Making Permit & License Time Frames More Transparent

Predictable approval timeframes for permit applications give all stakeholders clear expectations on how long it takes to acquire any of DEEP’s more than 100 environmental quality permits. These timeframes also create opportunities for DEEP to improve processes, innovate, and manage staffing resources.

Based upon the extent of review, public notice requirements, potential environmental risk, and technical complexity, each type of permit (i.e., Permit by Rule, General Permit, or Individual Permit) will fall under one of four different timeframes – immediate, within 3 months, within 6 months, or within 12 months.

DEEP’s Environmental Quality Branch (EQ) currently receives approximately 2,000 permit applications per year, covering a diverse range of permits that deal with air, land, water, and waste. DEEP also successfully processes approximately 2,000 permit applications per year, including a backlog of permits from the past five years. Therefore, annually, DEEP processes about the same number of incoming applications as it receives, as reflected in the EQ Permit Totals table below.

* These totals do not currently include our online applications and professional license applications due to alternative tracking systems. Once more of our applications are on line, these totals will also reflect online applications received and processed.

It is important to note that DEEP continues to keep pace and work continues within available resources to process permit applications. We are continually pursuing improvement in meeting DEEP’s permit processing timeliness goals; however, it should be recognized that a significant portion of the applications not meeting timeliness goals are affected by applicant responsiveness, staffing, and/or enforcement issues that may halt progress. Efforts to reduce backlog and legacy applications may compete with efforts to address timely efforts until there are far fewer backlog and legacy applications to focus on. Backlog permit applications are defined as permit applications that are outside of their permit processing timeframe by 1 day to 1 year. Legacy permits are defined as permit applications older than five years. *Backlog details for this quarter are included below the timeliness chart. Legacy permit applications are tracked in a separate Legacy Permit Dashboard.

Explore our interactive data below by selecting the type of license and the timeframe you want to view. These charts display the total number of permits due to be processed in each 90-, 180-, and 365-day timeframes, represented by the sum of the light orange plus the dark orange bars. 

The snapshot below summarizes information in the chart above for the last 5 quarters through Q3 2024 and shows the percentage of on time permit processing in each division.

Q3 2024 Backlog Percent Reduction:  

In this quarter, 5 out of the 7 permitting divisions reduced its backlog in at least one of the timeframes.