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Water Online's EPA Update: January 26, 2012
January 26, 2012
Welcome to Water Online's review of the latest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, resources, and activities related to the water, wastewater, and stormwater industries. EPA offices and programs covered in this installment are listed below. Click on an office or program name to go directly to that section of the article. Office of Water (OW) White House National Ocean Council Announces Draft Plan To Improve Stewardship Of The Ocean, Our Coasts, And Great Lakes
New Data Added To EPA's Nitrogen And Phosphorus Pollution Data Access Tool
Climate Ready Estuaries 2011 Progress Report Released EPA Co-Sponsored Report Released: "Water Reuse: Potential For Expanding The Nation's Water Supply Through Reuse Of Municipal Wastewater"
Office Of Water's Acting Assistant Administrator Blogs On Roberts Bay Restoration Through Partnership And Innovation
EPA Launches Recovery Potential Screening Website To Assist Restoration Planners
EPA PCB TMDL Handbook Released National Risk Management Research Laboratory
(NRMRL) Crystal Ball Technology: Visualizing Land-Use Futures EPA land management specialists are helping to generate virtual landscape scenarios for communities in the Farmington Bay Wetlands area of the Great Salt Lake that will enable residents to 'see' the ecological consequences of current land use practices, projected over the next 20 years. The scenarios — which include alternative sustainable views of the same landscape — are created by the Alternative Futures Analysis, a computerized assessment tool that combines with Geographic Information Systems to visually portray the long-term impacts of varying developmental decisions on a
community's ecosystem and quality of life. The answers to these questions formed a set of ecological endpoints or outcomes focusing on the two selected indicators of water quality and avian habitat use. In addition, the four optional scenarios factored in beneficial conservation, restoration and development activities as the bases of a more sustainable ecological future for the area.
Potential Outcomes Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program ETV Verified Technologies
Vendor Solicitations For more information on the ETV, visit www.epa.gov/etv. Other EPA News Triad Mining Agrees To Resolve Clean Water Act Violations And Restore Affected Waterways In Indiana
U.S. EPA Orders World's Largest Metals And Electronics Recycler To Immediately Cease Illegal Discharge
Of Toxic Pollutants To San Francisco Bay
2010 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data From Large Facilities Now Available Mandated by the FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, EPA launched the GHG Reporting Program in October 2009, requiring the reporting of GHG data from large emission sources across a range of industry sectors, as well as suppliers of products that would emit GHGs if released or combusted. Most reporting entities submitted data for calendar year 2010. However, an additional 12 source categories will begin reporting their 2011 GHG data this year.
EPA Releases 2010 Toxics Release Inventory National Analysis
SOURCE: EPA
On January 12, 2012, the White House's National Ocean Council released for public comment the draft "National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan," detailing more than 50 actions the Federal Government will take to improve the health of the ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes. The draft plan focuses on promoting efficiency and collaboration across government, managing resources with an integrated approach, making available and using the best science and information, and supporting regional efforts and public-private partnerships. EPA is one of 27 Federal members of the National Ocean Council. The draft Plan will be available for public comment through February 27, 2012 and is available at
www.whitehouse.gov/oceans.
EPA has added updated U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) SPAtially Referenced Regressions On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) data to the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution data access tool, a tool intended to help states develop effective nitrogen and phosphorus source reduction strategies. SPARROW is a GIS-based watershed model that integrates statistical and mechanistic modeling approaches to simulate long-term mean annual stream nutrient loads as a function of a wide range of known sources and factors affecting nutrient fate and transport.
USGS recently completed syntheses of the results from 12 independently-calibrated regional-scale SPARROW models that describe water quality conditions throughout major river basins of the conterminous U.S. based on nitrogen and phosphorus sources from 2002. Two data layers of EPA's data access tool — one for nitrogen and one for phosphorus —
now provide an approximate yet regionally consistent synthesis of the locations of the largest contributing sources.
