The Honorable Administrator Michael S. Regan, Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20460
Submitted via www.regulations.gov
RE: Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category (EPA Docket ID #EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0819)
Dear Administrator Regan,
The undersigned 93 organizations, on behalf of our millions of members and supporters across the country, appreciate the opportunity to provide these comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its proposed Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category.
Our organizations urge EPA to finalize the strongest possible wastewater treatment standards for steam electric power plants, as required by the Clean Water Act. We also urge EPA to finalize the proposed rule as quickly as possible and to require compliance with the new standards within three years. To achieve the Clean Water Act’s national goal of eliminating water pollution, facilities are required to use the most modern and effective pollution control technologies to treat wastewater, known as best available technology or BAT, before discharging into “Waters of the United States.”
Steam electric power plants, mostly coal fired plants, are one of the largest direct dischargers of toxic pollutants to our nation’s waterways. Coal plants have been dumping millions of pounds of toxic metals, nutrients, chlorides, bromide, and other pollutants into our nation’s waters every year for decades. Even trace amounts of many of these pollutants can harm aquatic life and damage ecosystems, and some of these pollutants persist in the environment for years.
Coal plant wastewater discharges have made it unsafe to swim or fish in rivers and lakes across the country, which has been especially harmful to communities that depend on subsistence fishing. This toxic pollution has also contaminated drinking water sources, since coal plants often discharge upstream of drinking water intakes, creating costly treatment challenges for drinking water systems. And for decades, communities of color and low-income communities have been disproportionately exposed to water and air pollution coming from these coal plants.
Our organizations strongly support EPA’s proposal to require “zero discharge” of bottom ash wastewater and flue gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewater. We urge EPA to finalize its proposal to require coal-fired power plants to upgrade their wastewater treatment technology to achieve zero discharge of pollutants from bottom ash transport wastewater and flue gas desulfurization (FGD) scrubber sludge, which are two of the largest toxic wastewater streams coming from these plants.
Requiring zero discharge of these two wastewater streams would eliminate most of the bromide, iodine, and other halogen discharges coming from these plants. Halogens like bromide are a challenge for drinking water utilities and pose a significant public health risk because their presence in treated drinking water can lead to the formation of disinfection byproducts such as trihalomethanes, which are linked to bladder cancer. For many disinfection byproducts, there is no known safe level in drinking water, so it is critical they be minimized as much as possible.
Our organizations urge EPA to strengthen the proposed wastewater treatment standards for leachate. EPA’s proposal to require coal plants to only use chemical precipitation to treat their leachate wastewater is weak and insufficient. Chemical precipitation is selective at removing heavy metals like mercury and arsenic, but leachate wastewater also contains other harmful pollutants such as nutrients, chlorides, and bromide that are not effectively removed using this treatment method.
In particular, chemical precipitation does not effectively remove dissolved pollutants, which are the vast majority of pollutants found in leachate. EPA must require zero discharge for leachate wastewater, because leachate is similar to FGD wastewater, is just as capable of being treated, and therefore the technology to eliminate leachate discharges is available and achievable to the same extent as it is for FGD wastewater. In fact, membrane filtration and other technologies capable of achieving zero discharge are much more cost-effective than chemical precipitation, because they can effectively remove all of the harmful pollutants found in leachate wastewater, not just some of them.
Our organizations urge EPA to strengthen the proposed standards for legacy wastewater. EPA’s proposal not to set a nationwide technology standard for legacy wastewater and to instead rely on permitting authorities to use their best professional judgment (BPJ) to set standards on a case by case basis, is severely deficient. Legacy wastewater contains the same toxic pollutants found in bottom ash wastewater and FGD wastewater, as well as fly ash transport water and all other coal plant wastewater streams. Like leachate, legacy wastewater is similar to FGD wastewater and just as capable of being treated with zero-discharge technologies, as demonstrated by evidence in the record that at least one plant already uses a zero-discharge system to treat its legacy wastewater. EPA must establish a nationwide zero-discharge standard for legacy wastewater and require compliance as soon as possible instead of relying on permitting authorities’ discretion, which risks resulting in the continued use of ineffective and outdated surface impoundments to “treat” legacy wastewater. That outcome would be unlawful under the Fifth Circuit’s 2019 decision in Southwestern Electric Power Co. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and would enable power plants to dump substantial amounts of toxic pollution in our waterways that could be avoided.
Our organizations urge EPA to shorten the compliance schedule for this rule. EPA’s proposal to delay compliance until December 2029 is not supported by the record. The Clean Water Act requires facilities to comply with new wastewater treatment standards within three years, and technologies to meet the standards are available to be installed within that time frame. EPA must accelerate the rule compliance schedule to ensure coal plants adopt these new standards as quickly as possible, and no later than three years from the date the rule is finalized.
The coal plant industry has been getting a free pass for over 40 years and it is long past time these power plants treat all of their wastewater using modern and effective pollution control technologies, as required by the Clean Water Act. Requiring power plants to use these proven technologies would eliminate hundreds of millions of pounds of pollutants from entering U.S. waters every year, and provide over 1.5 billion dollars per year in tremendous public health and environmental benefits. It will also provide some long overdue relief to the communities that have been most impacted by this toxic pollution and aligns with the Biden administration’s commitment to advance environmental justice. Our organizations urge EPA to finalize the strongest possible wastewater treatment standards for coal plants as swiftly as possible.
