The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published in the Federal Register the Agency’s preliminary 2010 plan regarding developing and revising technology-based water pollution control regulations, called effluent guidelines.
The preliminary plan is a requirement of the Clean Water Act and describes the agency’s ongoing efforts to develop effluent guidelines. The preliminary plan does not contain regulatory requirements, rather it presents a process EPA is using to identify industries for further investigation and analysis. EPA will use these additional analyses to determine whether to revise or establish new effluent guidelines.
In this preliminary 2010 plan, EPA states its decision to initiate an effluent guidelines rulemaking for the steam electric power generating industry due to the potential hazard to human health and the environment from the industry’s pollutant discharges. The agency is also publishing this preliminary plan to update the public and interested stakeholders on the results of detailed studies of the coalbed methane extraction and health care industries and a preliminary category review for the ore mining and dressing (Part 440) category.
EPA will accept comments on the preliminary plan for 60 days.
Source: U.S. EPA
