Pennsylvania’s Industrial Stormwater General Permit (PAG-03) was issued on September 24, 2016 and included a standard five year term. On September 18, 2021, the existing PAG-03 permit was extended to September 23, 2022. If the 2016 permit is not renewed by September 2022, PADEP has recommended that applicants requiring permit coverage apply for an individual permit.
General permit holders can start to breathe easy. On January 22, 2022 PADEP published a draft PAG-03 General Permit and will be accepting comments until February 22, 2022.
Some of the proposed changes to the previous General Permit that may affect currently permitted facilities include:
- Removal of “grandfathered” discharges to surface waters classified as “High Quality” or “Exceptional Value”. In the current version of the permit, these grandfathered facilities could continue to discharge under a general permit. Based upon the language proposed in the new permit, these facilities may be required to obtain an Individual Permit.
- Additional monitored parameters for some industry sectors.
- Inclusion of a Best Management Practice (BMP) checklist outlining sector specific BMPs that must be implemented if benchmarks are exceeded for four or more consecutive monitoring periods.
These changes may reflect federal updates to the EPA Multi-Sector General Permit (MSGP) that became effective on March 1, 2021.
For assistance with industrial stormwater permitting, compliance sampling and reporting, please contact Sean Fullmer.