WATER POLLUTION

EPA Has Improved Its 

Review of Effluent 

Guidelines but Could 

Benefit from More 

Information on 

Treatment 

Technologies 

Report to the Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Water Resources and 

Environment, Committee on 

Transportation and Infrastructure, 

House of Representatives 

September 2012 

GAO-12-845 

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO 
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-12-845, a report to the 

Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Water 

Resources and Environment, Committee on 

Transportation and Infrastructure, House of 

Representatives

September 2012

WATER POLLUTION

EPA Has Improved Its Review of Effluent Guidelines 

but Could Benefit from More Information on 

Treatment Technologies 

Why GAO Did This Study

Under the Clean Water Act, EPA has 

made significant progress in reducing 

wastewater pollution from industrial 

facilities. EPA currently regulates 

58 industrial categories, such as 

petroleum refining, fertilizer 

manufacturing, and coal mining, with 

technology-based regulations called

effluent guidelines. Such guidelines are 

applied in permits to limit the pollutants 

that facilities may discharge. The 

Clean Water Act also calls for EPA to 

revise the guidelines when appropriate. 

EPA has done so, for example, to 

reflect advances in treatment 

technology or changes in industries. 

GAO was asked to examine (1) the 

process EPA follows to screen and 

review industrial categories potentially 

needing new or revised guidelines and 

the results of that process from 2003 

through 2010; (2) limitations to this 

process, if any, that could hinder EPA’s 

effectiveness in advancing the goals of 

the Clean Water Act; and (3) EPA’s 

actions to address any such limitations.

GAO analyzed the results of EPA’s 

screening and review process from 

2003 through 2010, surveyed state 

officials, and interviewed EPA officials 

and experts to obtain their views on 

EPA’s process and its results.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making recommendations to 

improve the effectiveness of EPA’s 

effluent guidelines program by 

expanding its screening phase to 

better assess hazards and advances in 

treatment technology. EPA agreed with 

two recommendations in principle and 

said it is making progress on them, but

said that one is not workable given 

current agency resources. GAO

believes improvements can be made. 

What GAO Found

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses a two-phase process to 

identify industrial categories potentially needing new or revised effluent 

guidelines to help reduce their pollutant discharges. EPA’s 2002 draft Strategy 

for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations was the foundation for EPA’s 

process. In the first, or “screening,” phase, EPA uses data from two EPA

databases to rank industrial categories according to the total toxicity of their 

wastewater. Using this ranking, public comments, and other considerations, EPA

has identified relatively few industrial categories posing the highest hazard for the 

next, or “further review,” phase. In this further review phase, EPA evaluates the 

categories to identify those that are appropriate for new or revised guidelines

because treatment technologies are available to reduce pollutant discharges. 

Since 2003, EPA has regularly screened the 58 categories for which it has 

issued effluent guidelines, as well as some potential new industrial categories, 

and it has identified 12 categories for its further review phase. Of these 12 

categories, EPA selected 3 for updated or new effluent guidelines. EPA chose 

not to set new guidelines for the others.

Limitations in EPA’s screening phase may have led it to overlook some industrial 

categories that warrant further review for new or revised effluent guidelines. 

Specifically, EPA has relied on limited hazard data that may have affected its 

ranking of industrial categories. Further, during its screening phase, EPA has not 

considered the availability of advanced treatment technologies for most industrial 

categories. Although its 2002 draft strategy recognized the importance of 

technology data, EPA has stated that such data were too difficult to obtain during 

the screening phase and, instead, considers them for the few categories that 

reach further review. Officials responsible for state water quality programs and 

experts on industrial discharges, however, identified categories they believe EPA 

should examine for new or updated guidelines to reflect changes in their

industrial processes and treatment technology capabilities. According to some 

experts, consideration of treatment technologies is especially important for older 

effluent guidelines because changes are more likely to have occurred in either 

the industrial categories or the treatment technologies, making it possible that 

new, more advanced treatment technologies are available. 

Recognizing the limitations of its hazard data and overall screening approach, 

EPA has begun revising its process but has not assessed other possible sources 

of information it could use to improve the screening phase. In 2012, EPA 

supplemented the hazard data used in screening with four new data sources. 

EPA is also developing a regulation that, through electronic reporting, will 

increase the completeness and accuracy of its hazard data. In 2011, EPA also 

began to obtain recent treatment technology literature. According to EPA, the 

agency will expand on this work in 2013. Nonetheless, EPA has not thoroughly 

examined other usable sources of information on treatment technology, nor has it 

reassessed the role such information should take in its screening process. 

Without a more thorough and integrated screening approach that both uses 

improved hazard data and considers information on treatment technology, EPA

cannot be certain that the effluent guidelines program reflects advances in the 

treatment technologies used to reduce pollutants in wastewater.

View GAO-12-845. For more information, 

contact David Trimble at (202) 512-3841 or 

trimbled@gao.gov
Page i GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Letter 1 

Background 5

EPA’s Two-Phase Screening and Review Process Has Identified 

Few Industrial Categories for New or Revised Effluent 

Guidelines 16

Focus on Limited Hazard Data to the Exclusion of Technology 

Information May Have Led EPA to Overlook Industrial 

Categories for Pollution Reduction 28

EPA Is Adding Hazard Data Sources but Is Not Fully Using 

Potential Sources of Information on Treatment Technologies 36

Conclusions 40

Recommendations for Executive Action 41

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 41

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 45

Appendix II Survey of State Water Quality Permit Writers and Analysis of 

Views about Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent Guidelines 49

Appendix III Additional Details on Industrial Categories with Effluent 

Guidelines 62

Appendix IV Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency 65

Appendix V GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 67

Tables

Table 1: Industrial Categories with Effluent Guidelines and 

Pretreatment Standards as of August 2012 6

Table 2: Standards for Effluent Guidelines for Direct Dischargers 13

Table 3: Consideration of Treatment Technology during Further 

Review and Resulting Key Agency Decisions 24

Contents
Page ii GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Table 4: Regulated Industrial Categories Excluded in the Screening 

Phase from Further Review, 2003-2010 33

Table 5: State Officials’ Responses to the Key Questions in Our 

Survey for the Industries Discharging the Greatest Amount 

of Toxic Effluent in Their State 52

Table 6: State Officials’ Views about Whether EPA Should Revise 

the Effluent Guidelines for the Industries Discharging the 

Greatest Amount of Toxic Effluent in Their State, by the 

Four Factors EPA Considers When Deciding Whether to 

Revise Effluent Guidelines 55

Table 7: Years Effluent Guidelines Were Promulgated and Revised 

for Industrial Categories and Years the Categories Were in 

the Top 95 Percent of Total Reported Hazard, 2004-2010 62

Figures

Figure 1: Industrial Facilities Subject to Regulation of Discharges 9

Figure 2: Industrial Categories Responsible for 95 Percent of the 

Total Reported Hazard and Considered for Possible 

Further Review, 2003-2010 18

Figure 3: Criteria Used by EPA during Screening Phase to Exclude 

Industrial Categories from Further Review 21

Figure 4: Number of Times Existing Industrial Categories Were in 

the Top 95 Percent of Total Reported Hazards in the Four 

Biennial Screening Phases from 2003 through 2010 32

Figure 5: Decision Tree of State Officials’ Views of Whether EPA 

Should Revise Effluent Guidelines for Specific Industrial 

Categories 58

Abbreviations

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

NPDES National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety 

without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

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necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately.
Page 1 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

