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2. Nowhere in the Draft UIC Permit does EPA mention that it is adopting the BLM's DEIS, as it is required to do by 40 CFR 1506.3 (1998). 3. EPA should have prepazed its own EIS, or supplemental EIS in order to comply with NEPA. 4. The Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club neither opposes or supports the American Soda Mine Plan or Mme application. Rather we want to assure that NEPA has been satisfied and that the proper environmental assessments have been made. 5. EPA must prepaze a supplemental EIS before issuing the UIC Permit. 6. We request that EPA withhold the issuance of the Area Permit pending compliance with NEPA. EPA may not rely on the BLM's DEIS. 7. The applicant has proposed a Water Monitoring Plan which was not made available to the public prior to the close of the comment period of BLM's DEIS. EPA must prepare a supplemental EIS to allow public comment on the monitoring plan. 8. The BLM's DEIS indicated that a well failure response plan and a pipeline spill plan needed to be prepared. These plans need to be submitted for public review and comment prior to making a final decision on the Permit. This should be covered by a supplemental EIS. 9. To meet its obligations under NEPA and the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA has no choice but to withdraw the Draft Permit and to commence prepazation of an SEIS using complete and correct ground water baseline data and information about the injection process, subsidence resulting from operations, and the likelihood of upward movement of contaminants from the injection zone into underground sources of drinking water. (This issue is also addressed under comment 1.) 10. EPA fails to mention its NEPA obligations in the SOB or even to formally adopt or not adopt the BLM's EIS. Response: The statute, and the implementing regulations that EPA administers, require that all UIC Permit actions protect underground sources of drinlang water (USDW) and that the Permitting action include public participation. This is the basis for the permitting process utilized by EPA to issue Permits for underground injection, such as that proposed by American Soda. It is important to note that EPA's UIC authority has a very narrow scope. This Permit does not include such activities as surface facilities, product pipelines, surface ponds, air issues, noise, etc. These issues were covered separately as part of BLM's EIS process. Although EPA was not a party to BLM's action, Region VIII did provide comments that were adequately addressed in the final EIS.