Water Pollution: EPA Has Improved Its Review of Effluent Guidelines but Could Benefit from More Information on Treatment Technologies

United States. Government Accountability Office.

United States. Government Accountability Office.

关键词: Government accountability -- United States.;    natural resources and environment;    water pollution;    letter report;   

RP-ID  :  GAO-12-845
RP-ID  :  647946

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses a two-phase process to identify industrial categories potentially needing new or revised effluent guidelines to help reduce their pollutant discharges. EPA’s 2002 draft Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations was the foundation for EPA’s process. In the first, or “screening,” phase, EPA uses data from two EPA databases to rank industrial categories according to the total toxicity of their wastewater. Using this ranking, public comments, and other considerations, EPA has identified relatively few industrial categories posing the highest hazard for the next, or “further review,” phase. In this further review phase, EPA evaluates the categories to identify those that are appropriate for new or revised guidelines because treatment technologies are available to reduce pollutant discharges. Since 2003, EPA has regularly screened the 58 categories for which it has issued effluent guidelines, as well as some potential new industrial categories, and it has identified 12 categories for its further review phase. Of these 12 categories, EPA selected 3 for updated or new effluent guidelines. EPA chose not to set new guidelines for the others."