Member Pipeline - Regulatory - Alert (RA 02-23)
To: Members & Affiliates, Pretreatment & Hazardous Waste Committee
From: National Office
Date: December 24, 2002
Subject: EPA SEEKS COMMENT ON DRAFT NATIONAL EFFLUENT LIMITATIONS GUIDELINES STRATEGY
Reference: RA 02-23
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February 7, 2003
On November 29, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) released its Draft Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations (Draft Strategy) (67 Fed. Reg. 71165). The Draft Strategy may be found on EPA’s web site at http://epa.gov/guide/strategy/304mstrategy.pdf. The Draft Strategy describes a new process for identifying existing effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) that need revising, and for identifying any new industrial categories for which the Agency should consider developing new ELGs. EPA is required to carry out a review of the ELG program every two years under section 304(m) of the Clean Water Act. EPA intends this new strategy to guide ELG development once the Agency’s obligations under the existing consent decree with Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) are fulfilled.
The November 29 Federal Register notice also announced a public meeting scheduled for January 15, 2003 in Washington, D.C. to discuss the Draft Strategy. Comments on the Draft Strategy are due on February 27, 2003.
AMSA Member Input Requested
The Agency is seeking comment on several specific parts of the
Draft Strategy. To facilitate AMSA’s preparation of comments, please submit
your feedback on the Draft Strategy by February 7, 2003 to Will
Pettit at
wpettit@amsa-cleanwater.org.
Below are the areas where the Agency is seeking specific comments on its Draft Strategy. Additional details on these areas can be found on page 41 of the Draft Strategy.
- Key Factors for Developing New Effluent Guidelines: EPA identified four major factors (discussed below) which will be used as a screening device to help determine whether new ELGs are necessary and appropriate for an industrial category. EPA requests comments on its proposed use of these factors and invites the public to identify other or different factors for EPA's consideration. The Agency is also interested in receiving comments on whether each of these factors should be ranked, and if so, whether different weights should be applied to each. EPA also requests suggestions as to the information the Agency should use to prioritize industrial categories that pass both the primary and secondary screening reviews described in the draft Strategy.
- Sources of Water Quality Impairments: The Agency is working to identify links between industrial sources and pollutants identified as the causes of impairments. This effort links the categories of industrial facilities identified in the Agency's Permit Compliance System (PCS) database with types of impairments of water bodies identified using the U.S. Geological Survey's National Hydrography Dataset (NHD), as well as the data from the State 303(d) lists and 305(b) assessment reports. EPA is soliciting suggestions on other sources of relevant information, particularly data relating to facilities that discharge to publicly owned treatment works (POTWs).
- Voluntary Loading Reductions: EPA is considering incentives for industrial categories to reduce pollutant loadings through voluntary measures. For example, EPA might determine that it does not need to develop new or revised effluent guidelines for source categories that demonstrate continual or substantial reduction of pollutants through voluntary effluent reductions. EPA also proposes to use information in the PCS database to identify categories for which loadings have decreased over the past 5 years, and requests suggestions on alternative sources of this information. EPA also invites comment on how it might assess voluntary pollutant reductions by industrial categories with increased production over five years. Finally, EPA invites comment on ways to evaluate claims of decreases in water loadings of toxicity relative to possible increases in release of these emissions to other environmental media, for example volatilization to air or land disposal of sludge.
- Technology Innovation, Market-based Incentives, and Multi-media Pollutant Reduction: In addition to the above discussion of voluntary loading reductions, EPA seeks comment on other ways the Agency might structure the ELG program to encourage and reward technology innovation. EPA invites stakeholders to suggest industry categories for which development or revision of an effluent guideline may provide an opportunity for multi-media pollutant reduction. EPA also seeks comment on the role of market-based incentives, including pollutant trading, in the ELG program. Lastly, EPA encourages comments on the extent to which the Agency should consider multi-media pollutant reduction opportunities in deciding which guidelines to develop or revise.
- Level of Effort Devoted to Effluent Guidelines: As EPA moves forward to address remaining water quality problems, EPA invites comment on whether it should devote the same, less, or greater resources to the effluent guidelines program as it has in the past.