Sincerely,
Jack West
Alabama Rivers Alliance
John Zippert
Alabama State Association of Cooperatives
Greene County Democrat (weekly newspaper)
Marcos Vilar
Alianza Center
Molly M. Flanagan
Alliance for the Great Lakes
Katie Huing
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
Altamaha Riverkeeper
Fletcher Sams
Colton Fagundes
American Sustainable Business Network
Rachel Conn
Amigos Bravos
Harriet Festing
Anthropocene Alliance
Georgia Ackerman
Apalachicola Riverkeeper
Ridge Graham
Appalachian Voices
Dean Wilson
Atchafalaya Basinkeeper
Charles Scribner
Black Warrior Riverkeeper
Alice Volpitta
Blue Water Baltimore
Myra Crawford
Cahaba Riverkeeper
Kemp Burdette
Cape Fear River Watch
Brandon Jones
Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation
David Kyler
Center for a Sustainable Coast
Joyce Blumenshine
Central Illinois Healthy Community Alliance
Jason Ulseth
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper
Michael Mullen
Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper
Mary Ellen DeClue
Citizens Against Longwall Mining
Ellen Rendulich
Citizens Against Ruining the Environment
Jennifer Peters
Clean Water Action/Clean Water Fund
Eve Morgenstern
Climate Reality, Hudson Valley & Catskills Chapter
Charlotte Clarke
Common Ground Relief
Rosa Saavedra
Compañeras Campesinas
Robert Louis Lloyd
Concerned Citizen
Jesse Demonbreun-Chapman
Coosa River Basin Initiative
Justinn Overton
Coosa Riverkeeper
Tiany Haworth
Dan River Basin Association
Robert Burns
Detroit Riverkeeper
Sister Mary Brigid Clingman, OP
Dominican Sisters-Grand Rapids
Thomas Cmar
Earthjustice
Tara Thornton
Endangered Species Coalition
John Rumpler
Environment America Research & Policy Center
Ann Mesniko
Environmental Law & Policy Center
Charles Harper
Evergreen Action
Liz Kirkwood
For Love of Water (FLOW)
Jill M. Ryan
Freshwater Future
John Wathen
Friends of Hurricane Creek
Lexi Tuddenham
HEAL Utah
Shanna Edberg
Hispanic Access Foundation
Sr. Rose Therese Nolta, SSpS
Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters, USA-JPIC
Indra Frank
Hoosier Environmental Council
Brian Campbell
Iowa Environmental Council
John Capece
Iowa Environmental Council
Patricia Schuba
Labadie Environmental Org
Jillian Blanchard
Lawyers for Good Government
Madeleine Foote
League of Conservation Voters
Bill Lucey
Long Island Soundkeeper-Save the Sound
Cheryl Nenn
Milwaukee Riverkeeper
Albert Ettinger
Mississippi River Collaborative
Charles Miller
Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper
Cade Kistler
Mobile Baykeeper
Anne Hedges
Montana Environmental Information Center
Jon Devine
Natural Resources Defense Council
Melanie Houston
Ohio Environmental Council
Rich Cogen
Ohio River Foundation
Frederick Tutman
Patuxent Riverkeeper
Paul Kysel
PINES Group
Betsy Nicholas
Potomac Riverkeeper Network
Shannon Anderson
Powder River Basin Council
Bill Shultz
Raritan Riverkeeper
Irene Senn
Religious Coalition for the Great Lakes
Daniel Timmons
Rio Grande Waterkeeper
April Ingle
River Network
Emily Bowes
Rogue Riverkeeper
Diane Wilson
San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper
Philip Musegaas
San Diego Coastkeeper
Melanie Ruhlman
Save Our Saluda
Nancy Moldenhauer
Save the Dunes
Yvonne Taylor
Seneca Lake Guardian
Jonathan Levenshus
Sierra Club
Sr. Patricia Johnson
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet
Phyllis Tierney
Sisters of St. Joseph Justice & Care for Creation Office
Heather Deck
Sounds Rivers, Inc
Nicholas S. Torrey
Southern Environmental Law Center
Virginia Richard
SouthWings
Lisa Rinaman
St. Johns Riverkeeper
Austin Sauerbrei
Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment
Gregory L. Hairston
Stokes County NAACP Branch
Katie Day
Surfrider Foundation
David Whiteside
Tennessee Riverkeeper
Yoca Arditi-Rocha
The CLEO Institute
Caroline Armijo
The Lilies Project
Heather Hulton VanTassel
Three Rivers Waterkeeper
Daniel E. Estrin
Waterkeeper Alliance
Robin Broder
Waterkeepers Chesapeake
Eric Frankowski
Western Clean Energy Campaign
Sarah Hunkins
Western Organization of Resource Councils
Angie Rossner
WV Rivers Coalition
