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www.pepperlaw.com December 21, 2007

Water Docket Attention Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OW– 2006–0771 Environmental Protection Agency Mailcode: 4203M 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW. Washington, DC 20460

Re: The American Dental Associa tion’s Comments on EPA’s Study Of A Pretreatment Requirement For Dental Offices (Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OW–2006–0771)

Dear Sir or Madam:

The American Dental Associati on (“ADA”) greatly appreciates the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) willingness to meet with representatives of the ADA and give the ADA the opportunity to review and comment on EPA’s Proposals: To Study A Pretreatment Requirement For Dental Offices.

The ADA is the largest dental profe ssional association, representing over 155,000 dentists in the United States (“U.S.”), including 71.8% of the active dentis ts. The vast majority of dentists utilize the services of their loca l publicly owned treatment works (“POTW”). The issuance of a pretreatment rule governing the disc harge from dental offices would directly and significantly impact dentists and their patients. Additionally, dentists are concerned about the impact of environmental pollutants on th eir communities. As you know, the ADA included amalgam separators as part of the ADA Best Management Practices (“BMPs”) in October 2007. In accordance with its BMPs, the ADA believes prof essional dentists shoul d operate his or her dental office in a manner that maximizes the amo unt of amalgam that is captured for recycling.

The ADA opposes mandatory separators , but strongly suppo rts the use of voluntary separators to achieve the mutual goals of EPA and the ADA. The ADA will exert its best efforts to educate dentists about its new BMPs in general, a nd separators in particular. The ADA would be willing to form a partnership wi th EPA to implement a nationwide voluntaryWater Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2006-0771 December 21, 2007 Page -2-

separator program. This partnership could incl ude EPA issuing guidance to treatment plant operators on the options that ar e available to address dental o ffice wastewater. In fact, the ADA has long urged and continues to urge EPA to i ssue national guidance. We want to emphasize that we are not asking EPA to issue a mandate to local tr eatment plants. Rather, we suggest a guidance from EPA explaining that, in EPA’s view, a volunt ary separator program is an appropriate option to pursue.

A voluntary program is preferab le for the following reasons.

First, the long-term goals of both EPA and the ADA are the same use of amalgam separators. Even in the short- and medium-term, there is litt le incremental difference in the amount of amalgam collected and recycled usin g a voluntary separator pr ogram compared to a mandatory plan (see attached Comments and pa rticularly Attachment 1). Thus, a voluntary program would be just as effec tive as a mandatory approach.

Second, a voluntary program is more cost -effective and would avoid wasteful administrative costs involved in enforcing regulations.

Third, history demonstrates that a volunt ary program (in conjunction with current mandatory and recommended separator programs already promulgated) should result in more than 65% of the dentists in th e US installing separators.

Fourth, a voluntary program would be more appropriate to attain mercury reduction from a professional group such as dentis ts than a “command-and- control” approach. Nearly all US dentists are small business ow ners, and EPA policy str ongly favors a voluntary program when small businesses are involved.

Fifth, a mandatory separator requirement would have little or no effect on the concentration of mercury in the treatment plant’s effluent entering surface water or deposition of mercury into surface water from land applied or la ndfilled amalgam. There is no debate that the vast majority of mercury that is causing methyl mercury concentrations in fish to exceed the water quality standard of 0.3 ppm is from air depo sition or unique local sources, not amalgam.

Sixth, because of the dental community’s disproportionately low contribution to methylmercury in fish, and given that the con cern about mercury in the US is based almost exclusively on levels of methylmercury in fis h, a voluntary separator program would be more consistent with the Clean Water Act’s st atutory scheme and overall EPA policy.

Seventh, EPA has little to lose by work ing with the ADA on a voluntary approach first. If a voluntary effort turns out to be ineffective, then nothing would preclude EPA from promulgating additional, even mandatory, requirem ents. Similarly, nothing in this proposalWater Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2006-0771 December 21, 2007 Page -3-

precludes states or municipalities from enacti ng state or local amalgam separator statutes or regulations. Thus, mandatory requirement s should not be the initial approach.

Eighth, dentistry is a learne d profession. This means that dentists have a higher calling to self regulate. We believe it is impor tant to respect the nature of dentistry as a profession before imposing regulatory mandates. The ADA’s new policy supporting the use of separators demonstrates the profession’s ex isting commitment to take action on its own.

The ADA remains committed to implementing its 2007 Best Management Practices for amalgam waste includ ing the use of separators and looks forward to working with EPA to promote mercury reductions in the enviro nment, but we urge EPA to use a voluntary separator program to do so.

Since others may comment on this st udy and new information may become available, we request that EPA agree to accept new information submitted after the December 31, 2007 public comment period deadline.

If you have any questions, please call or e-mail me.

Yours truly,

William J. Walsh

WJW/

cc: Tamra S. Kempf, Chief Counsel of ADA C. Michael Kendall, Associate General Counsel of ADA Jerome Bowman, Public Affairs Counsel, Government Affairs, American Dental Association