Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Recycled Water Fees topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
DEQ rule approved to consolidate fees and add recycled-water permit charges
Summary
The committee approved DEQ’s rule consolidating environmental fees into a single chapter and adopting a new fee schedule for recycled-water (reuse) permits to generate approximately $200,000 annually to support program sustainability.
The committee approved rule changes consolidating DEQ’s environmental fee schedules into a single chapter and establishing a new fee schedule for recycled-water (reuse) permits designed to produce roughly $200,000 in annual revenue.
Mary Ann Nelson of DEQ presented the docket and said the goal is to “streamline access to fee schedules, creating a one-stop location where the regulated community can view all applicable fees in one place.” She said DEQ proposes a fixed annual fee model for reused-water permits after evaluating three scenarios and stakeholder feedback.
DEQ told the committee the recycled-water program has historically been funded by a Section 106 Clean Water Act grant and state general fund matching dollars; federal contributions have not kept pace with inflation. Nelson said the number of active reuse permits has roughly doubled over two decades — from about 75 in 2005 to nearly 150 in 2023 — creating greater administrative burdens and backlogs for engineering reviews and permit drafting.
To make the program sustainable and predictable for permittees, DEQ proposed a fee schedule with a fixed annual cost model intended to generate about $200,000 per year. DEQ said fees are scaled to try to avoid undue burdens on small facilities and that facilities holding both an IPDES permit and a recycled-water permit would be exempted from duplicate fees in certain circumstances.
The chapter also consolidates fees related to subsurface sewage disposal systems; DEQ said the minimum fees shown in the table reflect the lowest amounts found across seven health-district schedules but do not necessarily represent the full cost to maintain programs. DEQ clarified the consolidated fee chapter is primarily to make fees easier to find and to provide a mechanism if local health districts ever return permitting authority to DEQ; DEQ currently contracts with health districts to administer septic permitting.
The proposed rule was published in the administrative bulletin; DEQ held negotiated rulemakings and said it received no public comments during the official comment period for this docket. The committee approved docket 58-01-14-2401 by voice vote; one senator asked to be recorded as voting no when the committee chair requested a roll-call report.
