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EPA Final Pretreatment Streamlining Rule Reduces Burden to Users, Offers Flexibility
The Environmental Protection Agency released a final rule Sept. 28 to streamline regulations governing the agency's pretreatment program for wastewater, saying it would reduce the burden to industrial plants, state and local governments, and treatment facilities while protecting the environment.
The rule revises how industrial and commercial facilities manage their wastewater before sending it on to publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) for final treatment, the agency said.
"The pretreatment streamlining rule helps reduce paperwork and increase incentives for water conservation while maintaining important water quality protection," Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at EPA, told BNA.
Under EPA's pretreatment program, manufacturing dischargers are required to use treatment techniques and management practices to reduce or eliminate the discharge of harmful pollutants that could compromise municipal treatment plant processes or contaminate waterways, according to EPA.
The new rule maintains that water protection, but removes certain "process" requirements for industrial operations, including a mandate to sample discharges for pollutants that are not present at their facilities. Instead of sampling, the discharger will simply need to document that the pollutants are not present.
While the change in the rule will substantially reduce the costs to facilities, facilities will still have to meet the same federal discharge limits currently in place under Clean Water Act regulations, EPA said. The agency estimates the rule will save about $10.1 million annually by eliminating these pretreatment requirements, EPA said.
The new rule also will give POTWs greater flexibility to issue "general permits" for effluent to multiple industrial users within the same treatment district that have similar operations, discharges, and requirements, EPA said. The POTWs also will have greater flexibility in using sampling techniques.
The rule will take effect 30 days after it appears in the Federal Register. For judicial review purposes, the final rule will be promulgated at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time 14 days after publication in the Federal Register.
Separately, EPA also issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to seek comments on issues concerning the "removal credits" provision in the general pretreatment regulations for wastewater. (See related story in this issue ).
EPA Updates Pretreatment Program
EPA proposed changes to its national pretreatment program in July 1999 and in
November 2001 announced the final rule would be delayed until 2003 to allow EPA
additional time to obtain and review information pertaining to the regulation
(226 DEN A-1, 11/27/01 ).
The new rule updates the National Pretreatment Program, which has been in place
for more than 30 years, EPA said.
POTWs collect wastewater from homes, commercial buildings, and industrial
facilities and transport it through a series of pipes to the treatment plant,
EPA said. At the plant, the POTW removes harmful organisms and other
contaminants from the sewage so it can be discharged safely into the receiving
stream. While POTWs are generally designed to treat domestic sewage only, they
also receive wastewater from industrial users.
EPA's general pretreatment regulations establish responsibilities of federal,
state, and local government, industry, and the public to implement pretreatment
standards to control pollutants from the industrial users that may interfere
with POTW treatment processes or contaminate sewage sludge, EPA said.
Adam Krantz, managing director of government and public affairs for the National
Association of Clean Water Agencies, told BNA his association has not yet fully
reviewed the rule, but in general supports it.
Rule Called 'Long Overdue.'
"This is the culmination of what really amounts to over a decade of advocacy on
our part and we think this is long overdue. What it will ultimately help to do
is to ensure that utilities are able to put significant resources that would
otherwise have gone unnecessarily into pretreatment issues into other high
priority water quality issues," he said.
Moreover, NACWA, which represents sewage treatment facilities, believes the rule
will ultimately benefit the environment as well, Krantz said.
Representatives of the Natural Resources Defense Council were unable to comment
on the final rule Sept. 28.
However, in comments on the proposed rule, NRDC remarked that the rulemaking
would turn major elements of the pretreatment program back to POTWs, bypassing
public scrutiny and state approval in the process.
States and even some "enforcement-minded POTWs oppose elements of the proposal
as environmentally under-protective," NRDC said in the comments.
Additional information on the pretreatment streamlining rule is available at http://www.epa.gov/npdes/pretreatment. Information also may be obtained from Jan Pickrel of EPA at (202) 564-7904 or pickrel.jan@epa.gov or from Greg Shaner at (202) 564-0721 or schaner.greg@epa.gov.
By Patricia Ware