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OCEAN DISCHARGE CRITERIA DATABASE (CWA SECTION 403)
Description:
Resource Purpose:Under Section 402 of the CWA, NPDES permits addressing discharges to the ocean can be obtained. Also under the NPDES program, facilities that discharge beyond the baseline must obtain in addition to NPDES permit under CWA Section 402, that permit must also address ocean discharge criteria set forth in CWA Section 403. The criteria is used to determine if the discharge will likely cause unreasonable degradation to the marine environment. If the discharge will likely cause unreasonable degradation to marine environment, no permit will be issued, and if the discharge will not cause unreasonable degradation to the marine environment, the permit will be issued. Where there is insufficient information to make a determination, and the discharge will not cause irreparable harm to the marine environment, a conditional permit may be issued that have monitoring requirements. The 403 database contains the monitoring information and other supporting information for the program (which has been delegated to the EPA Regions.)
Legislation/Enabling Authority:FWPCA ? 403 (c) and 40 CFR ? 125.123
Supported Program:NPDES programs including the 403? and 301(h). These data are also valuable in supporting marine research and technology advancement.
Data Type:
Primary Data Type:
Facility
Monitoring
Compliance
Permit
Geographical Data Stored By:
Latitude - Longitude
Data Represented By:
Other
Concentrations including narratives
Measurement Methods:
Maps and GPS
System Access Privileges:
Access Methods:
FTP
Direct
Update Methods:
FTP
Direct
Resources Accessible By:
Public
States
Regions
DataSubs
All EPA
EPA Branch
EPA Division
Resources Updatable By:
States
Regions
EPA Branch
EPA Division
CBI Security:
No
Data Collection:Compliance data is updated annually or as needed. Permit data is updated monthly or as needed. This responsibility has been delegated to the EPA Regions. It is our experience that the Regional input is variable. On average, it takes about three months to get the data in from a monthly monitoring system.
Range of Data:
This system stores data from the onset of the monitoring to the ultimate denial of the permit, if that should occur.