What does the EPA construction permit require me to photograph?

The version in force is the 2022 Construction General Permit as modified, effective 12:00 am on 8 April 2025, expiring at 11:59 pm on 16 February 2027.¶

Two files carry the name 2022 Construction General Permit: the original January 2022 issue and the modified version. Cite the modified file. Same permit, same Part numbers, replaced text.¶

The two files are not word-for-word identical. Part 4.3.1 is one of the places where the text moved: the modified permit adds discharges to receiving waters located within Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction to the list that triggers the seven-day schedule. That comes from comparing the two documents side by side, not from a line either document prints about itself.¶

Everything below depends on this. The Parts that carry clocks are exactly the Parts people quote, and a Part number quoted out of replaced text reads as careless to anyone holding the current permit.¶

A job that will disturb one or more acres of land needs coverage, and so does a job that disturbs less than an acre but is part of a common plan of development or sale that will ultimately disturb one or more acres. In Puerto Rico, EPA issues that coverage directly.¶

Appendix B, the list of permit areas eligible for coverage, carries the entry for the territory: PRR100000, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.¶

That one line decides who the audience is. EPA issues this permit here directly, so the file built under it is a federal record, and the agency that can ask to see it is federal.¶

Part 9 is the part of the permit where states, Indian country and other areas bolt on their own conditions, and its own introductory paragraph says that an area not included there has no additions to the permit conditions. The territory is not named anywhere in Parts 1 through 9 of the permit in force, which comes from reading the Part 9 list rather than from any line the permit prints about the territory.¶

They are two separate permits: this one covers stormwater discharges from land disturbance, and Section 404 covers the discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States.¶

Both are commonly issued as general permits, and a general permit is a fast lane whose toll is the conditions. EPA's own description of the general permits issued under Section 404 makes that trade explicit - individual review disappears, and what is left holding the weight is the conditions.¶

That is the practical consequence for anyone running the job. With no case-by-case review at the front end, the proof that the conditions were met is whatever the project itself produced while the work was happening.¶

Three things have to be finished before the Notice of Intent is filed - the Appendix E historic properties screening, the Appendix D species eligibility criterion, and the SWPPP itself - and for the operator of a new site the NOI goes in at least 14 calendar days before construction activities commence.¶

The NOI is filed by every operator on the site that seeks coverage. For the operator of a new site, Table 1 puts the deadline at least 14 calendar days before commencing construction activities, and that lead time is the first thing a schedule gets wrong.¶

The Appendix E screening ends at the drawing board. Where the screening reaches Step 4, the sections of the SWPPP site map showing where stormwater controls will cause subsurface earth disturbance are part of the minimum information that must be submitted for the request to count as properly initiated, and the preservation office must be given a minimum of 15 calendar days after it receives those materials to respond.¶

Appendix D is the Endangered Species Act arriving inside a water permit. Part 1.1.5 makes one of its criteria a condition of eligibility, attested in the Endangered Species Protection section of the NOI; the printable Appendix D worksheet is completed where EPA has approved a paper NOI.¶

1. Run the Appendix E screening for historic properties and finish it before anything is filed.
2. Meet one of the Appendix D endangered species criteria and attest to it in the Endangered Species Protection section of the NOI, completing the Appendix D worksheet where EPA has approved a paper NOI.
3. Develop the SWPPP consistent with Part 7, site map included.
4. Submit a complete and accurate NOI to EPA for every operator seeking coverage.
5. For a new site, file that NOI at least 14 calendar days before construction activities commence, per Table 1.

The permit gives two inspection schedules and the operator picks one: once every seven calendar days, or once every 14 calendar days plus an inspection within 24 hours of a storm that produces 0.25 inches or more of rain in a 24-hour period.¶

That choice sets the whole size of the program. One schedule is roughly 52 fixed visits a year with no weather trigger attached; the other is roughly 26 fixed visits plus one for every qualifying storm. On an island with a wet season, the second number is the one nobody can predict. Ask which schedule the site is on before counting anything.¶

Part 4.3.1 takes the choice away, portion by portion. Where a portion of the site discharges to a sediment or nutrient-impaired water, to a water identified as Tier 2, Tier 2.5 or Tier 3 for antidegradation purposes, or to receiving waters located within Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction, it is every seven calendar days and within 24 hours of that same storm. Both, and the operator picks nothing. Part 4.3 says the increased frequencies take the place of the Part 4.2 frequencies for the portion of the site affected, so one site can run two schedules at once.¶

Footnote 68 fixes when the clock starts: once either of the Part 4.2.2a or 4.2.2b conditions is met, there are 24 hours from that time to conduct the inspection, counted as a continuous passage of time and not by business hours. Two footnotes then set the edges. Footnote 67: inspections are only required during the site's normal working hours. Footnote 68: when the entire 24-hour window falls outside normal working hours, the inspection can go to the end of the next business day. Those two together are what make a Sunday-night storm a Monday-morning job.¶

