The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is initiating consultation and coordination with federally recognized Indian tribes on a forthcoming rulemaking that would establish tribal baseline water quality standards (WQS) under the Clean Water Act (CWA) for waters on Indian reservations that currently do not have EPA-approved WQS in place. EPA previously engaged in consultation with tribal governments on this matter to inform the Agency’s 2016 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for Federal Baseline Water Quality Standards for Indian Reservations. The input received at that time, and from several EPA exchanges with tribal governments since, was used to further develop the concepts included in the consultation plan.
Water quality standards define the goals for water bodies and establish the criteria that must be met to support those goals, serving as the foundation for controlling pollution as mandated by the CWA. By promulgating tribal baseline WQS for Indian reservation waters that currently do not have EPA-approved WQS in place, EPA may be better equipped to work with tribal governments to not only improve water quality in impaired waters, but also prevent future degradation of waters by providing a basis to assess the health of water bodies and impose effluent limits to control pollution discharges, including discharges upstream from waters with baseline WQS.
This action is separate from and complementary to EPA’s forthcoming rulemaking to revise the federal water quality standards regulations to protect tribal reserved rights in waters where states have WQS jurisdiction. EPA has initiated a concurrent 90-day tribal consultation period for that separate but complementary action. Consultation materials are available on EPA’s Tribal Consultation Opportunities Tracking System (TCOTS) website located at: https://tcots.epa.gov.
EPA will hold a listening session via webinar for tribal leaders and staff on Thursday, July 8, 2021, from 1:00-3:00 pm (EDT). You can register for the webinar at https://www.epa.gov/wqs-tech/tribal-baseline-WQS. EPA plans to hold a second listening session via webinar towards the end of the consultation period. EPA plans to announce the date and time of the second webinar in early August and anticipates scheduling the webinar to occur in late August or early September. Updates on the second webinar will be posted to: https://www.epa.gov/wqs-tech/tribal-baseline-WQS.
The 90-day consultation period for this action ends on September 13, 2021. For any questions, please contact Mary Lou Soscia by email at soscia.marylou@epa.gov or by phone at (503) 381-3840.