Effluent Limitation

Effluent limitations and new source performance standards apply to discharges made directly into receiving bodies of water. The new standards require best available technology (BAT) and are to be used by the states when issuing NPDES permits for all sources 18 months after they are made final by EPA. Pretreatment standards apply to waste streams from industrial sources that are sent to publicly owned treatment works (POTW) for final treatment. These regulations are meant to protect the POTW from any materials that would either harm the treatment facility or pass through untreated. They are to be enforced primarily by the local POTW. These standards are applicable to particular classes of point sources and pertain to discharges into navigable waters without regard to the quality of the receiving water. Standards are specific for numerous subcategories under each point-source category.

Limitations based upon application of the best practicable control technology currently available (BPT) apply to existing point-sources and should have been achieved by July 1, 1977. Limitations based upon application of the BATEA (Best Available Technology Economically Achievable) that will result in reasonable further progress toward elimination of discharges had to be achieved by July 1, 1984.

Clean Water Act of 1977 The 1977 Clean Water Act directed EPA to review all BAT guidelines for conventional pollutants in those industries not already covered. On August 23, 1978 (43 FR 37570), the EPA proposed a new approach to the control of conventional pollutants by effluent guideline limitations. The new guidelines were known as best conventional pollutants control technology (BCT). These guidelines replaced the existing BAT limitations, which were determined to be unreasonable for certain categories of pollutants.

In order to determine if BCT limitations would be necessary, the cost effectiveness of conventional pollutant reduction to BAT levels beyond BPT levels had to be determined and compared to the cost of removal of this same amount of pollutant by a publicly owned treatment works of similar capacity. If it was equally cost-effective for the industry to achieve the reduction required for meeting the BAT limitations as the POTW, then the BCT limit was made equal to the BAT level. When this test was applied, the BAT limitation set for certain categories were found to be unreasonable. In these subcategories EPA proposed to remove the BAT limitations and revert to the BPT limitations until BCT control levels could be formulated.

Control of Toxic Pollutants Since the early 1980s, EPA’s water quality standards guidance placed increasing importance on toxic pollutant control. The Agency urged states to adopt criteria into their standards for the priority toxic pollutants, particularly those for which EPA had published criteria guidance. EPA also provided guidance to help and support state adoption of toxic pollutant standards with the Water Quality Standards Handbook (1983) and the Technical Support Document for Water Quality Toxics Control (1985 and 1991).

Despite EPA’s urging and guidance, state response was disappointing. A few states adopted large numbers of numeric toxic pollutant criteria, primarily for the protection of aquatic life. Most other states adopted few or no water-quality criteria for priority toxic pollutants.

Some relied on “free from toxicity” criteria and so-called “action levels” for toxic pollutants or occasionally calculated site-specific criteria. Few states addressed the protection of human health by adopting numeric human health criteria. State development of case-by-case effluent limits using procedures that did not rely on the statewide adoption of numeric criteria for the priority toxic pollutants frustrated Congress. Congress perceived that states were failing to aggressively address toxics and that EPA was not using its oversight role to push the states to move more quickly and comprehensively. Many in Congress believed that these delays undermined the effectiveness of the Act’s framework.

Water Quality Regulation

UNITED STATES WATER QUALITY LEGISLATION AND REGULATIONS

Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) was passed. This act and its various amendments are often referred to as the Clean Water Act (CWA). It provided loans for treatment plant construction and temporary authority for federal control of interstate water pollution.

The enforcement powers were so heavily dependent on the states as to make the act almost unworkable. In 1956, several amendments to the FWPCA were passed that made federal enforcement procedures less cumbersome. The provision for state consent was removed by amendments passed in 1961, which also extended federal authority to include navigable waters in the United States.

In 1965 the Water Quality Act established a new trend in water pollution control. It provided that the states set water quality standards in accordance with federal guidelines. If the states failed to do so, the standards would be set by the federal government subject to a review hearing. In 1966, the Clean Water Restoration Act transferred the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to the Department of the Interior. It also gave the Interior Department the responsibility for the Oil Pollution Act.