September 10, 2012

The Honorable Timothy H. Bishop

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Bishop:

Forty years after the Clean Water Act set a national goal of eliminating 

the discharge of pollutants into navigable U.S. waters, the Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA) has made significant progress in reducing 

pollution from industrial facilities; nevertheless, pollution from these 

facilities continues to cause concern.1

One of EPA’s main responsibilities under the act is to regulate “point 

source” pollution—that is, pollution such as effluent or wastewater coming 

from a discrete point, such as a pipe from an industrial facility. The Clean 

Water Act directed EPA to establish effluent guidelines to achieve 

pollutant reductions using specific treatment technologies or changes in a 

facility’s production processes. In establishing and revising effluent 

EPA’s actions to reduce this 

pollution have included establishing national technology-based 

regulations—or effluent guidelines—for separate industrial categories, 

such as petroleum refining, fertilizer manufacturing, coal mining, and 

metal finishing. EPA issued the vast majority of these regulations in the 

1970s and 1980s and has revised most of them; revisions may range 

from changes in testing methods to establishment of more stringent 

standards. Relatively few effluent guidelines have been revised or created 

in recent years, however, and environmental advocacy groups continue to 

raise concerns because industrial facilities annually discharge hundreds 

of billions, and perhaps trillions of pounds of pollutants to U.S. waters. 

According to EPA, industrial pollutants may contribute, in part, to impaired 

water quality; harm aquatic life; and limit the ways in which people can 

safely use the nation’s waters.

 

1

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, Pub. L. No. 92-500, § 2, 

86 Stat. 816, codified as amended at 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251-1387 (2012) (commonly referred 

to as the Clean Water Act). For consistency throughout this report, we refer to the statute 

and its amendments as the Clean Water Act.

 
 

Page 2 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

guidelines, EPA is to assess (1) the performance and availability of the 

best pollution control technologies or pollution prevention practices for an 

industrial category; (2) the economic achievability of those technologies; 

(3) non-water-quality environmental impacts, such as the energy required 

to reduce pollutants; and (4) other factors that the EPA Administrator 

deems appropriate, such as the risk posed by discharges. The legislative 

history of relevant provisions in the Clean Water Act suggests that 

effluent guidelines were expected to be revised and made more stringent 

over time to reflect technological advances.

To carry out its effluent guidelines program, EPA develops regulations 

setting national effluent guidelines, and states generally implement the 

program by applying limits in permits that they issue to specific facilities. 

Under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) 

program, all facilities that discharge pollutants from any point source into 

U.S. waters are required to obtain a permit, typically from their state or 

EPA region. Under the Clean Water Act, EPA has authorized 46 states to 

issue NPDES permits and retains the authority to issue permits for the 

remaining 4 states: Idaho, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New 

Mexico.2

The Clean Water Act requires that after setting effluent guidelines, EPA is 

to annually review each existing effluent guideline—that is, guidelines for 

regulated industrial categories—to determine whether revising these 

guidelines would be appropriate. In addition, at least every 2 years, EPA 

is to identify industrial categories that do not have effluent guidelines but 

that discharge nontrivial amounts of toxic or certain other pollutants.3

 

2

In addition to the 46 states, the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands is authorized to issue 

NPDES permits. The remaining territories and the District of Columbia are not authorized 

to issue these permits.

At 

least every 2 years, EPA is required to publish schedules for its annual 

review and revision of existing effluent guidelines and for promulgating 

effluent guidelines for any newly identified categories. The agency’s intent 

is to issue a plan every year, with preliminary plans to be issued in odd 

3

A Senate committee report explaining the addition of this provision to the Water Quality 

Act of 1987, noted in part, “[g]uidelines are required for any category of sources 

discharging significant amounts of toxic pollutants. In this use, ‘significant amounts’ does 

not require the Administrator to make any determination of environmental harm; any nontrivial discharges from sources in a category must lead to effluent guidelines.” S. Rep. 99-

50 at 24-25 (1985). See also 69 Fed. Reg. 53,707 (Sept. 2, 2004).
 

Page 3 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

years and final plans for effluent guidelines in even years. If EPA decides 

that an industrial category requires new or revised effluent guidelines, it 

generally establishes them through a regulatory process that involves 

proposing new effluent guidelines, obtaining public comment, making 

revisions, and publishing a final regulation.

Throughout much of the effluent guidelines program’s history, EPA’s 

schedule for issuing effluent guidelines has been driven by litigation and 

resulting consent decrees.4

As EPA’s regulatory efforts have reduced pollutants from industrial point 

sources over the past several decades, the agency has placed greater 

emphasis on what is now the primary reason for impairment of the 

nation’s waters, namely diffuse or nonpoint pollution, such as some 

agricultural runoff. In light of that change in emphasis and soon after 

issuing the draft strategy, EPA reduced staffing levels for the effluent 

guidelines program by about 40 percent, according to program officials. 

EPA issued its most recent effluent guidelines—for airport deicing, a 

previously unregulated industry—in May 2012. Before that, EPA’s most 

recent revisions of existing effluent guidelines were for concentrated 

In 2002, following extensive consultation with 

an advisory task force formed in response to a 1992 consent decree, EPA 

issued a draft Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations, 

outlining a new process by which it planned to meet the requirement to 

review industries in the future to determine whether new or revised 

effluent guidelines were appropriate. The draft strategy calls for EPA to 

conduct an annual screening of industrial categories to consider (1) the 

risks the industrial categories pose to human health or the environment; 

(2) the availability of treatment technology or other approaches to reduce 

the risk; (3) the cost, performance, and affordability of the technology; and 

(4) implementation and efficiency considerations. EPA derived these 

screening factors in part from the statutory requirements for developing or 

revising effluent guidelines. Following screening with available 

information, the draft strategy calls for EPA to conduct a further review of 

selected categories. The further reviews may take 1 or more years to 

complete. EPA has not finalized or formally updated its draft strategy, 

although according to EPA officials, the draft has served in part as the 

basis for the agency’s annual reviews of industrial categories after 2002.

 

4

Consent decrees are settlement agreements signed by the parties and entered, or 

approved, by a court; they are therefore enforceable by the courts.
 

Page 4 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

animal feeding operations in 2008 and construction and development in 

2009.5

In this context, you asked us to review EPA’s effluent guidelines program. 