The SPARROW geospatial layers can be used to prioritize watersheds for targeting nutrient reduction activities (such as stream monitoring) to the areas that account for a substantial portion of nutrient loads, and to develop state nitrogen and phosphorus pollution reduction strategies. This information is relevant to the protection of downstream coastal waters, such as the Gulf of Mexico, and to local receiving streams and reservoirs.
The nitrogen and phosphorus pollution data access tool, with updated SPARROW layers, is available at:
www.epa.gov/nutrientpollution/npdat
EPA is announcing publication of the "Climate Ready Estuaries 2011 Progress Report." Climate Ready Estuaries is an EPA program intended to help the national estuary programs and coastal managers plan for climate change. Climate Ready Estuaries works with national estuary programs to: (1) assess climate change vulnerabilities, (2) develop and implement adaptation strategies, and (3) engage and educate stakeholders. Climate Ready Estuaries uses National Estuary Program examples to help other coastal managers, and provides technical guidance and assistance about climate change adaptation in support of Clean Water Act goals.
The "Climate Ready Estuaries 2011 Progress Report" describes program accomplishments and the new National Estuary Program projects that were launched during 2011. In addition, this progress report uses examples from Climate Ready Estuaries projects that started in 2008–2010 to show how the risk management paradigm can be used for climate change adaptation.
The "Climate Ready Estuaries 2011 Progress Report" is available at: http://epa.gov/cre/
On January 10, 2012, the National Research Council released a report co-sponsored by EPA titled, "Water Reuse: Potential for Expanding the Nation's Water Supply through Reuse of Municipal Wastewater." The report highlights the potential that reuse of municipal wastewater can play in augmenting traditional water supplies, particularly in areas that are experiencing or expect to face challenges in meeting demand for water. EPA agrees that advancements in water treatment processes make reuse of municipal wastewater a more viable option when risks are appropriately managed. EPA will review the findings and recommendations to determine how they can inform the Agency's ongoing efforts to promote a more integrated view of the nation's water resources. The report will also inform efforts underway to revise and update EPA 2004 guidelines for water reuse.
For more information on the report, visit: http://dels.nas.edu/Report/water-reuse/13303. To access and download a copy of the report, visit:
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13303.
Acting Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Water, Nancy Stoner, has recently blogged on her trip to Roberts Bay, near Sarasota, Florida. In the blog, Acting Assistant Administrator Stoner shares the innovative stormwater and wastewater treatment approaches she has witnessed as well as her trip to the Bay benefitting from such measures. To read the blog, visit:
http://blog.epa.gov/blog/2012/01/06/restoration-of-roberts-bay-shows-partnership-works/
EPA announces the release of a new technical assistance tool for state and watershed-level surface water quality protection and restoration programs: the recovery potential screening website
(www.epa.gov/recoverypotential/). Recovery potential screening is a flexible approach for comparing relative differences in restorability among impaired waters across a state, watershed or other area. The website provides step-by-step screening directions, restorability indicators and literature, and tools for scoring and displaying results. EPA developed recovery potential screening to help users improve their restoration programs by revealing and comparing factors that influence restoration success. The method is applicable to watershed priority setting, impaired waters listing, TMDL implementation, 319/nonpoint source control, healthy watersheds assessment, and watershed plan development. For additional information, please contact Doug Norton
(norton.douglas@epa.gov).
EPA has issued a technical document titled Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Handbook, which provides EPA regions, states, and other stakeholders with updated information for addressing Clean Water Act (CWA) section 303(d) waters impaired by PCBs. PCBs rank sixth among the national causes of water quality impairment in the country, and of the 71,000 waterbody-pollutant combinations listed nationally, over 5,000 (eight percent) are PCB-related. This handbook identifies various approaches to developing PCB TMDLs and provides examples of TMDLs from around the country, complete with online references. It aims to help states complete more PCB TMDLs and ultimately restore those waters impaired by PCBs.
