Salzman and Thompson's Environmental Law and Policy, 3d (Concepts and Insights Series) (Concepts & Insights) by James Salzman & Barton H. Thompson Jr

Salzman and Thompson's Environmental Law and Policy, 3d (Concepts and Insights Series) (Concepts & Insights) by James Salzman & Barton H. Thompson Jr

Author:James Salzman & Barton H. Thompson Jr. [Salzman, James]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Thomson West Law
Published: 2010-04-07T00:00:00+00:00


D. Water Quality Standards

As discussed earlier, the 1972 CWA took a largely technological approach to water pollution because of the 1965 Water Quality Act's singular failure to regulate water pollution through ambient water quality standards. Given the problems under the 1965 Act, the Senate in 1972 proposed abandoning water quality standards entirely. At the House of Representatives' insistence, however, the 1972 CWA retained water quality standards as a backup or safety net to the technology-based effluent limitations.

Section 303 of the CWA sets out a multi-step process for regulating ambient water quality. First, each state designates specific beneficial uses for each of its waterways. These designated uses can include “public water supply,” “protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife,” recreation, agriculture, and industry. Given the CWA's goal of providing fishable-swimmable water by 1983, a waterway at a minimum must typically protect and propagate fish, shellfish, and wildlife and allow recreation in and on the water. However, if a state can demonstrate that the fishable-swimmable standard is unattainable for a particular waterway because of naturally occurring pollution, low water flows, or other factors, EPA sometimes can permit the state to “downgrade” the designated use to a lower standard such as agriculture or industry. Once a state has designated the use for a waterway, it must review the designation at least every three years.

Second, states determine the water quality standards needed to support the designated uses. The standards are typically quantitative (e.g., no more than 8 milligrams of a particular contaminant per liter of water in a river). Standards for toxic pollutants must be quantitative. To help states determine the necessary standards, EPA uses the latest scientific information to prepare water quality criteria that show the minimum physical, chemical, and biological parameters required to support the various designated uses of a waterway. If a state fails to establish adequate quality standards for a waterway, the United States EPA can set standards for the state.

Third, the states must identify quality-limited waterways—those waterways where the technology-based effluent limitations imposed under NPDES permits are insufficient to attain the water quality standards. For each quality-limited waterway, a state must determined the total maximum daily load (or “TMDL”) of pollutants that can be discharged into the waterway and still achieve “the applicable water quality standards with seasonal variations and a margin of safety which takes into account any lack of knowledge concerning the relationship between effluent limitations and water quality.” The states must submit a list of both the quality-impaired waterways and associated TMDLs to EPA for approval.

What happens after a state establishes the TMDLs is not entirely clear. If the technology-based effluent limitations for point sources are not sufficient to achieve the water quality standards, section 301 of the CWA requires that the effluent limitations be lowered to the degree needed to meet the standards. But must a state reduce non-point pollution if needed to achieve the water quality standards? In many cases, a waterway will not meet water quality standards even if point sources discharge no waste whatsoever.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.