This report examines (1) the process EPA follows to screen and review 

industrial categories potentially in need of new or revised effluent 

limitation guidelines and the results of that process from 2003 through 

2010; (2) limitations to this screening and review process, if any, that 

could hinder the effectiveness of the effluent guidelines program in 

advancing the goals of the Clean Water Act; and (3) what actions EPA 

has taken or could take to address limitations, if any, that exist.

Most effluent guidelines have not been revised since the 1980s or 

1990s.

To address our objectives, we reviewed the Clean Water Act and relevant 

regulations, EPA’s 2002 draft strategy, effluent guidelines program plans, 

and associated supporting documents. We also reviewed EPA’s 

screening decisions for all industrial categories and its further reviews for 

the 12 industrial categories selected through screening from 2003 through 

2010.6

 

5

EPA stayed a portion of the guideline for the construction and development industrial 

category that established a numerical effluent limitation for turbidity, but other portions of 

the guidelines remain in effect. See 75 Fed. Reg. 68215 (Nov. 5, 2010), 40 C.F.R. pt. 450.

Our purpose was to identify those industries that EPA had only 

initially screened and those that received a further review, including an 

examination of available treatment technologies. We also documented 

the status of regulatory actions and other steps that EPA took for 

industries that it reviewed further. In addition, we interviewed officials in 

EPA’s Engineering and Analysis Division to learn about the process the 

agency follows to screen and review industries potentially in need of new 

or revised effluent limitation guidelines. We then compared the steps 

specified in the draft strategy with the agency’s current process for 

screening and reviewing industries for possible revised guidelines. To 

better understand the steps in the current process as they apply to 

specific industrial categories, we conducted detailed interviews with EPA 

staff regarding 7 of the 12 industrial categories that EPA selected from 

2003 onward for possible new or revised effluent guidelines. We chose 

2003 because it was the year when EPA issued its first preliminary 

effluent guidelines plan after developing its 2002 draft strategy for 

6

As of August 2012, EPA had not published a preliminary effluent guidelines program plan 

for 2011.
 

Page 5 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

screening and reviewing industries. We also conducted 17 interviews with 

22 experts from academia, industry, nonprofit organizations, and state 

and local water quality agencies for their perspectives on EPA’s effluent 

guidelines program. We selected these experts from a list of 

approximately 50 individuals identified from a variety of sources, including 

referrals from EPA, the Association of Clean Water Agencies, the 

National Association of Clean Water Agencies, and other experts; 

relevant academic literature; and litigation documents. Because we used 

a nonprobability sampling method to select experts, the results of our 

interviews with them cannot be generalized to all experts on the program, 

but the information derived from interviewing these experts provided 

illustrative observations and examples. We also surveyed the directors for 

water quality permits in the 46 states authorized to issue NPDES permits 

about the adequacy of current effluent guidelines; the results of our 

analysis are not generalizable to all industrial categories in all states. 

Using the results of the survey, we selected an industrial category that 

state officials said warranted revised effluent guidelines and interviewed 

state officials to learn more about the reasons for their views. We also 

interviewed EPA officials about their plans, if any, related to those 

industries. Appendixes I and II present a more detailed description of our 

scope and methodology.

We conducted this performance audit from September 2011 to 

September 2012, in accordance with generally accepted government 

auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the 

audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 

basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We 

believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Tens of thousands of industrial facilities directly discharge wastewater 

into the waters of the United States and are subject to permit limits on 

their discharges, which for certain industries are determined by effluent 

guidelines set by EPA under the Clean Water Act. For certain industries, 

EPA issues a similar type of regulation—pretreatment standards—

applicable to facilities that are indirect dischargers; that is, their effluent 

goes to wastewater treatment plants, which then discharge the collected 

and treated wastewater into a water body. To establish pollutant control 

limits for different pollutants in these guidelines or standards, EPA groups 

industrial facilities into categories that have similar products or services.

To date, EPA has issued effluent guidelines or pretreatment standards for 

58 industrial categories. EPA has issued effluent guidelines for 57 of the 

Background 
 

Page 6 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

58 categories and pretreatment standards for 35 of the 58 categories.7

Table 1: Industrial Categories with Effluent Guidelines and Pretreatment Standards 

as of August 2012

Table 1 lists industrial categories that are regulated by effluent guidelines 

and pretreatment standards. According to EPA, there are approximately 

35,000 to 45,000 direct dischargers covered by effluent guidelines and 

about 10,000 facilities that discharge indirectly to wastewater treatment 

plants.

Industrial category

Effluent 

guideline

Pretreatment 

standard

Airport deicing X 

Aluminum forming X X 

Asbestos manufacturing X 

Battery manufacturing X X 

Canned and preserved fruits and vegetables 

processing

X X 

Canned and preserved seafood processing X 

Carbon black manufacturing X X 

Cement manufacturing X 

Centralized waste treatment X X 

Coal mining X 

Coil coating X X 

Concentrated animal feeding operations X X 

Concentrated aquatic animal production X 

Construction and development X 

Copper forming X X 

Dairy products processing X 

Electrical and electronic components X X 

Electroplating X 

 

7

Throughout this report, we use the term effluent guidelines to refer to effluent guidelines 

and pretreatment standards collectively. Some industrial categories are made up of direct 

dischargers, some of indirect dischargers, and some have a mix of both. Thirty-four of the 

58 industrial categories are regulated by both effluent guidelines and pretreatment 

standards because these categories comprise both direct and indirect dischargers. 

Twenty-three industrial categories are regulated by effluent guidelines but not 

pretreatment standards, while the electroplating industrial category is regulated by 

pretreatment standards but not by effluent guidelines.
 

Page 7 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Industrial category

Effluent 

guideline

Pretreatment 

standard

Explosives manufacturing X 

Ferroalloy manufacturing X 

Fertilizer manufacturing X X 

Glass manufacturing X X 

Grain mills X X 

Gum and wood chemicals manufacturing X 

Hospital X 

Ink formulating X X 

Inorganic chemicals manufacturing X X 

Iron and steel manufacturing X X 

Landfills X 

Leather tanning and finishing X X 

Meat and poultry products X 

Metal finishing X X 

Metal molding and casting X X 

Metal products and machinery X 

Mineral mining and processing X 

Nonferrous metals forming and metal powders X X 

Nonferrous metals manufacturing X X 

Oil and gas extraction X X 

Ore mining and dressing X 

Organic chemicals, plastics, and synthetic fibers X X 

Paint formulating X X 

Paving and roofing materials (tars and asphalt) X X 

Pesticide chemicals X X 

Petroleum refining X X 

Pharmaceutical manufacturing X X 

Phosphate manufacturing X 

Photographic X 

Plastics molding and forming X 

Porcelain enameling X X 

Pulp, paper, and paperboard X X 

Rubber manufacturing X X 

Soap and detergent manufacturing X X 

Steam electric power generating X X 

Sugar processing X 
 

Page 8 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Industrial category

Effluent 

guideline

Pretreatment 

standard

Textile mills X 

Timber products processing X 

Transportation equipment cleaning X X 

Waste combustors X X 

Total 57 35

Source: GAO analysis of EPA data.

