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EPA Seeking to Revive 1997 Proposal To Allow Flexible Wastewater Monitoring
The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to resuscitate an
8-year-old proposal that would allow wastewater-treatment plants to select from
among several performance-based analytical methods for monitoring discharges, an
agency official said Jan. 23.
The proposal, initially floated in October 1997 but never finalized, would
represent a departure from current EPA rules that specify precise analytical
methods for monitoring under discharge permits.
EPA officials met in early December with representatives of the National
Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), which represents publicly owned
wastewater treatment facilities, and members of the Inter-Industry Analytic
Group to discuss how to resolve issues raised when the proposal was released in
1997.
A decision whether to revive the performance-based approach is still in the
preliminary stages of discussion, Ephraim King, director of the Science and
Technology Division in EPA's Office of Water, told BNA.
Most EPA program offices, including the Office of Water, currently prescribe a
specific method, instrument, or technique to measure an environmental sample and
demonstrate compliance with a regulatory standard, according to King.
In 1997, EPA proposed agencywide adoption of the "perfomance-based measurement
systems (PBMS), " which would provide the regulated community, such as
wastewater treatment plants, with flexibility in conducting required
environmental monitoring, expedite the use of new and innovative techniques, and
result in less costly approaches to monitoring and measurement techniques.
The 1997 proposal, which was opened for comments, was placed on a back burner
owing to shifting priorities and reduced resources, King said.
According to NACWA, other EPA programs already have begun using a
performance-based approach. King said the Office of Water is now exploring
adoption of a flexible approach for water programs.
Approach Worth Exploring
"We now believe it is an approach well worth exploring," King said. "If
implemented, it would save a great deal of time and resources."
Reviving the proposal would give states the option of voluntarily adopting
performance-based approaches under certain conditions, King said.
The performance-based approach would not supersede analytical methods that EPA
has prescribed for wastewater facilities to demonstrate compliance with their
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits, King said. However,
state permitting authorities could allow for more than one analytical method to
be used for compliance with a permit's monitoring requirements under that type
of approach, according to King.
Wastewater facility operators are skeptical about the efficacy of EPA's
performance-based approach because it emphasizes that a regulated facility
demonstrate compliance with a permit from a suite of methods rather than a
single prescribed method. NACWA believes such an approach, which emphasizes
performance, would make third-party challenges to permits easier to sustain.
"NACWA does not believe that PBMS can work for Clean Water Act programs," the
group wrote in a Jan. 13 letter to King.
The reason is wastewater utilities, which hold one or more NPDES permits for
discharges, must "regularly demonstrate compliance" using the results from
prescribed EPA test methods at all times. A single data point violation can
result in penalties, NACWA noted.
Permit Challenges a Concern
The wastewater community is concerned that a third-party, such as a group of
citizens, could challenge a facility's compliance with its permit based on a
method other than EPA's prescribed methods by contending that it used a method
that EPA approved under its PBMS policy.
By design, PBMS methods must be as good or better than the method EPA has
prescribed in 40 C.F.R. Part 136 for wastewater facilities, NACWA wrote.
"Unfortunately, this suggests that a PBMS method is 'superior' to Part 136
method used by the permittee to determine compliance and ultimately may make it
harder for a permittee to prove they are in compliance," the group said.
King told BNA that NACWA's concerns were valid. However, King said, the methods
a wastewater facility would use to demonstrate compliance with an NPDES permit
would be the ones that are specified in the permit. Likewise, a third party
would have to use the results of the same method or methods to demonstrate lack
of compliance, he said.
By Amena H. Saiyid