EPA Weighs Setting Possible FirstTime Water Quality Criteria For 

Bromide 

Posted: January 4, 2012 

EPA is weighing whether to develop first-time water quality criteria for bromide, a pollutant found in 

wastewater from hydraulic fracturing operations as well as discharges from cooling towers 

and emissions control technologies at coal-fired power plants. 

In particular, EPA headquarters, with urging from Region III, is attempting to develop a quantitative 

relationship between levels of bromides discharged into waterbodies and toxic disinfection byproducts 

(DBPs) in drinking water, an issue that is worrying some drinking water utilities that are downstream 

from fracking operations. 

The agency's effort comes as it is also seeking to develop Clean Water Act (CWA) pretreatment standards 

for produced water and flowback waste associated with shale gas operations, believed to be one of 

several key sources of bromide contaminants. 

"We don't know what high bromides is yet," Victoria Binetti of Region III's water protection division, told 

a Dec. 15 meeting of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC) held in Arlington, VA. Binetti 

said the agency is struggling to use monitoring data, mostly from Pennsylvania, to better characterize the 

relationship between levels of bromides discharged into streams and other CWA-regulated waters and 

DBPs formed from the interaction between bromides and downstream drinking water treatment 

processes. 

Specifically, EPA is laying potential groundwork for possible water quality criteria, examining the effects of 

bromide concentrations on the formation of total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) -- DBPs that EPA regulates 

under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and which are linked to adverse human health effects, 

including liver, kidney and central nervous system, and increased cancer risks. 

But agency and other sources say that DBPs formed from bromide interaction are believed to be more 

toxic than other types of DBPs. "Many variables go into TTHMs, that's why we're trying to develop a 

quantitative relationship between TTHMs and what is an acceptable level of bromide in a stream," Binetti 

said. 

Since bromides, highly saline compounds typically found in seawater and some types of seafood, are not 

considered a threat to human health or aquatic life on their own, EPA has never developed water quality 

criteria for the pollutants, making it difficult for regulators to set conditions in National Pollutant 

Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits to ensure that wastewater treatment facilities effectively 

remove the compounds from effluent. 

EPA is yet to make a decision on whether it will begin developing water quality criteria, though Region III 

is hopeful it will do so, agency sources said at the meeting, and the effort to develop a quantitative 

relationship could establish the foundation for a regulatory limit. "The key is determining the source of 

bromide," Binetti told the NDWAC meeting, saying that EPA headquarters and Region III, in particular, 

have noted increasing problems with brominated DBPs but have yet to definitely determine a source. 
A drinking water utility source in Pittsburgh says the city, in cooperation with the University of Pittsburgh, 

is undergoing extensive monitoring at 38 different points along the Allegheny River to try to determine 

the major sources of the bromide discharges, including cooling towers at coal-fired power plants and 

some steel mills, where brominated agents are sometimes used to control microbial growth; flue gas 

desulfurization, or scrubber technology used to control emissions at coal plants; and 

hydraulic fracturing wastewater. "Typically, bromide concentrations are very low -- the only place 

we see increases are around some of these industrial sites," the utility source says. 

The source says that EPA has "seemed very interested" in the monitoring data, and that drinking water 

utilities in the region have urged the agency to step in, saying that the bromide concentrations have 

made it increasingly difficult for them to meet SDWA requirements for TTHMs, which currently include a 

maximum contaminant level of 0.08 milligrams per liter. 

And during the NDWAC meeting, panel member Jessica Godreau, chief of North Carolina Natural 

Resources Division of Environmental Health's public water supply section, said that her state has also 

been struggling with bromide concerns because of the scrubbers installed to control emissions at power 

plants. Godreau expressed frustration that though regulators can require monitoring for bromides as 

specific permit conditions, there is no other way to tamp down on discharges absent a water quality limit. 

"Why don't we have water quality criteria for bromides -- what needs to happen?" Godreau said. 

EPA officials pointed out that the agency has only recently flagged bromides as a problem, and reiterated 

that Region III has requested that it develop national standards, but also added that absent EPA criteria 

states can develop their own water quality limits for the contaminant. 

Research conducted in Pennsylvania and presented to EPA last year by American Water Works 

Association indicated that bromide concentrations in the Allegheny River have steadily increased since 

technological advances in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, led to a shale gas development boom in the 

northeast Marcellus Shale formation which underlies much of the Keystone State (Inside EPA, March 11). 

Produced water and flowback associated with fracking often brings up significant amounts of bromide 

and other brine located deep underground during the drilling process. 

At the time, Pennsylvania publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) and industrial wastewater treatment 

facilities, known as centralized waste treatment (CWT) plants, were treating Marcellus Shale waste, a 

practice that EPA and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) officials actively 

sought to discourage. 

"Bromide, which can be present in shale gas extraction wastewater in significant concentrations, has the 

potential to be present in POTW effluent as a disinfection byproduct and may cause an increase in whole 

effluent toxicity," EPA wastewater chief Jim Hanlon said in a March 16 letter to EPA regional offices 

outlining the difficulties in developing permits that adequately address fracking waste. 

Whether POTWs and CWTs can effectively treat shale gas waste is of particular concern in Pennsylvania, 

where there is limited ability to re-inject wastewater underground as in Western states, generally 

considered the preferred EPA and industry method of waste disposal. 

"We're certainly not anti-Marcellus Shale [drilling], but we can't handle the bromides," the Pittsburgh 

utility source says. 

An EPA source says that the agency is struggling to interpret the monitoring results, particularly given the 

multiple potential sources of bromide. "We don't know the critical value yet -- when we have x we get y -

- threshold for ambient water that throws up the red flag," the source says. The agency source says that 
it is difficult given that there is not a wealth of monitoring data out there that specifically tracks bromide 

levels. 

But the utility source says that preliminary findings, which will eventually be published by AWWA, indicate 

that while normal concentrations of bromides in the Allegheny River appear to stay between 50 and 100 

parts per billion (ppb), monitoring results are showing concentrations can spike higher than 200 ppb. 

"The results show that greater than 200 parts per billion can increase TTHMs," the source says. 

The utility source adds that the initial results also indicate that CWTs still accepting Marcellus Shale 

wastewater are likely to be the biggest discharger of bromides, though added that any EPA 

regulation should also target power plants. -- Bridget DiCosmo

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