The PCB TMDL Handbook is available at http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/lawsguidance/cwa/tmdl/upload/pcb_tmdl_handbook.pdf.
Background
History richly demonstrates the unforeseen consequences (groundwater pollution, soil erosion, urban blight) of misguided community land-use decisions. Political and economic pressures play a role, but an important factor has been lack of information. Until recently, it has not been technologically possible for community planners to forecast the long-term ecological consequences of project-by-project decisions. But the maturing of the specialties of
Landscape Ecology and Information Technology is providing new tools to actually visualize the environmental and quality-of-life impacts of community land-use decisions. Two examples of new landscape technology are: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the Alternative Futures Analysis (AFA), a computerized evaluation framework. Working in tandem, these two technologies are enabling resource managers and residents to virtually see (from a bird's eye or satellite view) how a community and the ecosystem that support it will look in a specified number of years, given current land-use practices. The systems also design alternative scenarios using sustainable land-use practices.
The Alternative Futures Analysis
The Alternative Futures Analysis (AFA), developed in 1990 by Harvard professor Carl Steinitz, integrates GIS maps to display multiple layers of information such as soils, terrain shape, hydrology, species diversity, proposed development, and other factors impacting the biodiversity of a given area. A recent EPA cooperative project using the AFA, selected two ecological
outcomes — water quality and diversity of avian habitat--as indicators of ecosystem health in the Farmington Bay Wetlands near the Great Salt Lake. Water quality in the area is currently under threat from encroaching commercial development and an annual
two-percent population increase. Bird habitat in the area is also threatened: The wetlands provide essential habitat for waterfowl, as well as migratory shorebirds and water birds from both the Pacific and Central flyways of North America. The Farmington Bay research goal was to develop a series of AFA landscape scenarios to allow residents to visualize how the regional landscape will look by 2030 if current land-use development continues, along with some alternative scenarios based on sustainable land-use practices.
Research Questions
Researchers constructed the AFA scenarios by posing the following fundamental questions:
Project Action
Using satellite imagery (the same type used by Google-Earth), combined with ground-level GIS evaluations of wetlands and land use of the surrounding community, the project researchers constructed a current land-use scenario, plus four alternative visions of land use projected out to the year 2030. Some notable elements of the scenarios:
The GIS/AFA system is a transparent way of organizing and communicating complex scientific information to a diverse group of stakeholders. Explicit community-wide ecosystem management goals can be more readily achieved through an open community process that illustrates a set of plausible and visible alternative futures. The technology is flexible enough to deal with the potential challenges revealed in the AFA optional scenarios. And the two basic indicators (water quality and avian habitat use) selected for this study can be expanded for more elaborate conservation planning models.
"Seeing" the future through AFA models can help communities determine whether the quality of life they want for themselves is sustainable, given their present land-use practices. Best of all, it can also show them a vision of an achievable future.
For more detailed information on the AFA analysis of the Farmington Bay Wetlands, visit:
Alternative Futures Analysis of Farmington Bay Wetlands in the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem (PDF) (106 pp, 31. MB) (EPA/600/R-10/032) March 2010
The ETV Program has verified the performance of 460 innovative environmental
technologies that can be used to monitor, prevent, control, and clean up
pollution. For a full list of ETV verifications, visit
http://www.epa.gov/etv/verifiedtechnologies.html.
ETV centers issue periodic solicitations for vendors and collaborators
interested in verification. For a list of active ETV vendor solicitations,
please visit www.epa.gov/etv/vendorswanted.html,
or contact the appropriate ETV center (see www.epa.gov/etv/contacts.html).
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Triad Mining Inc., the owner and operator of 31 surface mines in Appalachia and Indiana, has agreed to pay a penalty and restore affected waterways for failing to obtain the required Clean Water Act (CWA) permit for stream impacts caused by its surface mining operation in Indiana. Since 2002, Triad's mining operation has resulted in the unpermitted excavation and filling of more than 53,000 feet of streams that flow into the White River.
