Water Pollution: Application of National Cleanup Standards to the Pulp and Paper Industry

摘要

Billions of gallons of polluted wastewater are generated each day from industries across the country. Left untreated, this contaminated waste enters the nation's waterways and may kill fish and other aquatic life and leave the water unfit for human use. To address this problem, Congress enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (33 U.S.C. 1251, et seq.), known as the Clean Water Act. This act required the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set national standards on the types and amounts of pollutants industries could discharge into the nation's waters. The report examines wastewater cleanup efforts in the pulp and paper industry. This industry, according to EPA officials, is the largest discharger of conventional pollutants in the nation subject to national effluent standards. In common with other such dischargers, pulp and paper mills have (1) a permitting process that is well-defined by regulation; (2) conventional pollutants that are controlled by technologies used by all dischargers; and (3) national standards that are based on production levels of individual facilities.