Kentucky Revised Statutes Title XVIII. Public Health § 224.16-055.Guidelines for issuance of permits to discharge into waters designated as outstanding state resource waters

(a) Presume that water quality will be maintained and protected if the applicant complies with the technology-based effluent limitations for the point source category for the industry in which the permit applicant operates or with any species-specific protection measures imposed on the applicant's operation by any other state or federal agency in any other permit, approval, or review applicable to the operation for which the permit under KRS 224.16-050 is sought;

(b) In determining whether lowering of water quality or habitat modification will have an adverse effect on the threatened or endangered species that the water supports, give substantial weight to any evidence submitted by the permit applicant indicating that discharges from similar operations have not caused a material decrease in the overall number of the same or similar threatened or endangered species of aquatic organisms;

(c) Not impose any conditions that are more stringent than those required by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to protect any particular threatened or endangered species of aquatic organism or aquatic habitat with respect to the discharge or operation; and

(d) In the absence of any restrictions, conditions, or limitations imposed on the discharge by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, presume that compliance with numeric water quality standards applicable to the discharge shall constitute compliance with narrative water quality standards applicable to outstanding state resource waters that support federally recognized threatened or endangered species.