"Protecting America's waters is one of EPA's top priorities," said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. "Today's settlement will ensure that waterways impacted by unpermitted mining operations are restored and can again benefit the state of Indiana and the surrounding communities."
"With this settlement, Triad will achieve compliance with the nation's Clean Water Act and be held accountable for its unpermitted discharges into streams of the White River watershed," said Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice. "Triad must also undertake restoration efforts and mitigate impacts from its mining activities by enhancing stream beds and creating buffer areas that will benefit aquatic life and recreational resources for the people of Indiana."
Triad, a subsidiary of James River Coal Company, obtained the required Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act permits from the state of Indiana for its mining operations, but never obtained the required CWA permit for the site, despite the fact that its surface mining operation involved excavating coal seams located directly below stream beds.
On March 24, 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a cease and desist order requiring Triad to stop its unauthorized stream-filling activities. Triad continued its mining practices until the Army Corps of Engineers sent a second order on June 24, 2009, which Triad complied with. Since the second order was issued, Triad has continued mining, but has avoided additional impacts to streams.
Under the settlement, Triad must restore 34,906 linear feet of streams and enhance 4,330 linear feet of stream bed to address and mitigate impacts to stream beds caused by its mining activities. Triad will also create and maintain 66 acres of forested buffer areas and nine acres of forested wetland to protect the restored streams. Triad will also pay a $810,171 civil penalty.
The proposed settlement, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, is subject to a 30-day comment period and final court approval.
More information on the settlement: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/cases/civil/cwa/triadmining.html
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Sims Metal Management, located at the Port of Redwood City, Calif., to comply with federal Clean Water Act laws following inspections that found evidence of unlawful discharges of PCBs, mercury, lead, copper and zinc into San Francisco Bay. The South Bay facility is home to one of the largest metal shredders in the Bay Area, and regularly shreds entire cars before exporting the metal overseas.
"The EPA is committed to protecting the Bay by ensuring compliance with environmental permits," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA's Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. "Companies such as Sims Metal Management, engaged in recycling our finite resources, must abide by the Clean Water Act."
Sims Metal claims to be the world's largest metals and electronics recycler. According to records provided by the Port of Redwood City, from July 2010 to June 2011, 20 large vessels, picked up and transported an average of 22,000 tons of shredded material from the facility bound for global destinations including China. The largest transport during the specified time period was 35,000 tons of shredded material.
In March 2011, EPA inspected the facility to determine compliance with their Industrial Storm Water Permit. During the inspection, enforcement officers found evidence at the facility's shipping and rail receiving areas that pollutants have been discharged to Redwood Creek, a direct tributary to San Francisco Bay. In August 2011, EPA again inspected the facility and took samples of debris and soils in the areas that flow to San Francisco Bay, where the facility conducts shipping and receiving activities. The results of the samples demonstrated elevated PCBs, mercury, lead, copper and
zinc.
Sims Metal Management acknowledged received of the U.S. EPA Order on December 21, 2011. The order requires Sims to submit a revised storm water pollution prevention plan and to update monitoring and sampling within 30 days of the order; and to develop and implement storm water pollution counter measures. EPA's order also requires Sims Metal Management to develop and submit a plan within 90 days to eliminate these discharges to Redwood Creek within one year. The company must: sample storm water discharges monthly throughout the winter and spring; revise their storm water pollution prevention plan to update monitoring and sampling; and develop and implement storm water pollution counter measures for all areas of activity. Sims is working cooperatively with the EPA to address requirements of the
order.
Redwood Creek flows between the Port of Redwood City and the Don Edwards National Wildlife refuge and is a tributary to San Francisco Bay. San Francisco Bay is an impaired water body and is listed on the State's 303(d) list of impaired waters for pesticides, mercury, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), and trash. The Bay is also used by recreational boaters, anglers, windsurfers, and
swimmers.
