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DEQ details permitting overhaul, warns PFAS/biosolids testing is costly
Summary
The Department of Environmental Quality briefed senators on permitting reforms, an expedited permitting pilot and a website docketing system; DEQ said PFAS testing equipment and biosolids analysis carry high startup and annual maintenance costs and addressed a multi-month brown-water event at Broken Bow Lake.
Rob Singletary, executive director of the Department of Environmental Quality, told the Senate Natural Resources and Regulatory Services subcommittee the agency plans a series of permitting reforms and transparency measures and is seeking a flat operating budget for the coming year.
Singletary described a public-participation push to place tier 2 and tier 3 permit dockets on DEQ's website so applicants and the public can find applications, notices, responses and appeal information in a single location. He said the agency will propose a Uniform Permitting Act (authored for the agency by Senator Rader and Representative Boels) that is expected to reduce DEQ review timelines for those permit tiers by roughly 110 days and to standardize an initial public notice in local newspapers directing readers to the online docket.
DEQ also described a continuous-improvement (lean) effort that reduced average review times for minor air permits and an expedited permitting pilot that lets applicants pay for additional staff hours to accelerate a given application without jumping the queue.
Lawmakers pressed DEQ on PFAS and microplastics. Singletary said DEQ acquired two pieces of PFAS-capable equipment for water sampling (each costing about $500,000) funded in part by an EPA grant; bringing machines on line cost another roughly $250,000 apiece and annual calibration and competency expenses are on the order of $250,000 per year. He added that biosolids testing is more complex, would require additional instrumentation and ancillary gear (roughly $400,000'$450,000) and that the total startup for biosolids capability could approach $1,000,000 with similar annual maintenance costs on the order of a quarter-million dollars. For microplastics, DEQ said it is prioritizing public-awareness campaigns and informational bulletins rather than regulatory mandates at this stage.
On a separate water-quality exchange, the committee asked about a brown-water incident at Broken Bow Lake that left some residents without potable water for months. George Russell, DEQ's water-quality director, said discoloration may stem from iron or manganese and that the agency provides technical assistance and initiates enforcement when corrective steps fail; Singletary acknowledged aesthetic discoloration can be alarming even when it is not a primary human-health violation and said DEQ seeks to address such problems.
Singletary also reviewed DEQ's organizational streamlining, IT investments (including a newly launched operator-certification platform), a grants office to help communities find wastewater funding and a parking-garage construction update.