Before an industrial facility discharges pollutants, it must receive a permit 

that is to, at a minimum, incorporate any relevant pollutant limits from 

EPA’s effluent guidelines. Where needed to protect water quality as 

determined by standards set by individual states, NPDES permits may 

include limits more stringent than the limits in the guidelines. NPDES 

permits for direct dischargers are issued by 1 of the 46 states authorized 

by EPA to issue them and by EPA elsewhere. Unlike direct dischargers, 

indirect dischargers, which do not discharge to surface waters, do not 

require an NPDES permit. Instead, an indirect discharger must meet 

EPA’s national pretreatment standards and may have to meet additional 

pretreatment conditions imposed by its local wastewater treatment plant.8

 

8

Wastewater treatment plants generally must have a NPDES permit to operate.

Under the national pretreatment standards and conditions, an indirect 

discharger is required to remove pollutants that may harm wastewater 

treatment plant operations or workers or, after treatment and discharge,

cause violations of the wastewater treatment plant’s permit. Figure 1 

illustrates both types of facilities subject to regulation.

National Pollutant 

Discharge Elimination 

System Permits
 

Page 9 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Figure 1: Industrial Facilities Subject to Regulation of Discharges

To get an NPDES permit, industrial facilities’ owners—like any source 

discharging pollutants as a point source—must first submit an application 

that, among other things, provides information on their proposed 

discharges. Water quality officials in authorized states and EPA regional 

offices responsible for the NPDES program in the four nonauthorized 

states review these applications and determine the appropriate limits for 

the permits. Those limits may be technology-based effluent limits, water 

quality-based effluent limits, or a combination of both. Technology-based 

limits must stem from either effluent limitation guidelines, when 

applicable, or from the permit writer’s best professional judgment when no 

applicable effluent limitation guidelines are available. Using best 

professional judgment, permit writers are to develop technology-based 

permit conditions on a case-by-case basis, considering all reasonably 

available and relevant information, as well as factors similar to those EPA 

uses in developing guidelines for national effluent limitations. A permit 
 

Page 10 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

writer should also set water quality-based limits more stringent than 

technology-based limits if necessary to control pollutants that could cause 

or contribute to violation of a state’s water quality standards. To support 

each permit, permit writers are supposed to develop a fact sheet, or 

similar documentation, briefly summarizing the key facts and significant 

factual, legal, methodological, and policy questions considered.9

Facilities with NPDES permits are required to monitor their discharges for 

the pollutants listed in their permits and to provide monitoring reports with 

their results to their permitting authority (the relevant state, tribal, or 

territorial agency authorized to issue NPDES permits or, in nonauthorized 

locations, EPA). For facilities designated by EPA regional administrators 

and the permitting authorities as major facilities, the permitting authorities 

are in turn required to transfer the monitoring report data to EPA 

headquarters. These reports, known as discharge monitoring reports, are 

transmitted electronically and stored in an electronic database or reported 

in documents and manually entered into the electronic database for use 

by EPA in reviewing permit compliance.

The fact 

sheet and supporting documentation also serve to explain to the facility, 

the public, and other interested parties the rationale and assumptions 

used in deriving the limitations in the permit.

10

 

9

EPA regulations require permit writers to document the reasoning behind a facility’s 

permit. A fact sheet is required to accompany the permit for facilities designated by EPA 

regional administrators and the permitting authorities to be major dischargers. A statement 

of basis is required for permits issued to all other facilities, which EPA considers minor 

facilities. For purposes of this report, we refer to both fact sheets and statements of basis 

as “fact sheets.” See EPA, NPDES Permit Writers Manual at 11-10, 40 C.F.R. §§ 124.7, 

124.8, 124.56, 123.25 (2012).

Permitting authorities are not 

required to report the discharge monitoring results from all remaining 

facilities, known as minor facilities, to EPA but may do so. According to 

EPA, there are about 6,700 major and 40,500 minor facilities covered by 

NPDES permits.

10EPA and the states are making a transition from one national database, known as the 

Permit Compliance System, to another known as the Integrated Compliance Information 

System: NPDES. The states are divided in their use of the two databases. Consequently, 

two databases contain discharge-monitoring reports. In our report, however, we refer to 

them collectively as “the database.” 
 

Page 11 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Facilities may also be required to report data to EPA’s Toxics Release 

Inventory on their estimated wastewater discharges.11 This inventory 

contains annual estimates of facilities’ discharges of more than 650 toxic 

chemicals to the environment. One of the inventory’s primary purposes is 

to inform communities about toxic chemical releases to the environment, 

showing data from a wide range of mining, utility, manufacturing, and 

other industries subject to the reporting requirements. As such, although 

the inventory is unrelated to the NPDES program, the Toxics Release 

Inventory contains estimated discharges of toxic pollutants for many 

NPDES-permitted facilities. Not all industrial categories covered by 

effluent guidelines—the oil and gas industrial category, for example—are 

necessarily required to report to the inventory.

Under the Clean Water Act, EPA must establish effluent guidelines for 

three categories of pollutants—conventional, toxic, and nonconventional 

pollutants—and several levels of treatment technology. As defined in 

EPA’s regulations, conventional pollutants include biological oxygen 

demand,

12 total suspended solids,13 fecal coliform bacteria,14 oil and 

grease, and pH.15

 

11Specifically, certain facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use any of the 

listed individual chemicals and chemical categories are required to report annually to EPA 

and their respective state those chemicals used above threshold quantities, the amounts 

released to the environment, and whether the releases entered the air, water, or soil. 42 

U.S.C. § 11023 (2012).

The Clean Water Act designates toxic pollutants as 

12Biological oxygen demand is a measure of the oxygen used during decomposition of 

organic material over a specified period (usually 5 days) in a wastewater sample; it 

represents the readily decomposable organic content of wastewater.

13A measure of filterable solids present in a sample, as determined by the method 

specified in 40 C.F.R. pt. 136.

14Fecal coliform are bacteria whose presence indicates that water may be contaminated 

by human or animal wastes.

15A measure of the hydrogen ion concentration of water or wastewater expressed as the 

negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration in milligrams per liter. A pH of 7 is 

neutral, a pH less than 7 is acidic, and a pH greater than 7 is basic.

Effluent Guidelines 

Program
 

Page 12 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

those chemicals listed in a key congressional committee report,16 which 

contains 65 entries, including, arsenic, carbon tetrachloride, and mercury, 

as well as groups of pollutants, such as halomethanes.17 Nonconventional 

pollutants are any pollutants not designated as a conventional or toxic 

pollutant; for example, EPA has developed limitations for such 

nonconventional pollutants as chemical oxygen demand,18

The act authorizes EPA to establish effluent limits for these three 

pollutant categories according to several standards; the standards 

generally reflect increasing levels of treatment technologies. A treatment 

technology is any process or mechanism that helps remove pollutants 

from wastewater and can include filters or other separators, biological or 

bacteria-based removal, and chemical neutralization. Legislative history 

of the Clean Water Act describes the expectation of attaining higher 

levels of treatment through research and development of new production 

processes, modifications, replacement of obsolete plans and processes, 

and other improvements in technology, taking into account the cost of 

treatment.

total organic 

carbon, and the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus.

19

 

16See Clean Water Act §307(a)(1), codified at 33 U.S.C. §1317(a)(1) (2011); see also 33 

U.S.C. § 1362(13) (defining toxic pollutant). The list appears in the Code of Federal 

Regulations at 40 C.F.R. § 401.15. The committee report list was developed from a 1976 

consent decree signed with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental 

group, to resolve litigation that, among other things, sought to compel EPA to expand the 

list of toxic pollutants promulgated under the act. The consent decree was entered in 

NRDC et al. v. Train, 6 ELR 20588, (D.D.C. 1976). The statute authorizes EPA to revise 

the list.

Under the act, the effluent limits do not specify a particular 

technology to be used but instead set a performance level based on one 

or more particular existing treatment technologies. Individual facilities 

then have to meet the performance level set but can choose which 

technology they use to meet it.

17Human-made halomethanes are most notably used as refrigerants, solvents, 

propellants, and fumigants.

18Chemical oxygen demand is a measure of the oxygen-consuming capacity of inorganic 

and organic matter present in wastewater.

19See, e.g., Senate Consideration of the Report of the Conference Committee, October 4, 

1972 (Statement of Sen. Muskie), reprinted in Cong. Research Serv., A Legislative History 

of the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, at 169-70 (1978); S. Comm. on 

Public Works, Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, S. Rep. No. 92-414, at 

50-51 (1971), reprinted in Cong. Research Serv., A Legislative History of the Water 

Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, at 7669-70 (1978).
 

Page 13 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Under the act, EPA was to issue initial guidelines for existing facilities on 

the basis of the “best practicable control technology currently available” 

for conventional, toxic, and nonconventional pollutants—guidelines to be 

achieved by 1977—followed by guidelines set on the basis of “best 

available technology economically achievable” for toxic and 

nonconventional pollutants and “best conventional pollutant control 

technology” for conventional pollutants. The act also called for guidelines 

known as “new source performance standards,” which would apply to 

new facilities starting operations after such standards were proposed. 

When permitting authorities develop a permit, they apply standards most 

appropriate to a given facility: For example, a new facility would receive a 

permit with limits reflecting the new source performance standards. 

Existing facilities would generally receive permits with limits reflecting the 

best conventional technology and best available technology, but where 

those standards have not been issued, permit limits would reflect best 

practical treatment. Table 2 shows the different levels of treatment 

established in the act and the category of pollutant to which they apply.

Table 2: Standards for Effluent Guidelines for Direct Dischargers

Standard Pollutants Basis for treatment level Entities subject to regulation

Best practicable technology 

currently available 

Toxics, nonconventional, 

and conventional

The average of the best performances 

of facilities within the industry

Existing industrial facilities during the 

Clean Water Act’s initial 

implementation phase (1977-89)

Best conventional pollutant 

control technology

Conventional The most stringent technology option 

that passes tests as feasible and 

economically achievable

Existing industrial facilities, after 

1989

Best available technology 

economically achievable

a

Toxics and 

nonconventional

Level to be set with reference to the 

best performer in any industrial 

category and determined to be 

economically achievable for the 

category or subcategory

Existing industrial facilities, after 

1989

New source performance 

standards

b

Toxics, nonconventional, 

and conventional

The most stringent controls attainable

through the application of the best 

demonstrated control technology that 

does not pose a barrier to entry

New industrial facilities

Source: GAO analysis.

a

If EPA has not established an applicable best conventional technology effluent guideline, then the 

best practicable treatment effluent guideline still applies.

b

If EPA has not established an applicable best available technology effluent guideline, then the best 

practicable treatment effluent guideline still applies.
 

Page 14 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

The Clean Water Act requires EPA to annually review all existing effluent 

guidelines and revise them if appropriate, and also to review existing 

effluent limitations at least every 5 years and revise them if appropriate.20

From the start of the effluent guidelines program in the early 1970s, EPA 

has faced considerable litigation, with industry challenging most of the 

industry-specific effluent guidelines. As the agency implemented the 

program, EPA also faced challenges from environmental groups over its 

failure to issue guidelines and the process EPA used to screen and 

review industrial categories. For example, the Natural Resources Defense 

Council, an environmental organization, brought two suits, each seeking 

to compel EPA to meet its duties to promulgate effluent limitations for 

listed toxic pollutants, among other actions. As a result, EPA operated 

under two key consent decrees establishing court-approved schedules for 

it to develop and issue effluent guidelines regulations. In addition, under 

one of the consent decrees, EPA established a task force that operated 

from 1992 through 2000 and advised the agency on various aspects of 

the effluent guidelines program. In particular, the task force issued 

several reports advising EPA on changes to its screening and review 

process for the effluent guidelines program and recommended that EPA 

hold a workshop to discuss improvements to the process.

The Water Quality Act of 1987 added two related requirements to EPA’s 

reviews. First, EPA is to identify, every 2 years, potential candidates for 

new effluent guidelines, namely, industries that are discharging 

significant, or nontrivial, amounts of toxic or nonconventional pollutants 

that are not currently subject to effluent guidelines. Second, every 2 years 

beginning in 1988, EPA is required to publish a plan establishing a 

schedule for the annual review and revision of the effluent guidelines it 

has previously promulgated. In response to these two requirements, EPA 

published its first effluent guidelines program plan in 1990, which 

contained schedules for developing new and revised effluent guidelines 

for several industrial categories.

In 2002, after considering the recommendations made by both the task 

force and the workshop, EPA developed an approach to guide its postconsent decree screening and review, issued in a document called A 

Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations. Under this draft 

 

20EPA is required to issue both effluent guidelines and effluent limitations. The agency 

issues regulations that simultaneously address both of these and therefore it does not 

distinguish between the reviews required for the guidelines and for the limitations.
 

Page 15 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

strategy, EPA was to evaluate readily available data and stakeholder 

input to create an initial list of categories warranting further examination 

for potential effluent guidelines. The strategy identified the following four 

key factors for EPA to consider in deciding whether to revise existing 

effluent guidelines or to develop new ones:

• the extent to which pollutants remaining in an industrial category’s 

discharge pose a substantial risk to human health or the environment;

• the availability of a treatment technology, process change, or pollution 

prevention alternative that can effectively reduce the pollutants and 

risk; 

• the cost, performance, and affordability of the technology, process 

change, or pollution prevention measures relative to their benefits; 

and

• the extent to which existing effluent guidelines could be revised, for 

example, to eliminate inefficiencies or impediments to technological 

innovation or to promote innovative approaches.

