Committee on Water hears bill to let KDHE extend certain wastewater permits to 10 years

The Committee on Water heard testimony on House Bill 2085, which would allow the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to issue certain state water pollution permits for up to 10 years rather than the current five.

KDHE water official Tom Stiles told the committee the change would initially apply only to state-only, non-discharging permits because federal law currently caps National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits at five years. "We are proponents of House Bill 2085 that would allow us to extend permits out to as long as 10 years in length," said Tom Stiles, director of the Bureau of Water at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

KDHE argued the longer maximum term would reduce the agency's permit-renewal workload and help clear a backlog of more complex permits. Stiles said KDHE currently holds about 490 state-only non-discharging permits and about 845 permits for facilities governed by the federal Clean Water Act. He told the committee the department is fully staffed in the permitting section and has cut the permit reissuance backlog by about 50 percent over the past year, but roughly 80 permits—mainly industrial and more complex municipal permits—remain in the queue.

The proposal would be discretionary, not automatic: KDHE would retain authority to issue shorter permits when warranted by past facility performance or by complexity. "If this bill becomes law, it's only applicable to those state facilities that do not discharge right now," Stiles said, adding that if Congress later amends the Clean Water Act to allow 10-year federal permits, Kansas could quickly follow for discharging facilities.

Committee members pressed KDHE on inspection frequency, fee effects and interstate comparisons. Stiles said inspection schedules vary by facility size: large municipal plants are inspected annually, smaller plants might be inspected once every five years, and about 20 percent of permitted facilities are inspected in any given year. He said permit-related fees are collected annually and would not change under the bill. On the question of fee revenue, Stiles said, "Currently, fees are paid annually. This won't change that at all."

Representative concerns focused on public-safety oversight and whether longer terms could let poorly performing facilities evade timely review. KDHE replied that permits include reopener clauses and the agency can inspect and reopen permits if performance declines or complaints arise. "We also have the safety valve that all our permits have reopener clauses," Stiles said.

The hearing record includes one written opponent submission from Matthew Steele, listed in the committee packet; no oral opponents appeared. The chairman closed the hearing without a committee vote.

The committee did not take final action on House Bill 2085 at the hearing. Staff and KDHE described the measure as a regulatory flexibility change intended to reduce staff workload and provide longer-term regulatory certainty to small systems and other low-risk permittees.