Article | November 29, 2011
Water Online's EPA Update: December 1, 2011
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) Office Of Water's Senior Advisor Blogs On Tribal Water Perspectives And Place-Based Knowledge
Success Spotlight: Hempstead Harbor, NY – Multifaceted Program Restores Shellfish Harvesting In Northern Hempstead Harbor
EPA Renews Partnership To Improve Septic Systems
Success Spotlight: Carter Lake In Nebraska And Iowa
EPA Announces Final Study Plan To Assess Hydraulic Fracturing: Congressionally Directed Study Will Evaluate Potential Impacts On Drinking Water
EPA's WaterSense Program To Label Innovative Watering Technology 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 EPA Releases Formerly Confidential Chemical Information
EPA Seeks Nominations For New Science Advisory Board Committee
EPA, DNREC Reach Settlement With DuPont Corp. For Water Quality Violations
U.S. EPA Approves New Water Quality Standards For Chicago River System
California Water Boards, U.S. EPA Launch Unique Effort To Eliminate 'Nurdles' From San Francisco Bay
SOURCE: EPA
The Office of Water's Senior Advisor, Ellen Gilinsky, posted a blog on her trip to the 2011 National Tribal Water Quality Conference near Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the blog, Ms. Gilinsky shares her experience with the sessions and insights on people and place-based approaches to water protection. To read the blog, visit:
http://blog.epa.gov/blog/2011/11/28/posuwageh-%e2%80%93-the-water-meeting-place-%e2%80%93-provides-inspiration/
EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 319 Program provides funding for restoration of nonpoint source-impaired water bodies. Success stories are posted at:
http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/nps/success319/.
The latest success spotlight shines on Hempstead Harbor in New York.
Hempstead Harbor is located off the Long Island Sound in Nassau County, New York. Stormwater runoff, boater waste, waterfowl, and failing septic systems were suspected to be the primary sources of fecal coliform bacteria, with wastewater discharges also contributing. As a result, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) added the northern segment of Hempstead Harbor to the state's 1998 list of impaired waters for exceeding the fecal coliform bacteria water quality standard for shellfish harvesting.
The Hempstead Harbor Protection Committee, a partnership between state and federal agencies, Nassau County, local municipalities and citizen groups, led the development of the Water Quality Improvement Plan in 1998 as well as the Harbor Management Plan in 2004. Since 1995 the committee has coordinated efforts to address the nonpoint and point sources of pollution. Significant efforts to control and manage runoff were initiated prior to the permitting of municipal separate storm sewer system entities in the surrounding watershed. Stormwater management practices carried out prior to the permitting included extensive education and outreach efforts, implementation of municipal stormwater management program plans, and waterfowl management. These nonpoint source control efforts, together with securing the designation of the Harbor as a Vessel Waste No Discharge Zone, the installation of sewers, and the addition of point source controls, helped improve the harbor's condition.
Over the past five years, water sampling has shown that fecal coliform bacteria levels meet the state's water quality standards for a certified (open) shellfishing area. As a result, DEC will propose that the northern segment of the harbor be removed from the state's impaired waters list in 2012. After being closed for 40 years, the Hempstead Harbor reopened with shellfish harvest yields in June of this year.
For more information on this story, visit: http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/nps/success319/ny_hempstead.cfm
EPA and 16 organizations recently renewed their commitment to improve septic system performance for over 26 million homes nationwide. One of the challenges that communities face is the improper operation and maintenance of septic systems, leading to system malfunctions and potential health hazards. Today, one in five homes in the United States uses a septic system to handle its wastewater. Ten to 20 percent of all septic systems may not be properly functioning, which can pose risks to public health and the environment.
Signatories to the memorandum of understanding (MOU) have doubled since its initiation in 2005 with eight public and private partners. The MOU partners have achieved a number of successes in encouraging proper management of septic systems and increasing collaboration among EPA, state and local governments, practitioners and assistance providers. The partnership has supported a credentialing program for septic system installers and a model septic system performance code, training opportunities and improved curriculum consistency to enhance the competencies of installers and maintenance professionals, coordinated research priorities, and a wiki website to serve as a one-stop shop for sharing decentralized wastewater information.
For more information, visit: www.epa.gov/owm/onsite.
EPA's Section 319 Program provides funding for restoration of nonpoint source-impaired waterbodies. Success stories are posted at:
http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/nps/success319/.
This success spotlight shines on Carter Lake in Nebraska and Iowa.
Carter Lake is a 315-acre oxbow lake along the Missouri River, which drains 2,722 acres of mostly urban, residential and commercial land. As a result of water quality problems, especially elevated levels of nitrogen in phosphorous in the lake, Iowa and Nebraska both placed Carter Lake on their 303(d) lists of impaired water bodies.
