The Environmental Protection Agency is developing new and revised effluent guidelines regulating industrial discharges to surface waters and to publicly owned treatment works, based on recommendations of the Effluent Guidelines Task Force. The Clean Water Act requires EPA to publish a biennial Effluent Guidelines Plan, which sets a schedule for review and revision of existing regulations and identifies categories of dischargers to be covered by new regulations.
The Agency is currently working on rules for a variety of discharges, including centralized waste treatment works, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing; Metal Products and Machinery; Landfills; Industrial Waste Combustors (Incinerators); Industrial Laundries; Transportation Equipment Cleaning; and Iron and Steel Manufacturing.
EPA plans to continue developing new rules for poultry and swine feedlots, and hopes to begin work by December 1998 on guidelines for beef and dairy cattle feedlots.
EPA is seeking comment on its proposal and will publish a final plan following the close of the comment period. Comments must be received on or before July 27. Submit comments in writing to: Water Docket Clerk (4101), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20460. For further information, contact Eric Strassler, EPA Engineering and Analysis Division, telephone 202-260-7150.
Enforcement actions
New York City and the Justice Department have reached an agreement that requires the city to build a filtration plant for its Croton Drinking Water System, which serves nearly 1 million residents.
Enforcement actions
The deal, filed in Brooklyn U.S. District Court, requires the city to build a filtration plant no later than September 2006, spend $5 million on projects to protect the Croton watershed, and pay a $1 million penalty to resolve the April 1997 lawsuit brought by the federal government. The Croton Filter Project is projected to cost the city more than $575 million in the next five years.
Enforcement actions
The federal government sued New York City for failing to filter drinking water from the Croton water supply. The Croton watershed, located just north of New York City, supplies 10 percent of the city’s drinking water, and in drought conditions supplies up to 30 percent.
Other Action
A has proposed a $99,000 fine for the city of Spanish Fork, Utah, which it alleged has repeatedly exceeded its discharge permits for chlorine and coliform bacteria. The city plans to appeal.
Other Action
Melvin T. Ford III of Tupelo, Miss. has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for operating a bypass at the city of Tupelo’s wastewater treatment facility, allowing sewage sludge and solids to enter Town Creek.
Other Action
Gregory Marsh, former operator of the Gratis, Ohio, wastewater treatment plant, has pleaded guilty in federal court for filing false reports regarding tests for fecal coliform bacteria in the plant’s discharges. He faces a maximum penalty of 2 years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine.
Other Action
Dennis Arnold, assistant superintendent of the Northeast Public Sewer District in Jefferson County, Mo., has pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts of violating the Clean Water Act. He admitted he discharged sewage sludge from the Ron-Rog Treatment plant into Saline Creek in November 1996 and falsified a discharge monitoring report. He faces a maximum sentence of 5 years in jail and/or fines of $250,000 on each count.
Other Action
Michael Valverde, the former sewage treatment plant supervisor at the California Men’s Colony at San Luis Obispo, has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for releasing partially treated sewage from the prison into the Morro Bay Estuary. He also admitted falsifying reports and records.
