EPA to Audit Itself
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) internal watchdog announced on June 13, 2019, that it will audit the EPA’s permitting process for a planned $1 billion Minnesota copper and nickel mine in order to determine whether the EPA complied with Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) regulations. The EPA’s Office of Inspector General disclosed that the audit stems from a hotline complaint and has directed EPA Region 5 to detail the NPDES program regulations and guidance relevant to the mine permit review as well as to turn over any analyses and other documents related to the mining permit application.
Among the concerns raised includes whether proper enforcement under the CWA might be precluded for certain pollutants, whether the permit includes water quality-based effluent limitations, and whether mercury discharges are at all regulated. The permit applicant maintains that the NPDES permit issued by Minnesota meets all applicable state and federal standards. ent 6;\lsdpri