Public Notice: Opportunity to Comment on the Drinking Water General Permit for Indian Country in Region 8
Summary
Summary
The EPA Region 8 intends to issue a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) general permit under the authority of Section 402 of the Clean Water Act.
Activity
The EPA Region 8 is requesting comments on the draft 2025 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) drinking water general permit (DWGP) for wastewater discharges associated with drinking water treatment plants. The DWGP will authorize wastewater discharges from drinking water facilities located in Indian country in the EPA Region 8 in accordance with the terms and conditions described therein. This is the first reissuance of the DWGP. The EPA proposes to issue the permit for five (5) years and is seeking comment on the draft permit.
Public Comments
Comments must be received, in writing, on or before July 18, 2025. Any interested person may submit comments on the draft permit. Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R08-OW-2025-0010, at the following url: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/EPA-R08-OW-2025-0010/document
Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.
Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from https://www.regulations.gov. The EPA may publish any comment received. Do not submit information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written comment.
The written comment is considered the official comment and should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary submission (i.e., on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). For additional submission methods, the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the https://www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy. Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically in https://www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the Wastewater Program, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 8, 1595 Wynkoop Street, Denver, Colorado 80202-1129. The EPA requests that if at all possible, you can contact the individual listed in the How to Comment section to view the hard copy of the docket. You may view the hard copy of the docket Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., excluding federal holidays.
The following Tribes in EPA Region 8 have Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401(a)(1) certification authority: the Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, the Blackfeet Tribe, the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. The EPA has requested certification from each of these Tribes that the DWGP complies with the applicable provisions of the CWA and their respective Tribal water quality standards.
Permit Availability
The full administrative record – including all data submitted by the applicant – is electronically available upon request for public inspection. The draft permit and the statement of basis for the draft permit are available for download below. For further information, please reach out to Mr. Garrison at the contact information provided.
Notification and details of any public comment period extension will be posted here. Interested parties on our email list will also be notified by email. If you wish to be added to our email list, there is a link to subscribe at About Region 8's NPDES Permit Program.