Frequency can drop where the ground is finished. In any area where the Part 2.2.14a stabilization steps are complete, the permit allows inspections to go to twice in the first month, no more than 14 calendar days apart, then once a month. It applies area by area. The permit also requires the beginning and ending dates of that period to be documented in the SWPPP, and the frequency returns to Parts 4.2 and 4.3 the moment construction activity resumes in that area.¶

1. Ask which of the two Part 4.2 schedules the site is on, and get the answer from the SWPPP rather than from memory.
2. Ask what each portion of the site discharges to, and whether that water is impaired for sediment or nutrients, is identified as Tier 2, Tier 2.5 or Tier 3, or sits within Lands of Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction.
3. Where Part 4.3.1 applies, count from Part 4.3.1 for that portion: seven calendar days and within 24 hours of the storm.
4. Fix the rainfall source that starts the 0.25-inch clock, and log the reading alongside the inspection.
5. Track which areas have completed the Part 2.2.14a stabilization steps, because those are the areas the permit allows to move to the reduced frequency, with the beginning and ending dates documented in the SWPPP.

The SWPPP has to include a legible map, or series of maps, of the site, and that map has to be modified within seven days of any of the conditions listed in Part 7.4.1.¶

Part 7.2.4 then lists the features the map has to carry - among them the locations where earth-disturbing activities will occur with any phasing noted, approximate slopes before and after major grading activities, where sediment, soil or other construction materials will be stockpiled, any receiving water crossings, the designated points where vehicles exit onto paved roads, the structures and other impervious surfaces on completion, the on-site and off-site construction support activity areas, any receiving waters within the site and all receiving waters within one mile downstream of the discharge points with any impaired or Tier 2, Tier 2.5 or Tier 3 water identified, federally listed critical habitat within the action area, the type and extent of pre-construction cover, drainage patterns of stormwater and authorized non-stormwater before and after major grading activities, the discharge locations themselves, the pollutant-generating activities, and where treatment chemicals will be used and stored.¶

Read that list for what it is: a drafting scope written by a federal permit, with a seven-day clock on every revision. It is desk work, it is repeatable, and it runs for the life of the job.¶

The same map does double duty. Step 4 of Appendix E requires the sections of it that show where stormwater controls will cause subsurface earth disturbance, as part of the minimum information a request has to carry to count as properly initiated - so the file that answers Part 7.2.4 is the file that answers the historic properties screening.¶

Every inspection produces a report within 24 hours of completing that inspection, a copy stays at the site or somewhere it can be produced immediately for EPA, and the reports and the corrective action log are kept at least three years from the date permit coverage expires or is terminated.¶

The second clock is the one that catches people. Doing the inspection is the first half of the obligation; the report has to be finished inside 24 hours, which means the imagery, the notes and the write-up move together, the same day, not in a batch at the end of the month.¶

The three years run from the end of the permit, not from the date on the report. On a job that runs in phases, a report written in the first year has to survive until the last phase is closed out, and it applies to the corrective action log the same way it applies to the reports.¶

Part 4.7.3 sets its test by outcome: immediately available at the time of an on-site inspection or upon request by EPA. Wherever the reports live, the answer to "show me" has to be now.¶

It does: Part 8.2.1a says that to document that the stabilization requirements have been met you must take either ground or aerial photographs and submit them with the Notice of Termination.¶

The sub-clauses set the specification. Photographs both before and after the site meets the final stabilization criteria in Part 2.2.14c, clear and in focus, in the original format and resolution, each one carrying the date it was taken and a brief description of the area it captures.¶

Part 8.2.1a also sets the coverage test. Photographs of every distinct part of the site being stabilized are not demanded, but the conditions portrayed in the photographs that are submitted must be substantially similar to those of the areas that are not photographed - which is what makes the sampling decision a documented one rather than a convenience.¶

"Original format and resolution" is the line that decides the workflow. The file that comes off the camera is the file that goes to EPA, so the delivery path has to carry full-size originals from the field all the way to the submission.¶

These photographs leave the building. They go to a federal agency as the evidence that closes the permit, and the before-and-after wording means the "before" has to be taken while the work is still unfinished - the day someone realizes they need it, the moment to take it has already passed.¶

Authorization to discharge under the current permit ends at 11:59 pm on 16 February 2027, and the draft of the next permit carries the inspection cadence forward under the same Part number, word for word. That last part comes from setting the two documents side by side, not from a line either one prints about itself.¶

Part 4.2.2 of the draft 2027 permit reads as Part 4.2.2 of the permit in force reads: every 14 calendar days, and within 24 hours of a storm that produces 0.25 inches or more of rain within a 24-hour period. The number a whole documentation program is built on survives the change of permit.¶

A draft is a draft until EPA issues it. Name the permit version any scope of work was written against, and say in that scope what happens when the next permit lands. The clocks are the stable part; the file name is not.¶