As of January 1, 2018, all new permit applications for an Air Pollution Permit to Construct or Permit to Operate are required to be noticed publicly on the Department’s Environmental Notice Bulletin (ENB), and must follow new procedural rules under Act 150 (10 V.S.A. Chapter 170), a 2016 law that standardized and consolidated DEC public notice and comment processes.
What are the public notice and comment requirements:
Upon receipt of a complete permit application, the Air Program will post the application on the Department’s ENB. Newspapers will no longer be used. Town Clerks and other regulatorily required parties will automatically be notified of the receipt of the application and subsequent activity by email. Interested members of the public may also view the application listing on the ENB as well as subscribe to automatic notifications for various projects (e.g. all DEC projects in my town, all air permit projects in the state etc…). Draft air pollution permits will be made available on the Department’s ENB for public comment for a minimum of 30 days, except simple state only Permits to Operate will only be available for public comment for a minimum period of 14 days. A public meeting may be requested by any member of the public following issuance of the draft permit subject to certain limitations depending on the application type. For more information regarding the implementation of Act 150 (10 V.S.A. Chapter 170), please see the Department’s website for Permits, Licenses and Certifications as well as ENB general information.
In addition, an applicant for an Air Pollution Permit to Construct or Title V Permit to Operate must notify all adjoining landowners of the proposed application by US mail using the Adjoining Landowner Notice Letter prescribed by the Air Quality & Climate Division, prior to submitting the application to the Air Quality & Climate Division. The applicant must include as part of the permit application submittal the signed Certification of Notification to Adjoining Landowners attesting that all adjoining landowners were notified. An “adjoining property owner” means a person who owns land in fee simple, if that land: (A) shares a property boundary with a tract of land where proposed or actual activity regulated by the Department is located; or (B) is adjacent to a tract of land where such activity is located and the two properties are separated only by a river, stream, or public highway.
Title V Operating Permit Additional Information:
Should the Agency proceed with issuance of a Title V Operating Permit after duly considering all comments received, a “Proposed Permit” will be sent to the U.S. EPA Region I Administrator. The Administrator has 45 days to review and decide whether or not to object in writing to the issuance of the proposed Title V Operating Permit. Any person may petition the Administrator within 60 days of the end of the Administrator’s review period to make objection. Any such petition shall be based only on objections to the permit that were raised with reasonable specificity during the public comment period provided by the permitting authority, unless the petitioner demonstrates in the petition to the Administrator that it was impracticable to raise such objections within such period or unless the grounds for such objection arose after such period.
For more information on the EPA Title V Permit Program and the petition process, please see the following EPA websites: