EHS Management

Steam Electric Guidelines Released

The EPA has released a rule that it says will reduce the discharge of pollutants into U.S. waterways from steam electric power plants by 1.4 billion pounds per year annually, as well as reduce water withdrawal by 57 gallons per year. The rule sets the first federal limits on the levels of toxic metals in wastewater that can be discharged from power plants, based on technology improvements in the steam electric power industry over the past 3 decades.

These new guidelines have been hotly debated since proposed in 2013. The EPA states that they are “strong but reasonable” and based on readily-available technologies, but industry isn’t so positive, with rule opponents stating that the rule is based on a small set of data and does not represent the industry as a whole.

Read more here.

Print

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.