(1) Permits shall be issued for fixed terms not exceeding five years.

(2) Any permittee shall make application for replacement to an existing permit or continuation of a discharge beyond the expiration date of his/her permit by filing with the department an application for replacement of the permit at least one hundred eighty days prior to its expiration.

(3) The scope and manner of any review of an application for replacement of a permit by the department shall be sufficiently detailed as to insure the following:

(a) That the permittee is in substantial compliance with all of the terms, conditions, requirements and schedules of compliance of the expired permit;

(b) That the department has up-to-date information on the permittee's production levels; permittee's waste treatment practices; nature, content and frequencies of permittee's discharge; either pursuant to the submission of new forms and applications or pursuant to monitoring records and reports resubmitted to the department by the permittee; and

(c) That the discharge is consistent with applicable effluent standards and limitations, water quality standards, and other legally applicable requirements listed in WAC 173-220-130.

(4) The notice and public participation procedures specified in WAC 173-220-050 through 173-220-100 are applicable to each draft replacement permit.

(5) When a permittee has made timely and sufficient application for the renewal of a permit, an expiring permit remains in effect and enforceable until the application has been denied or a replacement permit has been issued by the department.

(6) Notwithstanding any other provision in this chapter, any point source, the construction of which is commenced after the date of enactment of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act amendments of 1972 and which is so constructed as to meet all applicable standards of performance, shall not be subject insofar as the FWPCA is concerned to any more stringent standard of performance during a ten year period beginning on the date of completion of such construction or during the period of depreciation or amortization of such facility for the purposes of section 167 or 169 (or both) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, whichever period ends first.