Summary of Draft Strategy
After more than a decade under consent decree with NRDC, EPA now
has an opportunity to take a fresh look at the ELG program. The Draft
Strategy proposes an approach that allows for the greatest risk reduction,
using all tools available. EPA’s Draft Strategy is based on two main
goals:
- Reduce risk to human health and the environment; and
- Provide transparent decisions.
Rather than working its way through a list of industries, the Draft Strategy proposes an approach that would evaluate the risk of individual pollutants to human health or the environment, and then identify the industrial sources of such pollutants in the environment. The Agency will not only assess whether effluent guideline development or revision is the appropriate tool to reduce risk. EPA will also identify what other tools may be more efficient.
EPA has identified four major factors that it will use as a screening device in evaluating the need to revise a particular effluent guideline or in identifying whether a new effluent guideline is needed. They are:
- The extent to which the industrial category is discharging pollutants that pose a risk to human health or environment. If it is determined that an ELG will not substantially reduce the risk posed by a particular industry discharge, EPA would likely conclude that effluent guideline revision or development for this category is unnecessary.
- Identification of a technology, process change, or pollution prevention approach that would substantially reduce the remaining risk. If an industry discharge poses some risk to human health or the environment, but EPA has not identified a technology, process change, or pollution prevention approach that would substantially reduce that risk, there may be no technological basis to justify a new guideline or a revision to an existing effluent guideline for that category. However, the risk to human health or the environment would signal to the Agency that resources could be effectively spent supporting the development of improved technologies, with priority placed on those discharges that pose the greatest risk.
- The cost, performance, and affordability of that technology, process change, or pollution prevention measure. If an industry discharge poses a risk to human health or the environment, and EPA has identified a technology, process change or pollution prevention approach that would substantially reduce human health or environmental risk beyond current performance, EPA would probably proceed with preliminary development or revision of an effluent guideline, if economically feasible.
- Implementation and efficiency considerations, such as whether changing the guideline is an effective way to curb the risk. If a pollutant is being handled by another regulatory program, EPA might defer to these existing programs rather than develop overlapping effluent limitation requirements.
A critical part of the proposed planning process is inclusion of stakeholders – industry, academia, States, POTWs, environmental groups, and the public – in a more transparent decision-making process. EPA hopes the process described in the Draft Strategy will give such stakeholders an opportunity to understand EPA’s review process and to participate in decisions about how effluent guidelines can best meet the needs of the national clean water program. EPA also hopes that stakeholders will identify information that will help the Agency evaluate the four factors listed above, as well as suggest other factors and information the Agency should consider in revising or establishing effluent guidelines. EPA will obtain feedback on individual industrial categories from stakeholders by soliciting comments in a Federal Register notice, by holding a public meeting, and by meeting with organizations which represent the groups that will most likely be interested in the future of national industrial clean water regulations.
The first step in the Agency’s planning process is an initial screen, using the four factors described above, of NPDES-authorized states, pretreatment control authorities, and professional associations to obtain their recommendations pertaining to revising existing effluent guidelines and identifying industries for new guidelines. EPA intends to use a variety of mechanisms to solicit input from these stakeholders, coordinating with major organizations to use regularly planned conferences to the maximum extent possible.
EPA expects the outcome of the initial screening process to be a list of industrial categories. In a second-level screen, EPA will review effluent guidelines currently under development, effluent guidelines promulgated in the past seven years, and voluntary loadings reductions by industry to help prioritize the industrial categories identified in the initial screen for further study. Once EPA has completed its review, EPA expects to rank the industrial categories in terms of their risk to human health and the environment.
After the initial and secondary screening is complete, EPA would then determine whether development or revision of an effluent guideline is appropriate. This determination will then be presented in the biennial effluent guidelines plan. The first biennial plan to use the process described in the Draft Strategy will be the 2004-2005 plan. The plan will describe the outcomes of both stages of the screening process, EPA’s tentative selection of industrial categories for further study, and the rationale for this selection. EPA plans to hold outreach meetings to discuss their findings with stakeholders, and to solicit additional information to fill data gaps. After consideration of comments, EPA will publish the biennial plan, indicating a schedule for any guidelines that will be developed or revised.
For more information on the Draft Strategy please contact Will Pettit, AMSA, at 202/833-3280 or wpettit@amsa-cleanwater.org.