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The Maryland Legislature passed House Bill 649 (“HB 649”) addressing Clean Water Act National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permits.

Key Clean Water Act components of HB 649 include:

• Establishing inspection and reporting requirements for certain NPDES permittees
• Requiring the Maryland Department of the Environment (“MDE”) maintain on its website a list of certain noncompliant NPDES permittees
• Establishing administrative penalties for certain NPDES permittees determined to be in significant noncompliance of certain state or federal water quality standards, effluent limitations or other requirements

The legislation would require MDE to clear a backlog of administratively continued NPDES permits.

MDE monthly inspections would be required to be conducted of:

• Each NPDES permittee that MDE has determined to be in significant noncompliance with an applicable state or federal standard, effluent limitation or other applicable requirement of MDE or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Note that the term “significant noncompliance” is not defined.

A copy of HB 649 can be downloaded here.