Frequently Asked Questions
What is recovery.deq.mt.gov?
recovery.deq.mt.gov is Montana Department of Environmental Quality's website with all the information on how the agency will use the federal stimulus funding allotted to it.
Where can I find more information about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009?
This link will take you to the Office of Management & Budget's current information about the Act - http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ARRA_public_review/
What is the purpose of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act?
The Act, or federal stimulus plan, is intended to:
- create and save jobs
- increase economic efficiency
- promote long-term recovery and growth
- stabilize State and local government budgets
What benefits could the stimulus funds offer us here in Montana?
The stimulus funds could help:
- refurbish the state's infrastructure
- increase energy independence
- enhance educational opportunities
- increase access to health care
- provide tax relief
- support those most affected by the recession
What types of programs will be funded?
Funding is provided for a range of federal programs. Funding will increase or extend certain benefits payable under the Medicaid, unemployment compensation and nutrition assistance programs. Funding will also reduce individual and corporate income tax collections and make other changes to tax laws.
In sum, funding will support programs that:
- create a framework for clean, efficient, American energy
- transform our economy with science and technology
- modernize roads, bridges, transit and waterways
- overhaul education for the 21st century
- dispense tax cuts to create jobs
- expand access to health care and lower costs
- provide assistance to workers hurt by the economy
- save public sector jobs and protect vital services
How will the DEQ handle the increased need for permits, such as gravel pit permits?
There are two areas in which the DEQ anticipates a significant increase in demand for permit activity.
The first is in open cut mines or gravel pits due to the increased number of road projects. The department is planning for this increase and has a number of strategies for dealing with it including:
- Continue to focus existing staff on permits as opposed to compliance inspections and bond releases.
- Asking the Montana Department of Transportation to dedicate one staff person for environmental assessment and public involvement work for gravel pits applications related to road construction.
- Implementing process changes developed in response to a recent performance audit, such as
- Checklist environmental assessments
- Administrative staff FTE devoted to completeness review
- Offload more front-end work to applicants
- Reassign coal and hard rock regulatory staff on a short term basis
- Contracting
- Short-term staffing
- Hiring former (retired) employees on part-time basis
- Using new grads, student interns on checklist environmental assessments
The second area in which we anticipate an increase is plan and specification review for water and wastewater treatment facilities. Some of the strategies being investigated are:
- Contracting
- Short-term staffing
- Hiring former (retired) employees on part-time basis
- Authorizing more overtime for existing staff
- Doing more initial work by Engineers-In-Training, engineering graduates, and, where feasible, engineering students or interns, rather than registered Professional Engineers (PE), with PE review
- Using existing contracts with certain cities and contracts to accomplish review
- Rely on PE certification with spot-checking, rather than reviewing all submittals
- Move staff engineers off of less technical reviews (e.g. drainfields, septics) and backfill with non engineering staff, interns or contractors. Cover salaries of county sanitarians for time spent on this work.