The draft strategy also indicated that EPA would apply nearly identical 

factors to help determine whether it should issue effluent guidelines for 

industrial categories for which it had not yet done so. The document 

noted that EPA intended to revise and issue the strategy in early 2003, 

but EPA has chosen not to finalize it.21

Since EPA issued its draft strategy, the agency has faced litigation 

challenging the use of technology in its screening process. In 2004, EPA 

was sued by Our Children’s Earth, a nonprofit environmental 

organization, which alleged that EPA failed to consider technology-based 

factors during its annual review of industrial categories. On appeal, the 

Ninth Circuit Court decided in 2008 that the statute did not establish a 

mandatory duty for EPA to consider such factors. The court found that the 

EPA officials stated that the 

agency made this choice because its implementation of the process was 

likely to evolve over time.

 

21See also 68 Fed. Reg. 75,515, 75,519 (Dec. 31, 2003) in which EPA stated, “EPA 

articulated an early form of this evolving analytical framework in the draft Strategy for 

National Clean Water Industrial Regulations (‘draft Strategy’), which EPA hope[d] to 

finalize concurrently with the Effluent Guidelines Program Plan in 2004.” 
 

Page 16 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

statute’s use of the phrase “if appropriate” indicated that decisions on 

whether to revise guidelines are discretionary but are also constrained by 

the statute’s mandate as to what effluent guidelines regulations are to 

accomplish.22 Further, the court stated that the overall structure of the 

Clean Water Act strongly suggests that any review to determine whether 

revision of effluent guidelines is appropriate should contemplate 

technology-based factors.

EPA uses a two-phase process to review industrial categories potentially 

in need of new or revised effluent guidelines; from 2003 through 2010, the 

agency identified few such categories. Since 2003, EPA has annually 

screened all industrial categories subject to effluent guidelines, as well as 

other industrial categories that could be subject to new guidelines; it has 

identified 12 categories for further review and selected 3 categories to 

update or to receive new effluent guidelines.

EPA’s screening phase starts with a review of industrial categories 

already subject to effluent guidelines—as well as industrial categories that 

are not—to identify and rank those whose pollutant discharges pose a 

substantial hazard to human health and the environment.23

 

22Our Children’s Earth (OCE) Found. v. EPA, 527 F.3d 842, 851 (9th Cir. 2008), rehearing 

506 F.3d 781 (9th Cir. 2007), on appeal from 2005 U.S. Dist. Lexis 45716 (N.D. Cal. 

2005).

EPA analyzes 

and ranks industrial categories using pollutant data from facilities in 

similar industrial classifications. Before it ranks industrial categories in this 

screening phase, EPA excludes from consideration any industrial 

categories where guidelines are already undergoing revision or have 

been revised or developed in the previous 7 years. For example, EPA 

23EPA’s draft 2002 strategy stated that it would consider the risks to human health or the 

environment. According to a senior effluent guidelines program official, however, the 

agency’s screening process includes a relative hazard assessment rather than a risk 

assessment. According to EPA, once an industrial category has been identified as posing 

a significant hazard on the basis of the screening analysis—and before initiating an 

effluent guideline rule making—the agency may then conduct a study of the industrial 

category to determine the risks imposed on human health and the environment.

EPA’s Two-Phase 

Screening and Review 

Process Has 

Identified Few 

Industrial Categories 

for New or Revised 

Effluent Guidelines

EPA’s Screening Phase 

Results in a Subset of 

Industrial Categories for 

Further Review
 

Page 17 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

announced in its 2010 final effluent guideline program plan that it 

excluded the steam electric power-generating category from the 

screening phase because the agency had already begun revising effluent 

guidelines for this industry.24

In ranking industrial categories during the screening phase, EPA 

considers the extent to which discharged pollutants threaten human 

health and the environment—the first factor identified in EPA’s 2002 draft 

strategy. EPA compiles information from two EPA sources on the facilities 

within these industrial categories that discharge wastewater, the 

pollutants they discharge, and the amount of their discharge: (1) the 

discharge monitoring report database and (2) the Toxics Release 

Inventory.

Also in 2010 EPA excluded the concentrated 

aquatic animal production category (e.g., fish farming) from screening 

because the agency issued effluent guidelines in 2004.

25 From these two sources, EPA estimates the amount and 

relative toxicity of pollutant discharges from screened industrial 

categories, converts these estimates into a single “score” of relative 

toxicity for each industrial category, and uses this score to rank the 

industrial categories according to the reported hazard they pose. To 

determine the relative toxicity of a given pollutant, EPA multiplies the 

amount (in pounds) of that pollutant by a pollutant-specific weighting 

factor to derive a “toxic weighted pound equivalent.” EPA’s ranking of one 

industrial category relative to other categories can vary depending on the 

amount of the pollutants it discharges or the toxicity of those pollutants. 

For example, an industrial category, such as pesticide chemicals, may 

discharge fewer pounds of pollutants than another category, such as 

canned and preserved seafood processing, but have a higher hazard 

ranking because of the relative toxicity of the pollutant chemicals it 

discharges.

 

24The steam electric power-generating industry produces electric power by means of 

steam generated from fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, or nuclear fuels.

25As explained above, an industrial direct discharger is required to have an NPDES permit 

regardless of whether there are effluent guidelines for the industry. NPDES permits 

require monitoring for specific pollutants to determine compliance with permit limits. Some 

industries may also be subject to requirements under another EPA program to report toxic 

releases to the Toxics Release Inventory. These requirements are independent of whether 

an industry is regulated by effluent guidelines.
 

Page 18 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

After ranking industrial categories, EPA identifies those responsible for 

the top 95 percent of the total reported hazard, which is the total of all 

industrial categories’ hazard scores. EPA assigns these industrial 

categories a high priority for further review in the second phase of its 

review process. As the relative amounts of their discharges change, the 

number of industrial categories making up this 95 percent can vary each 

year with each screening EPA performs. From 2003 through 2009, for 

example, 10 to 13 industrial categories composed the top 95 percent of 

reported hazard, whereas in 2010, 21 categories made up the top 

95 percent.26

Figure 2: Industrial Categories Responsible for 95 Percent of the Total Reported 

Hazard and Considered for Possible Further Review, 2003-2010

Figure 2 shows the number of industrial categories that EPA 

considered for possible further review on the basis of its hazard 

screening.

 

26According to EPA, the doubling in the number of industrial categories in 2010 resulted 

from the removal of the steam electric power-generating category from the ranking 

process after EPA decided to revise its effluent guidelines. Previously, that industrial 

category alone constituted up to 73 percent of the total toxic weighted pound equivalent. 

When EPA removed that category from its hazard ranking, many other industries with 

smaller hazard ranking scores moved into the top 95 percent.
 

Page 19 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Note: According to EPA, the doubling in the number of industrial categories in 2010 resulted from the 

removal of the steam electric power-generating category from the ranking process after EPA decided 

to revise its effluent guidelines. Previously, that industrial category alone constituted up to 73 percent 

of the total toxic weighted pound equivalent. When EPA removed that category from its hazard 

ranking, many other industries with smaller hazard ranking scores moved into the top 95 percent.

