Tennessee NPDES permit search
Status, expiry and violations for 242 municipal wastewater permits · issued by TDEC
In short
How do I look up an NPDES permit in Tennessee?
Search this page by permit number or plant name for a municipal plant’s permit status, expiry date and violations. For the official file, search the DWR Permit Data Viewer or the DWR Inspection Data Viewer. EPA’s ECHO database shows the monitoring results and violations of every permit. The 2,642 industrial permits in Tennessee are listed in Klarifi with a free account.
Links to official sources checked September 2026.
Effective
234
Administratively continued
6
Expired
0
Plants with effluent violations, 3 years
220
Where to find official Tennessee NPDES records
Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) runs the NPDES program in Tennessee under authorization from EPA Region 4. It issues and enforces the permits and keeps the official file: applications, permits, fact sheets and monitoring reports. TDEC website ↗
permits · applications · permit documents
TDEC’s Division of Water Resources viewer for permits, individual permit applications and correspondence. Monthly operating report data for municipal plants is in a table under its permits tab.
permits · DMRs · inspections · violations · enforcement
EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online. Search water facilities by permit number, name or city; the Detailed Facility Report lists inspections, violations and enforcement actions, and Effluent Charts plot monitoring results against the permit limits.
- Discharge monitoring reports
- Through EPA’s NetDMR, which TDEC requires of every permittee with monitoring requirements.
- Violations and enforcement
- TDEC’s enforcement orders ↗
Industrial and commercial NPDES permits in Tennessee
Most NPDES permits are not held by municipal plants. EPA’s permit database lists 2,642 individual permits in force for industrial and commercial facilities in Tennessee (manufacturers, food processors, mines, power plants, landfills), 100 of them major dischargers, plus 5,392 facilities covered by a general permit, mostly for stormwater. 242 of the individual permits recorded at least one effluent violation in the last three years.
| Facility | Permit | Status | Expires | Effluent violations |
|---|
Unlock 2,642 industrial permits in Tennessee
Search every industrial and commercial discharger in Tennessee by name or permit number, with permit status, expiry and violation history. Free with a Klarifi account.
Industrial and commercial NPDES permits in Tennessee: permits in force (effective or administratively continued) held by facilities EPA does not class as publicly owned treatment works or federal facilities. Source: EPA ICIS-NPDES via Klarifi, October 2026.
Violations at Tennessee wastewater plants
220 of the 242 municipal plants on this page recorded at least one effluent violation, a monitored value above a permit limit, in the last three years, and 223 had a violation of any kind, including late or missing monitoring reports. Each plant’s page shows its own count. EPA’s enforcement records list 41 formal cases naming Tennessee wastewater plants, 9 of them since fiscal year 2020, with $2.4 million in penalties assessed. Enforcement cases in Tennessee →
Permit renewals by year
An NPDES permit runs for five years. To keep discharging, a plant must apply for renewal at least 180 days before the expiry date, and the renewed permit usually arrives with tighter effluent limits, new monitoring requirements or a compliance schedule. That is why the year a permit expires is the year a plant starts budgeting for upgrades: nutrient removal, disinfection, capacity or controls.
2029: 54 permits
2030: 56 permits
2031: 19 permits
Largest permit holders in Tennessee
| Facility | City | Avg flow (MGD) | Design (MGD) | NPDES permit | Status | Expires | Violations (3y) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metro Central Wastewater Treatment Plant | Nashville | 103.22 | — | TNL020575 | Effective | Dec 2030 | 63 |
| Moccasin Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant | Chattanooga | 50.56 | — | TNR053775 | Effective | Jun 2030 | 51 |
| Whites Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant | Nashville | 32.64 | 37.5 | TN0024970 | Administratively continued | Oct 2025 | 39 |
| Oak Ridge STP | Oak Ridge | 4.37 | 30 | TN0024155 | Effective | Dec 2028 | 35 |
| Nashville Dry Creek STP | Madison | 16.24 | 24 | TN0020648 | Administratively continued | Oct 2025 | 34 |
| Cleveland Utilities Wastewater Treatment Plant | Charleston | 8.48 | 21.6 | TN0024121 | Effective | Apr 2027 | 42 |
| City Of Franklin Wastewater Treatment Plant | Franklin | 9.77 | 16 | TN0028827 | Effective | Dec 2026 | 43 |
| Johnson City STP | Johnson City | 5.94 | 16 | TN0024244 | Administratively continued | Sep 2026 | 18 |
| City Of Bristol Dba Bristol STP 2 | Bluff City | — | 15 | TN0023531 | Effective | May 2027 | 69 |
| First U.D. Knox Co.-Turkey Cr | Knoxville | 8.49 | 15 | TN0023353 | Effective | Apr 2027 | 23 |
Tennessee NPDES permits: questions
NPDES permit search in other states
Sources and methodology
Flow, permit and violation figures come from the EPA's ICIS-NPDES discharge monitoring records. Population served comes from the Clean Watersheds Needs Survey 2022. Treatment structures are identified by Klarifi's review of aerial imagery, and capital improvement projects are extracted from published municipal budget documents. Violations are counted over the last three years of monitoring reports.
Data refreshed October 12, 2026.
Wastewater terms: NPDES permit · POTW · Significant industrial user · MGD · Sludge dewatering · Biological nutrient removal · all terms