The Maryland Department of the Environment has made a final determination regarding the NPDES Permit for the Valley Proteins, Inc. facility located at 5420 Linkwood Road, Linkwood, Maryland 21835.  The permit authorizes and regulates the discharge of an average of 150,000 gallons per day of treated process wastewater generated from a poultry rendering operation and variable volumes of stormwater to an unnamed tributary of Transquaking River (Use I waters), upstream of Higgins Millpond.  The permit also contains conditions to facilitate a possible expansion of the process wastewater flow to a potential average of 575,000 gallons per day. 

After considering all comments received, the Department has made a final determination to issue the permit with 9 changes. The final determination changes limits for biochemical oxygen demand, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, and dissolved oxygen (change # 1); adds temperature monitoring (change #2); requires 24-hour reporting for “any” instance of noncompliance (change #3); corrects typographical errors and clarifies the language of certain conditions (changes 4, 6, 7, and 9); ensures that the upgraded wastewater treatment works are adequately staffed (change #5);  and provides 2 months to submit the groundwater monitoring well location plan (change #8). A more detailed list of these changes can be found in the final determination public notice and in the response to comments document. Both of these documents are provided below. All other terms and conditions remain unchanged from the tentative determination. 

Additional information regarding the final determination is presented on this page, below. The Public Notice of Final Determination contains a list of changes that have been made in response to comments received following the publication of a draft tentative determination. A detailed response to each substantive comment is provided in the Response to Public Comments document. 

Substantial reduction​s in permit limitations (versus the previous permit) and additional restrictions were already included in the tentative determination draft permit. For reference, the Department has also included a summary of limitations and conditions that were proposed in the tentative determination (see the Summary of Tentative Determination Draft Permit Conditions document below).  The final fact sheet contains the rationale that supported the development of the draft limits. In the event of any inconsistencies between the final factsheet and the response to comments document, the response document shall take precedence.​​