CRS Report: 'Regulation of Power Plant Wastewater Discharges - Summary of EPA’’s Proposed Rule'

As many of you know I am a big fan of the  Congressional Research Service.

 Here is another excellent CRS report, Regulation of Power Plant Wastewater Discharges: Summary of EPA’’s Proposed Rule, by Claudia Copeland.

 Download CRS_PP_Wastewater_Discharges_EPA_Rule

Summary 

To implement the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues effluent limitation guidelines (ELG), or technology-based standards, for industrial dischargers. These standards are implemented through permits issued by states or EPA to individual facilities. The current effluent limitations for the steam electric industry were issued in 1982.

Two factors have altered existing wastestreams or created new wastestreams at many power plants since promulgation of the current ELG. These factors are the development of new technologies for generating electric power, such as coal gasification, and, as a result of federal and state requirements, the widespread implementation of air pollution controls to reduce emissions of hazardous air pollutants and acid gases, such as flue gas desulfurization (scrubber) systems. While scrubbers dramatically reduce emissions of harmful pollutants into the air, some create a significant liquid waste stream. As a result, pollutant discharges from this industry to surface waters have increased in volume and total mass. EPA believes that many current CWA permits for power plants do not fully address potential water quality impacts of these discharges.

Based on studies of the industry and to settle litigation brought by environmental advocates, in April EPA issued a proposed rule to revise the steam electric ELG. In developing the proposal, EPA evaluated eight regulatory options and ultimately identified four preferred alternatives out of the eight for regulation of existing sources, without singling out a preference for any one of the four, and one preferred alternative for regulation of new sources. The options differ in the wastestreams to be controlled, the size of units controlled, and the types of controls. A total of 1,079 steam electric plants that burn fossil fuels and whose primary purpose is generating electricity are subject to the ELG. Only a subset of the 1,079 plants are likely to incur compliance costs as a result of the rule——only up to 277——because a large portion of the industry has already implemented processes or technologies that are the basis for EPA’’s proposed regulatory options. All of the plants that are expected to incur compliance costs are coal- or petroleum coke-fired. EPA estimates that the annual compliance costs for the proposed options range from $185 million to $954 million, costs that the agency believes are economically achievable and would have minimal effects on the electricity market, both nationally and regionally. The proposal also would reduce pollutant discharges by 470 million to 2.6 billion pounds and reduce water use by 50 billion to 103 billion gallons per year, depending on the option. Estimated costs exceed estimates of monetized benefits under all proposed options; however, the CWA does not require that the benefits of regulation exceed or even equal the costs.

A proposed EPA rule under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) on managing coal combustion residuals (CCR) also relates to the CWA ELG proposal, because both statutes address coal ash that is generated by power plants and released to the environment. In 2010 EPA proposed options for a RCRA rule, not yet finalized, concerning CCR management. The scope of the CWA ELG and RCRA rule differ. While both address disposal of CCR in surface impoundments at power plants, only the RCRA rule would regulate disposal of CCRs in landfills. In the preamble to the proposed ELG, EPA said that it seeks to minimize the potential for overlap of the two statutes’’ requirements. Further, based on data that it has analyzed in connection with the proposed ELG, EPA states in the proposal that the agency’’s current thinking about coordinating the two rules provides strong support for concluding that regulation of CCRs under the RCRA rule as nonhazardous would be appropriate.

Public comments on the proposed ELG can be submitted until September 20, 2013. A number of issues already have been raised by stakeholders. Industry is concerned that EPA will set overly stringent standards that will be an economic burden on generators and may not be achievable. One issue concerns impacts of the proposal on small entities, including small businesses and small governmental jurisdictions, which own 18% of the plants subject to the proposal. Environmental advocates are urging EPA to adopt the most stringent of the regulatory options that it evaluated, in order to promote the most environmentally protective technologies for use by steam electric plants.

EPA rules affecting steam electric power plants have been scrutinized and criticized based on their stringency, feasibility, and projected compliance costs. Congressional interest has been evident in legislation that has been introduced to alter the direction and substance of some of EPA’’s regulatory actions and initiatives. To this point, discussion of the power plant ELG has centered on the administrative proceedings at EPA and has not drawn attention of lawmakers.

Thanks to Jan Schoonmaker for sending this my way.

Enjoy! 

“Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.” ~ Heinrich Heine,1823

Comments

[PAUL MILLER]

It is revealing “we” (that’s you & me) find it perfectly acceptable for our government and our regulators to choose to control the discharge from power plants into our single shared biosphere but “we” are totally unwilling to accept personal accountability for what “we” choose to dump down our commodes … personal care products … pharmaceuticals … pesticides … FOG … copious amounts of household cleaning products … residuals containing endocrine interrupters … emerging contaminants …
Corporate interests have convinced us current wastewater/sewage technology renders the above referenced constituents harmless to life … though they will not provide full disclosure or transparency to us on what testing if any has been performed to substantiate their claim of safe …
And moreover the overwhelmingly vast majority of us with our own individual onsite residential wastewater treatment and effluent disposal system (septic) will NOT accept accountability or responsibility for what we put down our commodes and release the water aquifers from which our potable (drinking) water is obtained … we contaminate … pollute what we ingest and then we want to point our finger and blame others … convenient…!!