The Notice of Intent Form Has Been Reformatted

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) will be phasing in a new Notice of Intent (NOI) in 2004 for stormwater discharges associated with construction activity under the State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) General Permit (GP-02-01).

After one year of permitting under this program, the NYSDEC identified a need to reformat the existing NOI form to serve multiple purposes. Due to the influx of new construction projects needing coverage under the general permit and limited NYSDEC staff resources, a new technology was chosen to assist in the processing and data entry that is necessary to issue permits. In addition, while planning a format change, the need to collect additional technical project details was evident. Many NOIs being submitted were inadequate, and it became obvious that many projects contained substandard erosion and sediment controls and post-construction water quality/quantity controls. The new NOI will help in a more thorough initial review.

The NYSDEC will now be using intelligent character recognition and optical character recognition technology on the new construction stormwater NOI. The new NOI will be posted on the NYSDEC public website shortly and be phased in through late summer to early fall 2004, when it will be used exclusively for new construction permits.

Prospective permittees may download the NOI, print it out, manually complete the hand print form (including signature), and submit to the NYSDEC via facsimile or U.S. mail; or, better yet, complete the machine print PDF form, print it out, sign it, and submit it to the NYSDEC via facsimile or U.S. mail.

The new software is capable of recognizing both hand print and machine print on submitted forms and allows for easier and quicker processing by the NYSDEC. Information on the forms is subject to a quality assurance/quality control procedure before being exported directly to a database. The computer generated machine print PDF forms are preferred to increase accuracy and avoid errors. The machine print forms may be completed on line or downloaded and completed off-line. The machine print PDF form is also, for most, easier to fill out in that one may just type the answer to each question directly into the form.

If hand printing is necessary, the applicant must print legibly (black ink preferred), avoid contact with the edge of “boxes,” and fill in choice field circles completely without using check marks. Additional instructions will also be provided on the website.

Kevin Malone was an environmental program specialist for the general permits section of the NYSDEC. He has accepted a promotion to the NYSDOH, where he will be using his excellent abilities to protect human health in New York State.