After it identifies the industrial categories contributing to 95 percent of 

reported hazard, EPA takes additional steps to exclude industrial 

categories before beginning the further review phase. Specifically, the 

agency may exclude industrial categories on the basis of three criteria:

• Data used in the ranking process contained errors. After completing 

its ranking, EPA verifies the pollutant discharge data from the 

discharge monitoring reports and Toxics Release Inventory and 

corrects any errors. For example, according to EPA, the agency has 

found that facilities have reported the wrong unit of measurement in 

their discharge monitoring reports, or states have transferred data into 

the EPA database incorrectly. In such cases, a pollutant discharge 

may, for example, be reported at a concentration of 10 milligrams per 

liter but in fact be present at a concentration of 10 micrograms per 

liter—a thousand-fold lower discharge.

• Very few facilities account for the relative toxicity of an industrial 

category. EPA typically does not consider for further review industries 

where only a few facilities account for the vast majority of pollutant 

discharges and the discharges are not representative of the category 

as a whole. In such cases, EPA states in its effluent guideline 

program plans that revising individual NPDES permits may be more 

effective than a nationwide regulation to address the discharge. For 

example, in 2004, EPA determined that one facility was responsible 

for the vast majority of discharges of dioxin associated with the 

inorganic chemicals industrial category. In its effluent guideline 

program plan for that year, EPA indicated that it would work through 

the facility’s NPDES permit to reduce these discharges as 

appropriate.
 

Page 20 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

• Other factors. EPA considers other factors in addition to those 

described above to determine if an industrial category warrants further 

review. According to EPA, one such factor is inadequate data from 

which to make a clear determination. For example, in its 2010 

screening phase, EPA excluded several industrial categories from the 

further review phase because it did not have conclusive data but said 

that it would “continue to review” the categories’ discharges to 

determine if they were properly controlled. These industries included 

pulp, paper, and paperboard; plastic molding and forming; and waste 

combustors.

Figure 3 illustrates the exclusion process EPA applies in its initial 

screening phase.
 

Page 21 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Figure 3: Criteria Used by EPA during Screening Phase to Exclude Industrial Categories from Further Review
 

Page 22 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

During the screening phase, EPA uses existing industry classifications as 

the basis for identifying industrial categories. EPA groups these industry 

classifications, which are identified by one of two standardized coding 

schemes, into industrial categories that it then considers for effluent 

guidelines.27

Throughout the screening phase, EPA also obtains stakeholder and 

public input, which may identify industrial categories warranting new or 

revised effluent guidelines that were not identified by their hazard ranking. 

Stakeholder and public input comes from EPA’s solicitation of comments 

on its biennial preliminary and final effluent guidelines program plans. For 

example, in 2004 stakeholders raised concerns about discharges from 

dental facilities of mercury used in dental fillings; in response, EPA later 

identified the dental category for further review. On completing the 

screening phase, the agency lists in its preliminary or final effluent 

guidelines program plans the industrial categories it has identified for 

further review. Alternatively, EPA may decide on the basis of its screening 

criteria that no industrial categories warrant further review.

If EPA identifies an industrial category that does not have 

effluent guidelines but has discharges that present a potential hazard, it 

decides whether the category produces a product or performs a service 

similar to one subject to existing effluent guidelines. If so, EPA generally 

considers the former category to be a subcategory of the latter. 

Conversely, if the products or services differ from categories subject to 

existing guidelines, EPA considers the category as a potential new 

category. In either case, EPA may decide that the industrial category 

warrants further review and, possibly, new effluent guidelines.

In its further review phase, EPA conducts detailed studies of any 

industrial categories identified in its screening phase, using the four 

factors listed in its November 2002 draft strategy to determine whether 

the categories need new or revised effluent guidelines. Since issuing its 

draft strategy, EPA has selected 12 industrial categories to move beyond 

the screening phase to the further review phase. Seven of the 

categories—for example, the pulp, paper, and paperboard category and 

the petroleum refining category—were identified for further review on the 

 

27The industrial coding schemes that EPA uses are the Department of Labor’s Standard 

Industrial Classification codes, created in the 1930s and the North American Industry 

Classification System, which was created through a cooperative effort of Canadian and 

Mexican government agencies and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. 

EPA’s Further Review 

Phase Results in Few 

Industrial Categories to 

Consider for Potential New 

or Revised Effluent 

Guidelines
 

Page 23 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

basis of the risk or toxicity of the pollutants they discharge, and 5 were 

identified for review on the basis of stakeholder concerns. If the 

categories are already subject to effluent guidelines that EPA set, the 

agency studies the need to revise effluent limits in the existing guidelines; 

if the categories are not subject to existing guidelines, EPA studies the 

need to develop effluent limits and apply them for the first time. Of the 12 

categories selected for further review, 8 were already subject to existing 

effluent guidelines, and 4 were not.

During its further review phase, according to EPA documents, EPA 

gathers and analyzes more information on the factors identified in its draft 

strategy. During this phase, EPA typically analyzes information on the 

hazards posed by discharged pollutants, which corresponds to the first 

factor in its draft strategy. The data on hazards that EPA obtains and 

analyzes include: (1) characteristics of wastewater and of facilities; (2) the 

pollutants responsible for the industrial category’s relative toxicity ranking; 

(3) geographic distribution of facilities in the industry; (4) trends in 

discharges within the industry, and (5) any relevant economic factors 

related to the industry.

During the further review phase, EPA also begins to gather and analyze 

information on the availability of pollution prevention and treatment 

technology for the industrial categories reviewed, which corresponds to 

the second factor identified in its draft 2002 strategy. Through this 

analysis, EPA identifies current technologies that industry is using to 

reduce pollutants, potential new technologies that could be used to 

reduce pollutants, or both. Table 3 summarizes EPA’s consideration of 

treatment technologies for the 12 industrial categories that proceeded to 

the further review phase. For example, EPA studied one technology used 

by the ore mining and dressing industrial category and several current 

technologies for the coalbed methane category.
 

Page 24 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Table 3: Consideration of Treatment Technology during Further Review and Resulting Key Agency Decisions

Industrial category

Period for further 

review

Consideration of treatment technology 

during further review a Key agency decisions after further review

Categories with existing effluent guidelines

Chlorine and chlorinated 

hydrocarbons 

manufacturing

2005-present

b

EPA did not prepare a written study for this 

industrial category. Instead it used site visits 

and sampled wastewater to collect data on 

pollutant quantities and conducted site visits 

to design an industry-led voluntary sampling 

plan. EPA officials stated that through 

implementation of the sampling plan, the 

agency discovered that most participating 

facilities used treatment technology that was 

effectively controlling their pollutant 

discharges.

According to EPA officials, the 

agency does not plan to initiate rule 

making for this industrial category 

because only one facility is 

responsible for the majority of the 

pollutant discharge.

Coalbed methane 

extraction

2005-2010 c In its 2010 study, EPA presented an 

overview of seven treatment methods used 

by this industry, depending on the type of 

wastewater pollutant produced during the 

extraction process. 

