Water Use Annual Permit Fee on September 18 EPC Agenda

September 6, 2018

The Department of Natural Resources will propose setting the Water Use Annual Permit Fee at $134, maintaining the fee at the 2018 level. Water use permits are required of any person or entity using 25,000 gallons of water in a single day during the year and are issued for a period of up to 10 years. Iowa Code authorizes the department to charge a fee for the permits and to collect up to $500,000 per year through these fees, but DNR must base the fee on its program budget. For 2019, the DNR will collect an estimated $450,000 from more than 3,000 permits to support the water permit fee program. The department has a carryover from 2018 and also received money from a general fund appropriation to DNR last session.

The proposed Water Use Annual Permit Fee is on the agenda for the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC) meeting on September 18. The meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in Clayton County at the Osborne Welcome Center, 29862 Osborne Road, in Elkader. The agenda brief is available here under the current meeting agenda, as Item 8.