GP5 - Mining/Processing

General Permit #5 (GP #5) authorizes discharges from facilities primarily engaged in mining or quarrying to waters throughout the State of Iowa. GP #5 was reissued on July 1, 2023. The types of discharges authorized under GP #5 include:

• wash water,
• materials transport water,
• scrubber water used for air pollution control,
• water used for dust suppression,
• mine or quarry dewatering, and
• non-contact cooling water used for cooling of crusher bearings, drills, saws, dryers, pumps and air compressors.

The facilities covered by General Permit #5 may be primarily engaged in mining or quarrying dimension stone (SIC 1411), crushed and broken limestone (SIC 1422), construction sand and gravel (SIC 1442), or clay, ceramic, and refractory minerals not elsewhere classified (SIC 1459) except bentonite and magnesite.

Current Version of General Permit #5

The reissued version of GP #5 (313.46 KB) .pdf became effective on July 1, 2023.

Any discharge authorizations granted under the previous version of GP #5 issued on July 20, 2021, will remain valid through the renewed permits' expiration date of June 30, 2028.

Renewal of General Permit #5

The DNR hosted an informal stakeholder meeting on March 3, 2026, regarding the proposed five-year renewals of NPDES General Permits #5, #6, and #7 (GPs #5-7). Formal rulemaking to renew GPs #5-7 is expected to begin in mid 2026.

Redline-strikeout version of the draft renewal of GP #5 (2026-1-30) (342.64 KB) .pdf

Forms for General Permit #5

Notices of Intent (NOIs), Annual Monitoring reports, and Fees for General Permit #5 may all be submitted electronically using the General Permits 5, 8, and 9 Database. For more information on the database, and to access the user manual, please see the NPDES Databases page.

Fees for General Permit #5

A permitted facility has the option of submitting an annual fee, or a three, four, or five-year fee as follows:

• Annual Permit Fee: $125 (per year)
• Three-year Permit Fee: $300
• Four-year Permit Fee: $400
• Five-year Permit Fee: $500

Fees are to be submitted by August 30 each year unless a multiple year fee payment was paid in an earlier year. 

New facilities will still have to pay an annual fee by August 30th even though they may have months remaining on their original fee payment. For example, if a new facility paid a one year fee with their NOI on April 1, 2021, the facility would still have a new annual fee due on August 30, 2021.

In the event a facility is no longer eligible to be covered under general permit #5, the remainder of the fees previously paid by the facility would be applied toward its individual permit fee.

Fees for General Permit #5 may all be submitted electronically using the General Permits 5, 8, and 9 Database.