U.S. National Technology-based Effluent Pollutant Control Requirements for Concentrated Aquatic Animal Production

摘要

The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes a comprehensive program for protecting our nation's waters, Among its core provisions, the CWA prohibits the discharge of pollutants from a point source to waters of the U.S. except as authorized by a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. The CWA also requires EPA to establish national technology-based effluent limitations guidelines and standards (effluent guidelines or ELGs) for different categories of sources, such as industrial, commercial and public sources of waters. Congress recognized that regulating only those sources that discharge effluent directly into the nation's waters may not be sufficient to achieve the CWA's goals. Consequently, the CWA also requires EPA to promulgatenationally applicable pretreatment standards that restrict pollutant discharges from facilities that discharge wastewater indirectly through sewers flowing to publicly-owned treatment works (POTWs). EPA issues national effluent limitations guidelines forthree classes of pollutants: (1) conventional pollutants which are specifically identified in the Act or by regulation (i.e., total suspended solids (TSS), oil and grease, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), fecal coliform and pH); (2) toxic pollutants which are identified based on the priority toxic listing in the Act (e.g., toxic metals such as chromium, lead, nickel and zinc; toxic organic pollutants such as benzene, benzo-a-pyrene, phenol and naphthalene); and (3) nonconventional pollutants which areall of the remaining pollutants. The technology-based effluent limitations guidelines and standards are established for categories of industrial dischargers and are based on the degree of control that can be achieved using various levels of pollution control technology and consideration of a number of factors.