EPA's Vessel General Permit and Small Vessel General

(1) Scope
In this section, we ask whether EPA is aware of the scope of their Action. Section 7 regulations
define an action as “all activities or programs of any kind authorized, funded, or carried out, in
whole or in part, by Federal agencies in the United States or upon the high seas.” It defines
effects of the action as the “direct and indirect effects of an action on the species or critical
habitat, together with the effects of other activities that are interrelated or interdependent with
that action that will be added to the environmental baseline. Indirect effects are those that are
caused by the proposed action and are later in time, but still are reasonably certain to occur.
Interrelated actions are those that are part of a larger action and depend on the larger action for
their justification. Interdependent actions are those that have no independent utility apart from
the action under consideration.”
As described earlier, the scope of the action includes all aspects of EPA’s issuance and
implementation of the VGPs, including the monitoring of discharges authorized by the permits
and enforcement of the permits. The VGPs include several references to monitoring,
compliance, and enforcement, all of which will be conducted by EPA as part of their action. In
sections 1.4 of the VGP and 4.3 of the sVGP, EPA requires permit compliance and affirms its
authority to determine enforcement responses to permit violations including fines, requirements,
and schedules for taking corrective actions. Section 3.1 of the VGP discusses EPA's authority
(either an EPA official or official agent acting on EPA's behalf) to determine that effluent
limits/water quality standards/pollution control measures/BMPs have not been met and how an
applicant can take corrective actions. Section 4.5 of the sVGP discusses EPA's authority to
inspect any vessel, equipment, practices, or operations regulated under the permit; and to sample
or monitor for the purpose of assuring permit compliance. It also discusses EPA’s authorities
under Section 308 of the Clean Water Act, including its authority to enter, access, inspect,
sample, monitor, and obtain information to verify compliance with the CWA.
In addition to specific references to these activities, through the course of our consultation, EPA
has committed to several monitoring, compliance, and enforcement activities, discussed in the
relative sections below (see 4, 6, and 7). Therefore, we conclude that EPA is aware of the full
scope of its action.
To reliably estimate the probable individual or cumulative effects to ESA-listed species or
designated critical habitat, EPA would need to know or reliably estimate the probable number of
discharges that it would authorize under the VGPs. Therefore, we also ask whether EPA has
structured their general permits to reliably estimate the probable number, location, and timing of
discharges that would be authorized by their VGPs. For the VGP, EPA requires a Notice of
Intent (NOI) for all vessels greater than or equal to 300 gross tons or with the capacity for 8
cubic meters of ballast water. This NOI must be submitted electronically no later than December
12, 2013 for existing vessels, by date of transfer for resale vessels, and seven days prior to
entering waters of the U.S. for new builds. The NOI asks for location information, including
homeport, anticipated port visits during the term of the permit, and whether the vessel is engaged
in nearshore voyages. The NOI also asks information on the types waste streams that would be
discharged (e.g. exhaust gas scrubber, graywater, bilgewater, and ballast water). The EPA used
the NOI data from the 2008 VGP to estimate the number of discharges that would be authorized
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