EPA and state regulators are preparing to release an "action plan" to overcome barriers to creating numeric nutrient criteria, which will include short-term guidance for permit-writers and other regulators to incorporate numeric limits into discharge permits, and could include long-term plans for revising water quality standards to incorporate strict numeric controls. Agency officials and the Association of Clean Water Administrators (AC WA) "brainstormed for about six months about what's keeping us from controlling nutrients- are we putting up barriers for ourselves, in the Clean Water Act or in policies or whatever.... Then we worked with a smaller workgroup to figure out what are some things we can tackle right away — in terms of putting out instructions to permit-writers about how to incorporate limits in permits, variances, that kind of thing," Ellen Gilinsky, senior policy advisor to acting water chief Nancy Stoner, told Inside EPA in a March 13 interview.
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