Moving a State Department of Environmental Quality Towards Electronic Permitting

Recent state legislation required the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) to streamline its application processes. State legislators focused on construction stormwater and erosion and sedimentation control permitting. This presentation will give you a tour of the inner workings of an electronic permitting system built for both customers and DEQ staff, key processes, and lessons learned. This presentation will also discuss the program management tools that made it all happen. If you would like to build your own permitting system or get tips on how to refine the one you have, this course is for you.

Full Abstract: Many government agencies have, or are, moving away from paper-based permitting and towards electronic permitting. These include the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the California Environmental Protection Agency and many local governments.

Recent state legislation required the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) to streamline its application processes. State legislators focused on construction stormwater and erosion and sedimentation control permitting. However, the DEQ Secretary’s Office decided to move the entire Department towards more streamlined and transparent electronic permitting processes. They called this initiative the "Permitting Transformation Project".

The State decided to use the Microsoft Power Platform – Dynamics, specifically - as the main engine for automating workflows and managing data coupled with Sitefinity, an online portal or content management system (CMS), for interfacing with the public. Other key integrations such as PayIt (payments), Smart Flows (templates), Laserfiche (electronic document management), and EPA CROMERR services led to an “ecosystem” of services and products.

As part of the State’s marketing campaign, the North Carolina DEQ also created a one-stop-online shop to announce new permitting solutions as they come online. As its tagline implies, AccessDEQ is the digital hub to easily access online tools in one convenient place. Created to streamline the Department’s permitting processes, AccessDEQ provides convenient public access to permit applications, online public records, maps and data.

This presentation will highlight key elements of the permitting transformation project, including:

• Unifying on a common data model and analytics platform


• Embracing a more “agile” design and development process


• Adopting principles of “product management” in addition to “project management”


• Incorporating end-user feedback during full solution development journey


• Partnering program staff and subject matter experts with IT staff

Though a Department-wide effort, this presentation will focus on erosion and sedimentation control and stormwater discharge permitting used for application intake, fee collection, review, permit issuance, and reporting. Participants will be shown how to navigate within the portal as seen from the applicant’s perspective as well as how DEQ staff navigate through their workflows behind the scenes to interact with portal applicants and issue permits. Future possibilities for development are planned for discussion. Participants may discover takeaways to enhance or even develop their own e-permitting solution.