The Environmental Protection Agency announced on March 29, 2023 new proposed wastewater discharge standards to reduce discharges of toxic metals and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants. Steam electric power plants use heat to create steam that produces electricity. These plants use large amounts of water – approximately 133 billion gallons a day. This water is drawn from rivers, lakes, and estuaries. The plants use this water for various processes including cooling and generating steam. Over the last thirty years, new technologies have been developed to generate electric power. The widespread implementation of these technologies paired with air pollution controls have altered existing wastewater streams or created new wastewater streams – particularly at coal-fired facilities. Problems arise when water is returned to the environment through the wastewater streams. The water often contains toxic materials such as mercury, arsenic, lead, chromium, and cadmium. The EPA believes more stringent standards are necessary for two reasons. First, once in the environment, many of these materials can stay there for years – causing a continuing impact. Second, these contaminants in the wastewater can cause cancer in adults, impact IQ in children, and can impact fish and wildlife as well.
The new rules would supplement previous standards established by the EPA in 2015 and 2020. The 2015 rules put the first-ever federal limitations on the levels of toxic metals that can be discharged in the industry’s wastewater. Prior to the 2015 rules, regulations in the industry were last updated in 1982.
The proposed 2023 supplemental rule applies to the Steam Electric Power Generating category and would establish more stringent discharge standards for flue gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewater, bottom ash (BA) transport water, and combustion residual leachate. In addition, the rules address legacy wastewater that is stored in surface impoundments. For existing sources that discharge directly to surface water – with certain exceptions – the new standards would establish a zero-discharge limitation for all pollutants in FGD wastewater and BA transport water.
The new proposal would change compliance paths for plants that commit to stop burning coal by 2028. The proposal also includes provisions that would allow plants that are currently in the process of complying with existing regulations and plan to stop burning coal by 2032 pathways for complying with the rules.
The EPA has proposed these standards through the power granted to it by the Clean Water Act – which was passed in 1972 – and estimates these new standards will reduce pollutants discharged through the wastewater systems on coal-fired plants by 584 million pounds per year. The EPA further estimates that the rule will cost $200 million per year in social costs but will result in $1,557 million per year in monetized benefits. These standards will also assist the EPA with the goals outlined in the Clean Water Act to protect the waters of the United States from pollution.
Public comments on the proposal will remain open until May 30, 2023. Two public hearings regarding these proposals are scheduled for April 20 and April 25.