States asked to use updated water quality criteria

摘要

Section 303 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) directs states and authorized tribes to adopt water quality standards and, at 3-year intervals at a minimum, review and, if necessary, revise those standards to ensure protection of human health and the environment. One of the essential benchmarks used in these reviews and revisions is EPA's recommended ambient water quality criteria for chemical pollutants. The Agency recently announced that it had updated the criteria for 94 chemical pollutants to reflect the latest scientific information and implementation of existing EPA policies. The updated criteria supersede EPA's previous recommendations, says the Agency.