This subpart shall apply to the review, hearing and decision of objections and issues arising as a result of administrative actions and decisions taken or rendered by the Executive Director under the Compact and the regulations in this chapter. Any hearings shall be conducted pursuant to the provisions of subpart F of this part.
The Executive Director shall serve notice of an action or decision by him under the regulations in this chapter by personal service or certified mail, return receipt requested. The affected discharger shall be entitled (and the notice of action or decision shall so state) to show cause at a Commission hearing why such action or decision should not take effect. A request for such a hearing shall be filed with the Secretary of the Commission not more than 30 days after service of the Executive Director's determination. Failure to file such a request within the time limit shall be deemed to be an acceptance of the Executive Director's determination and a waiver of any further hearing.
[62 FR 64158, Dec. 4, 1997, as amended at 63 FR 45943, Aug. 28, 1998]
(a) A request for a hearing may be informal but shall indicate the name of the individual and the address to which an acknowledgment may be directed. It may be stated in such detail as the objector may elect. The request shall be deemed filed only upon receipt by the Commission.
(b) Whenever the Executive Director determines that the request for a hearing is insufficient to identify the nature and scope of the objection, or that one or more issues may be resolved, reduced or identified by such action, he may require the objector to prepare and submit to the Commission, within such reasonable time (not less than 30 days) as he may specify, a technical report of the facts relating to the objection prior to the scheduling of the hearing. The report shall be required by notice in writing served upon the objector by certified mail, return receipt requested, addressed to the person or entity filing the request for hearing at the place indicated in the request.
(a) Generally. A request for a report under this subpart may require such information and the answers to such questions as may be reasonably pertinent to the subject of the action or determination under consideration.
(b) Waste loading. In cases involving objections to an allocation of the assimilative capacity of a stream, wasteload allocation for a point source, or load allocation for a new point source, the report shall be signed and verified by a technically qualified person having personal knowledge of the facts stated therein, and shall include such of the following items as the Executive Director may require:
(1) A specification with particularity of the ground or grounds for the objection; and failure to specify a ground for objection prior to the hearing shall foreclose the objector from thereafter asserting such a ground at the hearing;
(2) A description of industrial processing and waste treatment operational characteristics and outfall configuration in such detail as to permit an evaluation of the character, kind and quantity of the discharges, both treated and untreated, including the physical, chemical and biological properties of any liquid, gaseous, solid, radioactive, or other substance composing the discharge in whole or in part;
(3) The thermal characteristics of the discharges and the level of heat in flow;
(4) Information in sufficient detail to permit evaluation in depth of any in-plant control or recovery process for which credit is claimed;
(5) The chemical and toxicological characteristics including the processes and/or indirect discharges which may be the source of the chemicals or toxicity;
(6) An analysis of all the parameters that may have an effect on the strength of the waste or impinge upon the water quality criteria set forth in the regulations in this chapter, including a determination of the rate of biochemical oxygen demand and the projection of a first-stage carbonaceous oxygen demand;
(7) Measurements of the waste as closely as possible to the processes where the wastes are produced, with the sample composited either continually or at frequent intervals (one-half hour or, where permitted by the Executive Director, one hour periods), so as to represent adequately the strength and volume of waste that is discharged; and
(8) Such other and additional specific technical data as the Executive Director may reasonably consider necessary and useful for the proper determination of a wasteload allocation.
[62 FR 64158, Dec. 4, 1997, as amended at 63 FR 45943, Aug. 28, 1998]
No person shall be required in such report to divulge trade secrets or secret processes. All information disclosed to any Commissioner, agent or employee of the Commission in any report required by this part shall be confidential for the purposes of Section 1905 of Title 18 of the United States Code which provides:
Whoever, being an officer or employee of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, publishes, divulges, discloses, or makes known in any manner or to any extent not authorized by law any information coming to him in the course of his employment or official duties or by reason of any examination or investigation made by, or return, report or record made to or filed with, such department or agency or officer or employee thereof, which information concerns or relates to the trade secrets, processes, operations, style of work, or apparatus, or to the identity, confidential statistical data, amount or source of any income, profits, losses, or expenditures of any person, firm, partnership, corporation or association; or permits any income return or copy thereof to be seen or examined by any persons except as provided by law; shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and shall be removed from office or employment. June 25, 1948, C.645, 62 Stat. 791.
The Executive Director may, upon five days' notice to the objector dismiss the request for a hearing as to any objector who fails to file a complete report within such time as shall be prescribed in the Director's notice.
Whenever the Executive Director deems it appropriate, he may cause an informal conference to be scheduled between an objector and such member of the Commission staff as he may designate. The purpose of such a conference shall be to resolve or narrow the ground or grounds of the objections.
Following such informal conferences as may be held, to the extent that the same or similar grounds for objections are raised by one or more objectors, the Executive Director may in his discretion and with the consent of the objectors, cause a consolidated hearing to be scheduled at which two or more objectors asserting that ground may be heard.