REGULATORY FOCUS
Effluent guidelines for organic chemicals, plastics, and synthetic fibers
Richard M. Dowd More than 4000 pages of comments were submitted by over 100 industrial, environmental, and individual interests by the close of EPA's comment period on the proposed organic chemicals, plastics, and synthetic fibers (OCPSF) effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) and standards. The proposed regulation is the most recent agency attempt to establish limits and standards for O C P S F sources under the 1977 Clean Water Act and the terms of the 1976 Consent Decree in Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) v. Train. The agency's proposal (Fed. Regist. March 21, 1983, 48, 11827) would require Best Available Treatment Economically Achievable (BAT), Best Conventional Treatment, and Best Practical Treatment of industrial wastewater. EPA would also establish New Source Performance Standards for new and existing point sources and the pretreatment of indirect discharges. The proposed ELGs cover numerous facilities having total 1980 annual sales in excess of $75 billion. The proposed limitations cover a large variety of plants with highly varied effluent characteristics. A thorough review of the comments submitted on the proposed regulation will be undertaken by EPA and other interested parties. Pending EPA's summary remarks, the following provides an informal survey of the comments submitted to date. Diversity of sources Many commenters challenged EPA's ability to regulate such a di0013-936X/83/0916-0473A$01.50/0
versity of industrial discharges. Until recently, the agency's data-gathering efforts and earlier regulatory programs involved fewer than 600 OCPSF plants and concentrated on effluents related primarily to high-volume products and processes at larger plants. However, EPA's proposal affects an estimated 1200-1500 plants, including almost every O C P S F plant engaged in chemical synthesis. The Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association commented that the agency has not generated sufficient data on the expanded number of plants (especially small, specialty product plants) to warrant the inclusion of many of them. Data base for specific ELGs Many commenters questioned the data the agency used in establishing various effluent and influent limitations. They criticized the representativeness of plant-specific data, the techniques used to develop various data bases, and the agency's data interpretation. In March 1983, EPA's Science Advisory Board Environmental Engineering Committee (SAB/EEC) reported that the choice of analytical and quality assurance and quality control methods applied in the agency's data verification program limits the practical value of EPA's data base. The SAB/EEC stated: "The decision to use Gas Chromatography/Conventional Detectors methods in lieu of Gas Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy in the verification phase does not seem justified." To gather basic data to establish its BAT guidelines, EPA carried out four major sampling and analysis programs related to OCPSF point sources: a screening program, a verification program, a long-term sampling of some physical chemical systems, and a five-plant long-term sampling of biological treatment systems (with the Chemical Manufacturers Association). In its Federal Register notice, EPA
© 1983 American Chemical Society
concluded that the practical limit for measuring organic priority pollutants is about 10 Mg/L, although some pollutants can be detected at lower concentrations with careful application of certain methods. This detection limit of 10 Mg/L, combined with data variability problems (e.g., false positives or measurements above 10 Mg/L when, in fact, the concentration is not above 10 Mg/L) led EPA to propose a limit of no less than 50 Mg/L for the organics that were tested. Several industrial groups have commented that this proposal improperly leads to setting guidelines based on detectability limits rather than on water quality problems. Environmental groups and state and local agencies commented that this leads to unreasonably high limitations because many limitations could be set lower. In fact, the N R D C has recommended setting the lower limit not at 50 Mg/L but closer to 10 Mg/L. Other commenters took issue with the subcategorization scheme applied to the BPT guidelines and the economic and regulatory impact assessments that accompanied the rulemaking. One interesting aspect of this rule making is that it fully draws the science of analytical chemistry and the art of quality assurance and quality control into the regulatory arena. Many of the concerns raised in the comments are, in fact, scientific questions that deserve rigorous peer review. EPA has notified the U.S. District Court that it will not meet the June 1984 deadline (imposed by the 1976 Consent Decree) for promulgating these regulations. According to Elwood Forsht, of the EPA's Effluent Guidelines Division, no alternative date has yet been proposed.
Richard M. Dowd, PhD, manages the Washington, D.C.,office of Environmental Research & Technology, Inc.
Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17, No. 10, 1983
473A