To view photos from the inspection along with a copy of the enforcement order please visit:
www.epa.gov/region9/mediacenter/sims-metal
For more info on EPA's compliance program: http://www.epa.gov/region9/water/npdes/compliance.html
For the first time, comprehensive greenhouse gas (GHG) data reported directly from large facilities and suppliers across the country are now easily accessible to the public through EPA's GHG Reporting Program. The 2010 GHG data released today includes public information from facilities in nine industry groups that directly emit large quantities of GHGs, as well as suppliers of certain fossil fuels.
"Thanks to strong collaboration and feedback from industry, states and other organizations, today we have a transparent, powerful data resource available to the public," said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. "The GHG Reporting Program data provides a critical tool for businesses and other innovators to find cost- and fuel-saving efficiencies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and foster technologies to protect public health and the environment."
EPA's online data publication tool allows users to view and sort GHG data for calendar year 2010 from over 6,700 facilities in a variety of
ways — including by facility, location, industrial sector, and the type of GHG emitted. This information can be used by communities to identify nearby sources of GHGs, help businesses compare and track emissions, and provide information to state and local governments.
GHG data for direct emitters show that in 2010:
Access EPA's GHG Reporting Program Data and Data Publication Tool: http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ghgdata/
Information on the GHG Reporting Program: http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ghgrulemaking.html
Information on the U.S. Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Sources and Sinks:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport.html
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is releasing its annual national analysis of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), providing all Americans with vital information about their communities. The TRI program publishes information on toxic chemical disposals and other releases into the air, land and water, as well as information on waste management and pollution prevention activities in neighborhoods across the country. Total releases including disposals for the latest reporting year, 2010, are higher than the previous two years but lower than 2007 and prior year totals. Many of the releases from TRI facilities are regulated under various EPA programs and requirements designed to limit human and environmental harm.
"We will continue to put accessible, meaningful information in the hands of the American people. Widespread public access to environmental information is fundamental to the work EPA does every day," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "TRI is a cornerstone of EPA's community-right-to-know programs and has played a significant role in protecting people's health and the environment by providing communities with valuable information on toxic chemical releases."
Citizens have a right to know what toxic chemicals are being released into their communities. Over the past 25 years, the TRI program has helped citizens, emergency planners, public health officials, and others protect human health and the environment by providing them with toxic chemical release and other waste management data they need to make decisions that affect the safety and welfare of their communities.
The 2010 TRI data show that 3.93 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into the environment nationwide, a 16 percent increase from 2009. The increase is mainly due to changes in the metal mining sector, which typically involves large facilities handling large volumes of material. In this sector, even a small change in the chemical composition of the ore being mined — which EPA understands is one of the reasons for the increase in total reported releases —
may lead to big changes in the amount of toxic chemicals reported nationally. Several other sectors also reported increases in toxic releases in 2010, including the chemical and primary metals industries.
Total air releases decreased 6 percent since 2009, continuing a trend seen over the past several years. Releases into surface water increased 9 percent and releases into land increased 28 percent since 2009, again due primarily to the metal mining sector.
EPA has improved this year's TRI national analysis report by adding new information on facility efforts to reduce pollution and by considering whether economic factors could have affected the TRI data. With this report and EPA's Web-based TRI tools, citizens can access information about the toxic chemical releases into the air, water, and land that occur locally. Finally, EPA's first mobile application for accessing TRI data, myRTK, is now available in Spanish, as are expanded Spanish translations of national analysis documents and Web pages.
TRI data is submitted annually to EPA and states by multiple industry sectors including manufacturing, metal mining, electric utilities, and commercial hazardous waste facilities. Facilities must report their toxic chemical releases to EPA under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) by July 1st of each year. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 also requires information on waste management activities related to TRI chemicals.
More on the 2010 TRI analysis and TRI Web-based tools: http://www.epa.gov/tri
More on myRTK: http://www.epa.gov/tri/myrtk/