After the creation of EPA in 1970, the EPA was given the responsibility previously held by the Department of the Interior with respect to water pollution control. In subsequent amendments to the FWPCA in 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, and 1977, additional Federal programs were established. The goals of these programs were to make waterways of the United States fishable and swimmable by 1983 and to achieve zero discharge of pollutants by 1985. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) was established as the basic regulatory mechanism for water pollution control. Under this program, the states were given the authority to issue permits to “pointsource” dischargers provided the dischargers gave assurance that the following standards would be met:

1. Source-specific effluent limitations (including New Source Performance Standards)


2. Toxic pollutant regulations (for specific substances regardless of source)


3. Regulations applicable to oil and hazardous substance liability In order to achieve that stated water-quality goal of fishable and swimmable waters by 1983, each state was required by EPA to adopt water-quality standards that met or exceeded the Federal water quality criteria. After each state submitted its own water-quality standards, which were subsequently approved by EPA, the Federal criteria were removed from the Code of Federal Regulations.

The state water quality standards are used as the basis for establishing both point source-based effluent limitations and toxic pollutant limitations used in issuing NPDES permits to point-source discharges.
Source-Based Effluent Limitations Under the FWPCA, EPA was responsible for establishing point-source effluent limitations for municipal dischargers, industrial dischargers, industrial users of municipal treatment works, and effluent limitations for toxic substances (Applicable to all dischargers).

Water Quality

The suitability of water for aquatic life and for human use depends on its quality. All natural waters contain dissolved inorganic and organic substances. The total dissolved solids burden of rivers is generally between 20 to 2,000 parts per million and may be higher in groundwater. In natural (unpolluted) surface waters, the major dissolved solids are calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, sulfate, chloride, carbonate, bicarbonate and silica. In the United States the average concentration of dissolved matter ranges from about 50 parts per million in the humid western mountains and the Appalachian up to 1,000 parts per million in the arid non-mountainous region of the West.

Many pollutants may also be found in solution, either as large increases of substances normally present, such as nitrates, phosphates and certain metals or as synthetic substances, such as pesticides. The PH of water, a measure of acidity of alkalinity, is an important quality increased (from normal pH of 5.6 to between pH 4 and 5) in some regions by atmospheric pollutants. Another measure of water quality is dissolved oxygen. Animals that live in water depend on dissolved oxygen for life. A marked decrease of dissolved oxygen because of bacterial decay of organic wastes has been a major impact of water pollutant.

Suspended sediment affect water quality by reducing light penetration, smothering fish eggs and other bottom life, filling lakes and reservoirs, and making water undesirable for many uses. Fecal coliform bacteria in water are an important index of water quality. Delivered from the intestines of mammals (including humans), they indicate the possibility that disease organisms are present. Water temperature, a final qualitative factor, influences the metabolic rate of aquatic organisms and the rates of chemical reactions. Significant increases of temperature caused by industrial discharges of heated water may be detrimental to aquatic life, a condition termed thermal pollution.

Water Cycle in Nature

In our environment, water has cycle on the state, this water state cycle is proposed to make evenly in all over the world and also become a balancer the pressure condition on this atmosphere.

The water in your glass may have fallen from the sky as rain just last week, but the water itself has been around pretty much as long as the earth has!

When the first fish crawled out of the ocean onto the land, your glass of water was part of that ocean. When the Brontosaurus walked through lakes feeding on plants, your glass of water was part of those lakes. When kings and princesses, knights and squires took a drink from their wells, your glass of water was part of those wells.

And you thought your parents were OLD

The earth has a limited amount of water. That water keeps going around and around and around and around and (well, you get the idea) in what we call the "Water Cycle".

This cycle is made up of a few main parts:

• evaporation (and transpiration)
• condensation
• precipitation
• collection

Evaporation:

Evaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers or lakes or the ocean and turns it into vapor or steam. The water vapor or steam leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air.

Well, sort of.... people perspire (sweat) and plants transpire. Transpiration is the process by which plants lose water out of their leaves. Transpiration gives evaporation a bit of a hand in getting the water vapor back up into the air.

Condensation:

Water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid, forming clouds. This is called condensation.

You can see the same sort of thing at home... pour a glass of cold water on a hot day and watch what happens. Water forms on the outside of the glass. That water didn't somehow leak through the glass! It actually came from the air. Water vapor in the warm air, turns back into liquid when it touches the cold glass.

Precipitation:

Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore. The clouds get heavy and water falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow.

Collection:

When water falls back to earth as precipitation, it may fall back in the oceans, lakes or rivers or it may end up on land. When it ends up on land, it will either soak into the earth and become part of the “ground water” that plants and animals use to drink or it may run over the soil and collect in the oceans, lakes or rivers where the cycle starts. Water is the most part on this earth.