In 2006, the cities of Carter Lake, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska started working with state and local agencies on a community-based planning process to restore Carter Lake. The city of Carter Lake installed five rain gardens totaling 17,503 square feet, and restoration partners have conducted an extensive nutrient educational effort targeted at fertilizer use and pet waste management. Algaecide was applied to the lake and a 100 acre no-wake zone was established in order to minimize sediment displacement. As a result, nutrient levels in Carter Lake have dropped, resulting in less algae and decreased levels of the toxin microcystin. Nebraska now plans to remove Carter
Lake's algal toxic impairment from its 2012 303(d) list. Efforts to further restore Carter Lake are ongoing, including a plan to manage increased vegetation growths.
For more information, visit: http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/nps/success319/ne_carter.cfm
EPA announced its final research plan on hydraulic fracturing. At the request of Congress, EPA is working to better understand potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources. Natural gas plays a key role in the
nation's clean energy future and the Obama Administration is committed to ensuring continued responsible leveraging of this vital resource.
The final study plan looks at the full cycle of water in hydraulic fracturing, from the acquisition of the water, through the mixing of chemicals and actual fracturing, to the post-fracturing stage, including the management of flowback and produced or used water as well as its ultimate treatment and disposal.
This study is in line with the priorities identified in the president's Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, and is consistent with the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board recommendations on steps to support the safe development of natural gas resources.
The initial research results and study findings will be released to the public in 2012. The final report will be delivered in 2014.
More information: www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing
EPA's WaterSense program announced that irrigation controllers will soon be the first outdoor product eligible to earn the WaterSense label. The most efficient irrigation controllers, which operate like a thermostat for your sprinkler system by telling it when to turn on and off, may provide home and building owners the ability to save 110 billion gallons of water and roughly $410 million per year on utility bills.
Residential outdoor watering in the United States accounts for more than 7 billion gallons of water each day, mainly for landscape irrigation. Controllers with the WaterSense label could be available in spring 2012. Like all WaterSense labeled products, WaterSense labeled irrigation controllers must be independently certified to meet
EPA's criteria for water efficiency and performance.
More information on WaterSense: http://www.epa.gov/watersense
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).
As part of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson's commitment to enhance the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's chemicals management program and increase transparency, the agency is making available to the public hundreds of studies on chemicals that had been treated as confidential business information (CBI). The move is part of EPA's plan to make public the chemicals that are not entitled to CBI status. Releasing the data will expand the public's access to critical health and safety information on chemicals that are manufactured and processed in the U.S. Newly available information can be found using EPA's
Chemical Data Access Tool.
For additional information, please visit: http://www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/transparency.html
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that it is requesting public nominations of scientific experts for appointment to EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee. The primary purpose of this new committee is to review chemical assessments. The exact number for new committee members has not yet been determined. EPA will also consult with the committee on questions regarding the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) Program. This action continues the agency's efforts to further strengthen the IRIS program. IRIS is a publicly available online database that provides high quality science-based human health assessments used to inform the agency's decisions on protecting public health and the environment.
More information on the Federal Register Notice: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-11-18/pdf/2011-29916.pdf
More information about the SAB: http://www.epa.gov/sab
More information about IRIS: http://www.epa.gov/iris/
The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and state and federal Departments of Justice have entered into a consent decree with the DuPont Corp. in which the company has agreed to pay a penalty of $500,000 for numerous violations of the DuPont Edge Moor plant site's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
(NPDES) permit and other state and federal regulations.
Many of the violations at the facility — which makes a white pigment from titanium used in the print and publishing industries — were pollutant discharges into the Delaware River that occurred between 2005 and 2011. All of the violations, including state and federal Clean Water Act noncompliance, are covered in the consent decree signed with DNREC and EPA. DNREC first issued a notice of violation to DuPont in April 2008 for numerous effluent discharges that exceeded permit limits and for violations of other general NPDES permit conditions that were not met.
Read
more.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved the State of Illinois' new and revised water quality standards for five segments of the Chicago and Calumet Rivers.
The approved standards apply to the North and South Branches of the Chicago River, the North Shore Channel, the Cal-Sag Channel and the Little Calumet River. EPA continues to review the other new and revised water quality standards that the State of Illinois has proposed for the Chicago Area Waterway System and the Lower Des Plaines River.
For more information, visit http://www.epa.gov/region5/chicagoriver/.
The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Water Board), State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have launched a first-in-the-nation enforcement effort to eliminate the discharge of pre-production plastic into the waters of California. The collaborative enforcement effort is being done under the authority of the State Water Board's Statewide Industrial Stormwater Permit. The first environmental cleanup ordered as a result of this joint effort is underway in San
Leandro. Read
more.