State Formal Enforcement Action
NPDES
ICIS Home Page
Be sure you have the “Sensitive Data Access and the role(s) for EA.”
From theNPDES Global Navigation menu
Scroll down to “Enforcement Action”
Choose: Administrative Formal
Enter the “Enforcement Action Identified” (previously called the Docket number) from the source document. The Identifier will default to your state. Be sure that each Enforcement Action Identifier is unique as it can only be used one time.
Example: OK-2015-0001
Enforcement Action Name (not required, would encourage you to enter this field for searching later) Ex. Oklahoma City, City of (facility name)
Enforcement Agency Type (not required, can enter “State”)
Click “Next”
In the “Available” column, click on the type of enforcement action and then click “ADD”, and “NEXT”
Required to link a facility to your enforcement action.
Click on “Manage Facilities” on the right side
Search for your facility. (easiest way is to enter the “NPDES ID” under the “Search by Permit Information” section).
Click on “Next”
If the correct facility is displayed, click on the box to the left of the permit number and click “Next.
A confirmation page appears, just click “Next”.
Government Contacts page appears. This information is optional, but would be very useful for reports and if users have questions about the enforcement action. EPA usually enters the Lead Technical Contact and may enter the attorney.
Click “Next”
Basic Info Screen appears.
State and Federal users are required to enter any field with an “*”.
Enter the “Federal Statutes Violated” / “Programs Violated”
Click on one or more from the Programs Violated list.
Review the other fields available to determine if your agency is interested in tracking this information. There are regionally defined fields available for tracking information unique to your agency (similar to the way the fields were used in PCS). Also, you should note that any comments added to the “Summary / Non-Compliance or Corrective Action Description” field will be released to the public. Federal users are required to enter a comment in this field.
Click on “Save and Continue”
Now that the basic information has been added and saved, there are several other items that can be entered. Basic Info is not underlined on the screen, so you will be able to easily identify where you are in ICIS.
Basic Info Sensitive Comments Milestones Sub-Activities Final Order
In order to get the Issuance Date into the system, you must enter a “Final Order.”
Final Order
Click on “Add Final Order”
ICIS defaults to the facility that was specified in your enforcement action, so click on “Next”.
Remember fields with an “*” must be completed.
“Type” - Click on the arrow to bring up the list of choices. Make sure your enforcement action matches on the Final Order. Administrative Order or Penalty Order
Very important to enter the “Final Order Issued Date” on the right. The Enforcement Action will be consider PENDING until a date is entered. MM/DD/YYYY
Click on “Save and Continue”
Once saved, several more groups appear to add more information about the Final enforcement action.
In order to resolve violations on the QNCR, a compliance schedule event must be entered. Penalty, Enforcement Action Limits (if applicable), SEPs may be entered.
QNCR comments to be displayed on the report can be entered on the Final Order screen.
Compliance Schedule in the Final Order - It is important to enter at least one Compliance Schedule event in order to change the permit RNC status from noncompliant to resolved pending on the QNCR.
Click on the Compliance Schedulehyperlink
Click on “Add Schedule”
Facility linked in enforcement action shows up as a default, click Next.
You can enter a “Schedule Description” which is similar to the CS Number field in PCS.
On the left of the screen is “Recurring Events” and on the right is “Non-recurring Events”
Recurring events are often used for progress reports. This is a very useful tool to enter compliance schedule events that happen more than once. An example is quarterly progress reports.
Enter the “Schedule Event” - ex. Status/Progress Report
Enter the “Schedule Start Date” - ex. 10/01/2015
Enter the “Frequency” - ex. Once every 3 months(Quarterly)
Enter the “Number of Occurrences” or the “End Date”
ex. 03/31/2018
Non-recurring events – You will need to enter at least one Compliance Schedule Event from the enforcement action in order for the RNC status to change from noncompliant to resolved pending.
Enter the “Compliance Schedule Event” - Select button
Some of the most common Schedule Events used for the final requirement in the Order are as follows:
●Achieve Final Compliance with all obligations under this Order
●Achieve Final Compliance with Emissions or Discharge Limits
Enter the “Scheduled Date”
Click on “Save and Continue”
Linking NPDES Violations to your enforcement action
Linking NPDES violations to your enforcement action is a 2 step process. For penalty actions, you may send a “Proposed” Administrative Penalty Order citing NPDES violations. When the Final Order is sent, some of those violations may have been removed.
Step 1 - Click on the “NPDES Violations” tab
Facilities NPDES Permit Incidents ...... NPDES Violations Enforcement Actions ......
Click on the “Search to Link” button
You must enter the permit number and a date range to search for the violations you want to link. If you want all types of violations, or you can narrow your search to DMR violations, compliance schedule violations or single event violations only. ICIS generates violations at each individual field (Q1, Q2, C1, C2, and C3) You will need to link every violation that is noted in the enforcement action.
Once you search, a list of violations that met your search selection appear. You can select the individual violations by clicking on the box to the left of the violation or if all violations on that screen were included in your action, you can click on the “Select All” box. A confirmation will come up stating the number of violations that will be linked. Click on “LINK”. To see more pages, click on the arrows. If violations were linked by mistake, click on the box to the left of the violation that should not be linked and click on “UNLINK”.
Step 2 - This step was changed. Violations that meet the business rules and were linked in Step 1 will be automatically linked in Step 2. For instance, if you link violations after the issue date of the enforcement action in Step 1 (this is allowed); however the violations will not be linked to the Final Order because you cannot link violations after the issue date. The violations that are linked to the Final Order / NPDES Violations hyperlink will change those violations from Noncompliant to Resolved Pending. (Remember a Compliance Schedule event must be added for the formal enforcement action also.)
You may want to verify the violations were linked automatically to the Final Order/ NPDES Violation Link.
From the Formal Enforcement Action
Click on the “Final Order”
Click on the Final Order Id
Click on the “NPDES Violations”
A list of violations that have been automatically linked in the “NPDES Violations” tab will appear as long as they meet all the requirements for the business rules.
Closing Enforcement Action
For QNCR resolution, it is very important to close your actions in ICIS. There are 2 ways to accomplish this task. We recommend that you close your action under the “Milestone” hyperlink – Enforcement Action Closed. When you close under the Milestone hyperlink, the NPDES Closed date in the Final Order is automatically populated.
Search for your enforcement action.
Under Milestones -
“Enforcement Action Closed” - Click on this and enter the “Actual” date the Order was closed. Once this field is entered, the “NPDES Closed” date in the Final Order is automatically populated in ICIS.
Under Final Order
In the case of a multi-media enforcement action, the “NPDES Closed Date” was made available so you could leave the enforcement action open (under the Milestones) to show the requirements for other medias (such as CAA) may not have been met; however the NPDES requirements were met and we needed to be able to resolve facilities on the QNCR. If you action is a single media, you can enter the closed date using either of these methods above. However when entering the NPDES Closed date, the Enforcement Action Closed date in the Milestones is not automatically populated.
Enter the “NPDES Closed Date”