New clean water provisions
Among the first actions of the 100th Congress was its decision to override President Reagan’s veto of the reauthorized Clean Water Act. Although most public attention has focused on the contest between Congress and the president over the construction grants prcgram, the act contains many new provisions that will substantially alter the thrust of water pollution control activities over the next three to five years.
New rules A new major section, Section 316, requires each state to prepare an assessment repon and a parallel four-year management program for nonpoint sources of pollution. These documents are due to EPA within 18 months. The reports are to identify waters in each state that are unlikely to meet water quality standards without additional controls on nonpoint sources. They also must list those sources causing the problem. The management program must identify measures to control the nonpoint sources described in the assessment, identify programs to implement such measures, certify that state laws are adequate to implement the prcgram design, identify sources of funding for the program, and specify an implementation schedule. If a state does not prepare its assessment and report on time, €PA then has one year to prepare an assessment and repon for the state. The incentive to the states is that preparation of an €PA-ap proved repon and management prw gram will make them eligible for grants to assist in implementing their prcgrams. The act authorizes $400 million over a four-year period for this purpose: 5 % of the appropriated funds can be used by the EPA administrator to maintain federal personnel at levels a p propriate to implement this section.
A second new thrust deals with postBAT (best available technology) activities, primarily for the control of toxic pollutants either discharged into surface waters or concentrated in sludges. Section 308 defines a progressive program to control those chemicals the act lists as toxic. States must identify and inform €PA of those segments of streams for which there are no adequate controls-based either on existing technology or on water quality-to meet water quality standards for the priority pollutants. For each such segment, states must design individual control strategies for point and nonpoint sources of toxic discharge that will achieve the water quality standards within two years after listing. If a state does not submit an acceptable plan, within one year €PA must promulgate its own stream segment listing and individual control strategies. Many states, however, lack the required data on ambient water quality and standards for all the toxic priority pollutants. In these cases, EPA is likely to require a combination of biomonitoring, effluent discharge toxicity measurements. and calculations of stream toxicity loadings. This requirement will heighten the importance of effluent and ambient stream monitoring to determine whether the water quality standards or criteria are being met. By 1989, EPA must develop and publish information on methods for establishing and measuring water quality criteria. These methods are not to be developed on a pollutant-by-pollutant basis, but they must include biomonitoring and assessment techniques. Section 406 requires new restrictions on sewage sludge, and it establishes a timetable for promulgating toxic contaminant criteria for sludge use and disposal. It requires public health and environmental bases for these criteria, and it extends the act’s coverage to sludge from any treatment works, publicly owned or otherwise. The administrator must review sewage sludge toxicity limits every two years, and all future discharge permits for public and private facilities must incorporate all newly developed requirements for sludge use and disposal. Meeting these restrictions will undoubtedly force treatment facilities, particularly pub-
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licly owned plants, to tighten pretreatment requirements for dischargers. Criminal sanctions increawd The new act also allows €PA to enforce more stringent criminal sanctions for violations. It increases both the dollar amounts of fines and the length of jail terms violators are likely to face. New authority for administrative penalties has been established. and two penalty classes that differ in their degree of administrative flexihility have been created. Class I penalties can be levied after the ofiending party is given notice and is offered the opportunity for an administrative hearing. These penalties can go to 3 maximum o i $lO.oOO per violation fora tow1 oi$2S.O00. C I m I1 penalties can be assessed only under the more lormal proceedings of the Administrative Procedurec Act. They cannot exceed $IO.oOO per day and can go to a maximum of $125,oOO. EPA ~ 1 1 1 be allowed to apply these civil enforcement remedies uithout prior recourse to court action. An additional area of flexibility is EPA’s neu statutory authority to grant regulatory variances to facilities with “fundamentall) different factors.” Specific criteria that can be conridered in assessing the need for waiving a minimum national technology standard include the age of the facility, the process it uses, engineering aspects of control technolog). process changer, and nonwater-qualir) effects. ‘The new act stresses the importance of protecting the nationS waters. It gives new cmphasis and broader scope to the national ectuaries programs. to the Clean Lakes program (uhich has been expanded to include eutrophication studies). and to the Chesapeake Ray and Great h k e s program\. The reauthorized act continues the congressional trend of rcdirecting EPA’s priorities toward control of toxic pollutants. This in turn will increaSe the agency4 reliance on risk assessment and its need for improved monitoring.
Richard M. Do&, Ph.D., is President of R. M. Dowd & Company,scienri$c and environmentalpolicy consultants in Washington, D. C. Envimn. Sci. Technol., MI. 21. NO.5. 1987
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