EPA’s Corrective Actions to Tighten Control of Unmonitored Chemical Releases
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In September 2014, the OIG released its report titled, More Action Is Needed to Protect Water Resources From Unmonitored Hazardous Chemicals, which provided a look at how, despite current regulations, hazardous chemicals continue to be discharged from publicly owned treatment works (POTWs). The OIG investigations pinpointed a multitude of shortfalls, including, but not limited to:
- Lack of clear identification and regulation by the EPA of hazardous chemicals discharged from POTWs;
- Uncertainty among EPA staff about regulating beyond Clean Water Act (CWA) Priority Pollutants, a list of 126 pollutants that has not been updated in 33 years;
- Poor reporting by industry of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) hazardous wastes discharged to POTWs as defined in 40 CFR 403.12, a lack of awareness and familiarity with the requirements on the part of EPA regions and state programs, and no database containing RCRA reports for use by POTWs;
- Wide disparity among regional POTW monitoring requirements for CWA priority pollutants with the average POTW monitoring fewer than four chemicals, while those in Region 9 averaged more than 104 chemicals per POTW;
- Lack of data in POTW discharge permits that hinder implementation of discharge limits, and enforcement of pass-through violations;
- A disconnect between discharge permits programs and pretreatment programs in four states where the EPA has authority;
- Ineffective use of whole effluent toxicity (WET) testing for monitoring and enforcement;
- Poor use of Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data to better align permits with actual industrial user discharges; and
- Lack of a trigger for the EPA to follow up on POTW Discharge Monitoring Reports (DMRs) that reveal chemical exceedances.
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In response to the report, the EPA is undertaking a number of corrective actions, including:
- Issuing a memorandum to the regions and notifying approved pretreatment states describing best practices for how the NPDES permits and the pretreatment programs coordinate. Specifically, the memorandum will address how to access information reported by industries on discharges sent to POTWs, including TRI data and notifications of reportable substances, and best practices on how such data are used by National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit writers and pretreatment program personnel to properly address pollutants.
- Reviewing chemicals reported in POTWs’ DMRs and their availability in ICIS-NPDES.
- Discussing “suggested hazardous waste chemicals” with the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery (ORCR).
- Issuing a joint memorandum from the Office of Water (OW) and the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) to the regions and approved states discussing and emphasizing the Control Authority’s responsibility to ensure industrial users are complying with the requirements in 40 CFR 403.12(p) and (j).
- Developing training materials explaining the importance of WET permit requirements and how to comply with them, posting WET compliance training materials on the website for the Local Governments Environmental Assistance Network (EPA compliance assistance center, http://lgean.org). The EPA will also provide reports on:
- What facilities are required to report WET data and what covered facilities have not reported WET data,
- WET violations, and
- Chemical exceedances, including WET.
- Developing an ICIS-NPDES standard report for WET violations and announcing the availability of the report to regions/states and explaining how to utilize the reports for program implementation and oversight activities.
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The EPA also proposed an alternative to one of the OIG’s recommendations, which includes to develop a usable format for sharing TRI data on discharges sent to POTWs, with OW developing materials to explain the utility of TRI data to NPDES permit writers and pretreatment program personnel. This will include exploring options for an online search tool to more easily identify TRI discharges to specific POTWs. This alternative was accepted by the OIG.