Water quality standards
Author | Jeffrey G. Miller/Ann Powers/Nancy Long Elder/Karl S. Coplan |
Pages | 251-320 |
251
Chapter V:
WATER QUALITY STANDARDS
A. INTRODUCTION
Congress adopted two grand strategie in the Clean Water Act (CWA) to
determine pollution reduction requirements for point sources: technology-
based standards and water quality standards. Technology-based standards
reect what technology can do, and not what is needed to achieve water qual-
ity goals. Technology-based standards require specic pollution limitations
based on what pollution control technologies are available for specic types
of point sources. ese standards are not aected by the water quality of
the receiving water body. As a result, technology-based standards will rarely
achieve water quality that precisely meets the desired goals of a particular
water body. is means that implementation of these standards may result in
water quality that exceeds desired water quality goals in some water bodies
and water quality that does not attain desired goals in other water bodies.
Water quality-based standards seek to achieve water quality that precisely
meets the desired goals of a particular water body. Water quality standards
are goal-driven and are theoretically economically ecient. If water quality
standards are achieved in a particular body, no water quality-based pollu-
tion control is required. Conversely, if water quality standards are not met
in the water body, existing pollution sources must limit their pollution until
the standards are achieved, and generally no new point sources may dis-
charge into that waterbody.1 A water quality-based approach may encourage
new pollution sources to locate where they will discharge into pristine waters
rather than into already polluted waters. To counter this, an anti-degradation
policy (discussed below) can be included in water quality standards.
Unfortunately, water quality-based standards are dicult to develop a nd
administer. Even in a pristine natural state, water is not pure; in fact, many
substances discharged by man as pollutants are already found in water as a
result of natural forces. Indeed, most of nature’s water is unt to drink—salt
water is a good example. Salt water, however, is not the only natural water
that is not potable. Most water in hot springs is too sulphurous to drink, and
groundwater and surface water that have been exposed to mineral-bearing
1. See 40 C.F.R. §122.4(i); Friends of Pinto Creek v. EPA, 504 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 2007).
252 Water Pollution Control, 2d Edition
rock formations may have unacceptably high mineral concentrations. Water
can be fouled by excrement from wild animals, and can also be contaminated
by excess nutrients that stimulate excessive plant growth (eutrophication).2
Water pollution control cannot bring surface waters back to a state of
nature, if only because we have changed the earth so much that we do not
know what the quality of its waters would be in a state of nature. e objec-
tive of water pollution control—to provide clean water—poses a question
that continues to occur throughout environmental policy and regulation:
how clean is clean? e water quality-based strategy of pollution control
addresses the question of “how clean is clean” by asking what the desired use
of a particular water body is and by assuming that the desired uses will dier
for dierent water bodies.
B. THEORY OF WATER QUALITY STANDARDS:
THE FOURSTAGE PROCESS
Water quality standards consist of t wo regulatory actions: (1) designating
the desired uses of water bodies; a nd (2) establishing criteria that must be
met in the water bodies to allow the designated uses. Two further regula-
tory actions are necessary to achieve water quality standards: (3) determin-
ing whether the criteria are met in each water body and, if they are not,
determining how much pollution must be eliminated to meet the criteria;
and (4)allocating any required pollution elimination among polluting point
sources and applying the allocations in national pollutant discharge elimina-
tion system (NPDES) permits. We will examine briey the theory of each
of these stages. In the next section of the chapter, we will examine how each
stage is actually implemented under the CWA.
1. DESIGNATING WATER BODY USES
In theory, there are a great many uses that may be appropriate for sur-
face water. e highest use, in terms of water purity, might be for human
consumption without treatment. Maintenance of sensitive sh populations
might be another use. At the other end of the scale would be the use of sur-
face water as a sewer for industrial and human waste. Because desired uses do
not depend on the laws of science, but on the desires of people, use designa-
tion is essentially a political choice.
2. See discussion of eutrophication in Chapter I.
Water Quality Standards 253
2. ESTABLISHING CRITERIA FOR WATER BODY USES
Water must meet some level of purity to be suitable for all but the lowest
uses. For each designated use there may be a dierent appropriate level of
purity, which may be dierent for each pollutant. For example, water suitable
for use as human drinking water without treatment must be pure enough
not to adversely aect human health. Establishing what concentration of
a given pollutant may adversely aect human health is a scientic process
(although many decisions on the frontiers of science also reect political or
policy choices). Based on scientic studies, EPA has set maximum contami-
nant levels (MCLs) for drinking water to protect public health under the Safe
Drinking Water Act, 42 U.S.C. §§300f to 300j-26, 300g-1, 40 C.F.R. pt.
141. ese MCLs could be adopted as the criteria for the designated use of
human consumption without treatment. An example is mercury. e MCL
for mercury is 0.002 milligrams per liter (mg/L). 40 C.F.R. §41.62. us,
the water quality criterion for mercury in water designated for use by human
consumption without treatment would be 0.002 mg/L. at would be a
numerical criterion. Criteria can also be narrative, e.g., no oating scum or
visible oil sheen.
For a quick description of how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) assesses the risk from pollution and the issues associated with risk assess-
ment,see Paul A. Locke, Reorienting Risk Assessment, E. F.,
Oct./Nov.
1994, at 29. For a more comprehensive discussion of the issues, seeBasic Infor-
mation About Risk Assessment Guidelines Development, 70 Fed. Reg. 17766-
01 (Apr. 7, 2005), available at http://www.epa.gov/raf/publications/pdfs/
CANCER_GUIDELINES_FINAL_3-25-05.PDF.
3. DETERMINING HOW MUCH POLLUTION REDUCTION IS
NECESSARY
Once the use has been designated for a water body and supporting criteria
have been adopted, the water body must be studied scientically to deter-
mine whether it meets the criteria. is is begun by a rather straightforward
process of sampling the water and analyzing the samples for the pollutants
of interest. ere are well-developed methodologies to assure that the sam-
pling and analysis achieve reliable results. How will the location of samples
inuence the results? W hat if samples are taken immediately upstream or
immediately downstream from an important pollution source?
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