•	Updates and strengthens existing NPDES program decision-making and
management policies that were out-of-date.
•	Prompts changes in current NPDES business practices among the authorized
states and territories to reflect the changes in the program over the last 20 years.
EPA received comments from 30 States, the majority of which dealt with resource
or program oversight issues. EPA received few specific substantive comments on any of
the three policies.
1 Relationship between three NPDES Policies: the ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement, the Wet Weather
Significant Non-Compliance Policy, and the NPDES Compliance Monitoring Strategy, U.S. EPA, April 30,
2007.
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On September 12, 2007, EPA sent ECOS a letter outlining EPA's next steps on
the 3 policies based on the States' comments. This document expands on the initial paper
about the relationships of the three NPDES policies to include EPA's current approach
for proceeding on these policies.
Compliance Monitoring Strategy
Objective: Both the Permitting for Environmental Results and the State Review
Framework reviews highlighted the need to revisit the inspection frequency goals set in
the Enforcement Management System (EMS) written in 1989. The revised Compliance
Monitoring Strategy (CMS) will establish new goals for all parts of the current core
program, while acknowledging the emergence of wet weather sources and "traditional"
minor facilities that may be contributing to non-attainment of water quality standards.
The NPDES CMS is intended to guide this decision-making process, and focus resources
on the most critical environmental areas. The NPDES CMS includes flexibility to set
priorities in annual agreements between EPA regional offices and States that take into
account resource constraints.
Comments: State comments received focused on three major recommendations:
(1) accommodate limited State inspection resources; (2) maintain adequate presence in
core program areas as attention turns toward wet weather issues; and (3) ensure that the
flexibility that is built into the CMS is actually implemented.
Next Step: OECA has accommodated many of the comments that States and
regions have made in the review periods of the CMS, which have improved the clarity of
the document and increased the flexibilities the CMS now offers. OECA will finalize the
CMS in the fall of 2007. The CMS may be utilized in FY2008 if a State wishes to
negotiate the flexibilities available in the CMS with their region, but will be fully
effective in the FY2009 planning cycle. Regions will be asked to consider beginning
implementation of the strategy in FY2008 if a State so requests.
Interim Wet Weather SNC Policy
Objective: The Interim Wet Weather SNC Policy supplements the existing 1986
NPDES SNC Policy and will provide EPA and States with a tool to better manage the
current NPDES program by providing guidance on prioritizing and tracking violations in
EPA's Clean Water Act wet weather national enforcement priority areas. The objective
is the same as EPA's original policy - to help focus limited enforcement resources with
some degree of national consistency. A critical part of implementing this Policy includes
the ability to track and manage the identification of violations and follow-up actions by
EPA and States on a national level.
Comments: Only a few States submitted substantive comments on the policy
approach, including: 1) appreciation of the flexibility built into the policy with some
concern that it may also lead to inconsistent interpretations of the SNC criteria and
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response options in the policy, 2) the desire to establish specific thresholds within some
of the definitions in the policy, and 3) the elimination of the CAFO section because EPA
does not have a final revised CAFO rule yet.
Next Step: The draft Interim Policy did not identify the related data elements that
are critical to tracking and managing these activities, as it relied on a small subset of the
data elements set out in the Requisite ICIS-NPDES Data Elements (RIDE) in the draft
ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement. Because of the multi-step approach EPA is taking to
resolve ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement issues (see below), OECA will be initially issuing
the Interim Wet Weather SNC Policy only at the federal level in the fall of 2007. OECA
welcomes any State's interest in piloting the Interim Wet Weather SNC Policy, and
recommends that those States contact and work through their regions.
EPA will, in consultation with the ASIWPCA State-EPA NPDES Advisory
Group, develop an approach for tracking and reporting wet weather SNC information.
Full implementation of this policy will be coordinated with the implementation of the
new ICIS-NPDES data system and associated policies.
ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement
Objective: The ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement will reflect the move from the
Permit Compliance system (PCS) to the new Integrated Compliance Information System
(ICIS-NPDES) as the national database for the NPDES permitting and enforcement
programs. The ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement will provide EPA and NPDES-authorized
States with guidance on information management practices and responsibilities to ensure
that ICIS-NPDES contains accurate, complete, consistent, and timely information, which
will support effective management of the NPDES program. The Policy Statement also
identifies a set of data, the Requisite ICIS-NPDES Data Elements (RIDE), which will
allow EPA to manage the national NPDES program.
Comments: State comments on this Policy centered on the following areas on
concern: resource implications related to the number of data elements; the amount of
time to transition to this policy; and sharing State data to maintain a national NPDES data
base.
Next Steps: In consideration of the States' concerns about the draft Policy
Statement, EPA developed an approach that will allow provide the necessary guidance to
the States already using ICIS-NPDES while allowing additional time to work on issues
concerning what new data to exchange and how to exchange it. There are currently 21
States, 2 Tribes and 9 Territories that directly use ICIS-NPDES; 9 hybrid States (that use
ICIS-NPDES but also batch some data to PCS) that will begin using ICIS-NPDES in
FY2008; and 23 full batch States (that use their own data system and currently send data
to PCS). It is critical that the approach taken ensures fair and equal treatment of all
states, regardless of what system they use, as well as the continuance of a consistent
national data set for the NPDES program.
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EPA intends to pursue a rule-making approach to establish the required data
elements in ICIS-NPDES and the reporting requirements for the full NPDES program.
Since this can be a lengthy process, EPA will, in the interim take the following steps:
•	Issue an Interim ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement for direct users of the ICIS-
NPDES system that will require them to submit the equivalent set of data that is
now required to be submitted to PCS.
•	Continue to work with the hybrid States to migrate their data from PCS and
develop the batch data flow through the Exchange Network. Once these States
are on ICIS-NPDES, the Interim ICIS-NPDES Policy Statement will apply.
•	Continue to work with Texas and 10 other States on a net DMR tool that will
allow facilities to directly submit DMR data to ICIS-NPDES. The NetDMR tool
and other electronic DMR tools are the key way of reducing data entry burden
since 90% of the burden associated with the data elements identified in the ICIS-
NPDES Policy Statement is associated with DMRs.
•	Continue to work with States through Integrated Project Teams (IPTs) on how
data will flow from States with their own systems through the Exchange Network
and the Central Data Exchange into ICIS-NPDES.
Conclusion
The business needs of the national CWA NPDES permitting and enforcement
program build a strong case for these policies and for having this data available at the
national level. These policies are important to keep the information management
components of the NPDES program in alignment with the current NPDES program
regulatory structure as it has evolved over the past 20 years. EPA's approaches outlined
above for updating its permitting and enforcement policies take into consideration the
input and concerns of our State partners and provide EPA with a path forward for
meeting EPA's national NPDES program management needs.
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