The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) launched a 10-county pilot program on Wednesday, designed to improve and accelerate the review process for construction stormwater discharge permits.
The pilot program is available for Chapter 102 Individual National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit applications for projects in Allegheny, Beaver, Bucks, Chester, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, and York counties.
Conservation Districts will accept up to three Individual NPDES permit applications quarterly.
Prospective applicants must have a licensed professional prepare the stormwater plan, and must meet with Conservation District and/or DEP staff for two pre-application meetings.
“The goal with our permit modernization efforts is always processing permit applications in the most efficient way possible while still maintaining the high standards that Pennsylvanians expect and deserve from DEP,” DEP Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley said. “The Chapter 102 Pilot Program aims to take a common permit and find ways to improve the process. DEP reviews more than 40,000 permit applications every year across all permit types, and we will take the lessons we learn from this pilot and see how we can apply them to other permits.”
The DEP expects that the program will reduce the average processing time for Chapter 102 Individual NPDES Permit applications by 73 business days.