Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
No. 215
Thursday, November 8, 2001 Page A-10
ISSN 1521-9402
News
Water Pollution
Effluent Guidelines Being Developed by EPA Costly, Not Needed, Municipal
Officials Say
NASHVILLE--Three effluent guidelines being developed by the Environmental
Protection Agency either go too far at too high a cost or are not needed at all,
municipal waste water treatment officials said Nov. 7.
EPA is working on proposing or making final effluent limitation guidelines for
the metal products and machinery industrial sector, iron and steel producers,
and the meat packing industry.
Revised limits for seven categories of the iron and steel industry, which
already have effluent guidelines, were proposed Dec. 27, 2000, and call for
improved performance for water use and reduction (65 Fed. Reg. 81,964).
In January, proposed effluent limits were issued for the metal products and
machinery industry to reduce metals discharges. The agency also plans to propose
limits in December for meat packers. These rulemakings are subject to
court-ordered deadlines.
Officials representing publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) said the limits
could impose unnecessary costs and that their treatment facilities accomplish
many of the objectives sought by EPA. Effluent guidelines were discussed at the
pretreatment coordinators workshop sponsored by the Association of Metropolitan
Sewerage Agencies and EPA.
Financial Situations
Shari Barash, a project manager in the EPA Office of Water, said the agency was
developing the rules with a particular eye on the financial situations of the
industry, especially during the current economic downturn. For example, she
said, the agency is updating its economic models "to reflect the extremely poor
financial condition" of the iron and steel industry.
The same is true, Barash said, for shops that would be subject to the metal
products and machinery rule. The agency predicted 10 percent of the job shops
would have to close once the rule is issued, an amount she said is "baseline."
However, metal products and machinery industry officials have said the figure is
more like 50 percent.
Guy Aydlett, director of water quality at the Hampton Roads Sanitation District
in Virginia, said POTWs would have to spend $175 million in the first year to
meet the requirements of the metal products rule, but that the benefit would be
minimal.
In addition, he said, EPA overestimated the number of POTWs that do not meet
criteria for the land application of biosolids--sludge from treatment facilities
spread onto fields as fertilizer, the amount of cyanide that is discharged, and
other data critical to the rulemaking.
AMSA Not Supportive
"AMSA cannot support this or any other version" of the metal products proposal,
Aydlett said. Instead, the agency should move away from setting limits toward a
water-quality based approach that allows local jurisdictions to set limits to
address local conditions.
In addition, he said, the agency should incorporate the work of the "MP&M
Strategic Goals," a set of performance principles and guidelines established by
the metal products industry and other interested parties through one of EPA's
reinvention efforts.
"Future regulation needs to be through existing MP&M guidelines and allow for
local limits reflecting local conditions," Aydlett said.
Barash said the agency was reviewing the proposed best achievable technology
(BAT) limits to ensure they are achievable, especially given the current
economic downturn.
Rich Sustich, assistant director for research and development at the
Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, similarly said that
revisions to the iron and steel effluent guidelines were not needed because the
industry has not changed much since the original rule was issued.
"It would be much more appropriate to move forward with a water-quality
approach" to improve the performance of the industry, Sustich said.
Data From 1979-1980
The agency is relying on 1979-1980 data on the amount of pollutant from the iron
and steel sector that passes through POTWs. Moreover, pretreatment standards for
some of the pollutants are no longer necessary because the POTWs have removal
efficiencies much higher than what EPA requires, he said.
"If they used our operating data for the list of pollutants, the only pollutant
that passes through [at levels higher than what is considered BAT] is zinc," he
said. POTWs tend to perform within 5 percent of BAT levels set in the existing
rule, he said.
Two coke-producing facilities in Chicago, he said, have threatened to disconnect
from the sewer system and discharge directly into the river rather than pay the
cost to meet pretreatment standards when the POTW is accomplishing the
objective.
"They can't do what we can do at a much lower cost," Sustich said.
Barash said the agency was taking seriously many of the comments on the
proposal, and asked POTWs to submit survey data backing up their assertions so
that the agency could review and revise the cost benefit analysis.
Meat-Packing Rule
Finally, work on the meat packing rule drew similar criticisms.
Samantha Lewis, project manager of the rule in the EPA Office of Water Science
and Technology office, said the rule would regulate discharges from red meat and
poultry facilities, rendering plants, and slaughter and processing houses.
The agency, she said, seeks more information on environmental management systems
and best management practices.
Aydlett said the rule was not needed because most waste from these facilities is
"compatible" and includes pollutants such as biological oxygen demand compounds
(BOD) and total suspended solids, both of which are easily treated by POTWs.
"This is not about toxics," he said, adding that setting an effluent guideline
means the POTWs would lose the revenue they receive for treating wastes from
meat processors.
"This one is about the stuff we know how to remove," he said. "Some POTWs are
built specifically to handle meat processors."
One agency official from EPA Region V in Chicago told BNA that while large POTWs
may not support the rulemaking, smaller facilities do. He said his office has
heard from many small treatment facilities who have said they have problems
treating the waste from meat processors.
Lewis said the limits in the meat processors effluent guideline would vary,
depending on the category of facility and the pounds of meat processed.
By Susan Bruninga