Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Sufficiently Sensitive Testing Methods Rule—The Rationale Under the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) NPDES program, the EPA established and required “sufficiently sensitive” analytical methods be used by permit applicants and for “analysis of pollutants or pollutant parameters under an NPDES permit.” These “generally approved” methods under 40 CFR Part 136 and 40 CFR Chapter I, […]
Steam Electric Power Plant Proposed Rule—Before and After Right now, in the United States, there are approximately 1,200 steam electric power plants powered by nuclear or fossil fuels. Of these, about 500 are coal-fired and considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be the primary source of the pollutants addressed by the proposed […]
EPA’s Corrective Actions to Tighten Control of Unmonitored Chemical Releases 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 […]
How to Qualify for RMP Program Level 1 After determining that a propane storage facility is subject to the RMP regulation, the next step is to identify which program level applies. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established three program levels that reflect different levels of risk and, subsequently, the level of effort required to […]
EPA’s Strategy for Saving Our Urban Waters EPA’s Urban Waters program was created in alignment with the America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) Initiative launched by President Obama to reconnect people with conservation and outdoor recreation. While the Urban Waters program is not a regulatory program per se, it embraces a range of activities that may include […]
Hydraulic Fracturing—5 Reasons to Consider Wastewater Recycling 1) Hydraulic fracturing requires the use of millions of gallons of freshwater per well. Although hydraulic fracturing water volumes vary across the United States, a single well generally requires the use of one million to five million gallons of water, and the U.S. Department of Energy notes that […]
Hydraulic Fracturing—5 Things to Know About Risk in Wastewater Recycling 1) Operators need to establish treatment targets. To minimize the risk of choosing the wrong equipment for the job, and gain a performance guarantee, well operators should provide equipment suppliers with both the influent water chemistry and the specific output treatment objectives (as determined in […]
The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) receives wastewater from seven East Bay wastewater collection agencies in the cities of Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, and Piedmont, and the Stege Sanitary District which serves El Cerrito, Kensington, and a portion of Richmond. Together the EBMUD and its satellite systems serve a population of approximately 650,000 […]
For Americans, clean water that is available in almost unlimited quantities any time of the day or night is something we have grown to expect as normal. But there are many factors changing our water landscape and the EPA is acting now to define present and future water use, problems to address and how to […]
