Office of Conservation

Injection & Mining Division >> Underground Injection Control Section

Underground Injection Control (UIC) Section

Injection well relationship to USDWs

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The Underground Injection Control (UIC) section is responsible for administering a United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved regulatory and permitting program.  Its core duty is to protect underground sources of drinking water (USDW), surface waters, and the land from endangerment by regulating the subsurface injection of hazardous and nonhazardous waste fluids; subsurface storage of liquid, liquefied, and gaseous fluids; mineral solution mining; injection for enhanced oil recovery; and carbon dioxide sequestration. 

The program is responsible for the administration, permitting, inspection, and enforcement activities under R.S. 30:4.1, LAC 43:XVII, Subpart 1-4 and LAC 43:XIX, Subpart 1, Chapter 4. The UIC Program was developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a result of the 1977 Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The Office of Conservation received primary enforcement authority (primacy) for the regulation of injection and disposal wells in 1982. Descriptions of the five (5) classes of injections wells regulated by the UIC program (Class VI wells are currently not regulated by the state of Louisiana) and the (6) wells identified by the EPA are given in the attached Six Classes of Injection Wells document.  Seven (7) Conservation Enforcement Specialists (CES) are responsible for field surveillance, inspection, and enforcement activities.  The inspection area for each CES inspector is shown in the UIC CES Parish Assignment Map.

An Underground Source of Drinking Water (USDW) is defined as an aquifer or its portion which supplies any public water system or contains a sufficient quantity of ground water to supply a public water system and currently supplies drinking water for human consumption or contains fewer than 10,000 mg/l total dissolved solids and which is not an exempted aquifer.

UIC APPLICATION LINKS

GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS

SALT CAVERN INFORMATION

CLASS VI CARBON SEQUESTRATION INFORMATION

INJECTION AND MINING DIRECTORY

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