Comment submitted by Ron Suttles, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation

Does the proposed rule say that EPA will have no objection to violations of water quality standards that result from water transfers? Will a new sub-category of category 5 on the integrated list be created for waters that violate water quality standrds as a result of legal water transfers? Once any NPDES effluent is in a natural cannel downstream of the point of discharge, no mattter how short the distance, will a state be free to transport and discharge it anywhere without federal restriction under this proposed rule? Would it be possible under this proposed rule to treat water to meet a lowered or less protective standard, such as for a habitat limited aquatic community, discharge it to a small channel which has that lowered or less protective beneficial use assigned to it and then route the flow through a siphon or other artificial channel or device into a receiving water possessing much higher or more protective effluent restricitions and be able to do so legally under the guise of calling it a water transfer and not a discharge?