On the basis of the study’s findings, 

EPA in 2010 announced the start of 

rule making for effluent guidelines 

for this category. The agency plans 

to propose the rule in 2013.

Coal mining 2006-2008 In its 2008 study, EPA described two 

treatment technologies associated with the 

most common pollutant discharges resulting 

from coal mining processes. 

On the basis of the study’s findings, 

EPA decided to take no further 

action on this category, stating that 

the existing guidelines were 

appropriate to address the 

industry’s discharges.

Ore mining and dressing 2008-2011 EPA prepared a study published in 2011, 

which included a review of one currently 

used treatment technology: high density 

sludge recycling. The review included an 

overview of this treatment, where it was 

used in the United States, and permit 

requirements for facilities that used the 

technology.

EPA in 2011 decided to take no 

further action on ore mining and 

dressing. The agency found that a 

small number of facilities were 

responsible for the majority of 

discharges and decided to address 

the pollutants the NPDES permit 

process with permitting or through 

compliance and enforcement 

activities.

Organic chemicals, 

plastics, and synthetic 

fibers

2003-2004 EPA’s study of this category included 

general descriptions of treatments currently 

used by the industry, as well as a more 

detailed discussion of pollution prevention 

and wastewater treatment technologies used 

to minimize the amount of dioxin in 

wastewater streams.

EPA in 2004 decided to take no 

further action for the category 

because of the small number of 

facilities discharging significant 

amounts of toxic pollutants.
 

Page 25 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Industrial category

Period for further 

review

Consideration of treatment technology 

during further review a Key agency decisions after 

further review

Petroleum refining 2003-2004 In its study of the petroleum refining 

category, EPA presented general 

information on current treatments used by 

refineries to treat wastewater produced and 

on additional pollution control alternatives. 

EPA in 2004 decided to take no 

further action on petroleum refining 

because it found that most 

petroleum refining facilities were 

not discharging toxic pollutants. For 

the few facilities that were, the 

agency said it would seek changes 

through the NPDES permit 

process.

Pulp, paper, and 

paperboard 

2005-2006 In its 2006 study, EPA identified 

technologies used in a laboratory setting, 

pilot programs, and industry to remove 

metals in wastewater from pulp and paper 

mills. 

On the basis of findings from the 

further review phase, including that 

some available technologies were 

site-specific and not readily 

adaptable industrywide, EPA in 

2006 decided to take no further 

action on this category,

Steam electric power 

generating

2005–2009 As part of its 2009 study, EPA focused 

primarily on technologies associated with 

two sources (coal-ash-handling operations 

and wastewater produced from specific air 

pollution control systems) because these 

sources account for a significant amount of 

the pollutants discharged by the industry.

On the basis of findings from its 

study, EPA in 2009 decided to 

begin revising the effluent 

guidelines for this category. 

Proposed revisions to existing 

guidelines are expected in 

November 2012, with final action 

expected by April 2014.

New industrial categories considered

Dental facilities 2006-2008 EPA issued a study of dental facilities in 

2008. The study discussed best 

management practices for dental facilities to 

reduce their discharge of dental amalgam 

containing mercury. In particular, the study 

reviewed facilities’ continuing use of 

amalgam separators.

EPA In 2008 announced that it 

would not pursue a rule making and 

would instead work with 

stakeholders, including the 

American Dental Association and 

state water agencies, on a 

voluntary discharge reduction 

program. In 2010, however, the 

agency reversed its decision after 

assessing the progress made 

under the voluntary reduction 

program. EPA expects to propose 

effluent guidelines in 2012.

Drinking water treatment 2004-2011 EPA reviewed available treatment 

technologies as part of a 2011 study of the 

industry. Because drinking water treatment 

operations vary—in types of contaminants 

found at different plants, for example—the 

study presented a range of treatment 

approaches.

EPA took no further action on this 

category because the agency found 

that discharges from the category 

could best be addressed by adding 

limits to specific NPDES permits. In 

addition, according to agency 

officials, the 2011 technical report 

can provide information on 

technologies for state permit writers 

for drinking water treatment 

facilities.
 

Page 26 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Industrial category

Period for further 

review

Consideration of treatment technology 

during further review a Key agency decisions after 

further review

Pharmaceuticals 

management

2006-present d According to EPA officials, a study of the 

industrial category is still under way. Officials 

said that because of the nature of the 

industry, they are pursuing a “front-end” 

strategy to prevent flushing of unused 

pharmaceuticals into wastewater systems. 

Given this approach, treatment technologies 

will not be a primary focus of the agency’s 

further review process.

EPA continues to work on its study, 

although according to agency 

officials, no further action is 

expected toward developing new 

effluent guidelines for this industry. 

Instead, the agency plans to update 

draft guidance issued in August 

2010 on best management 

practices for unused 

pharmaceuticals at health care 

facilities.

Tobacco products 

processing

2004-2006 In 2006, EPA issued a study on this industry, 

which provided an overview of the treatment 

process typically used by tobacco products 

facilities. 

The agency found that the category 

comprises primarily indirect 

dischargers; that pollutant loads are 

low; and, according to EPA 

officials, wastewater treatment 

plants remove 96 percent of the 

loads. EPA in 2006 therefore 

decided to take no further action.

Source: GAO analysis of EPA documents.

a

The dates of further review (1) start with the year when EPA announced in an effluent guidelines 

program plan that it would conduct a study and (2) end with the year when EPA completed that work.

b

Chlorine and chlorinated hydrocarbons manufacturing is a subcategory of two existing effluent 

guidelines categories: (1) organic chemicals, plastics, and synthetic fibers and (2) inorganic 

chemicals.

c

Coalbed methane extraction is not covered by an existing effluent guidelines category, although EPA 

considers the industry a new subcategory of the oil and gas extraction category

. 

d

During its further review phase, EPA also obtains and analyzes 

information related to the cost, affordability, and performance of 

technologies, the third factor in its strategy. To do so, EPA examines the 

cost and performance of applicable technologies, changes in production 

processes, or prevention alternatives that may reduce pollutants in the 

industrial category’s discharge. As part of its cost analysis, the agency 

considers the affordability or economic achievability of any identified 

technologies, production processes, or prevention alternatives. To assess 

the performance of technologies, EPA considers the results of the 

treatment technologies used in tests or actual operations—information the 

agency obtains from published research papers and internal and external 

Pharmaceuticals management is not to be confused with pharmaceutical manufacturing. 
 

Page 27 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

sources, including site visits and surveys of industrial facilities.28

At the conclusion of its further review of an industrial category, EPA 

decides whether it is feasible and appropriate to revise or develop effluent 

guidelines for the category, a decision that includes gathering information 

on whether an effluent guideline is the most efficient and effective 

approach to manage the discharges, the fourth factor in EPA’s draft 

strategy. As shown in table 3, for example, EPA decided that the drinking 

water treatment industrial category did not require effluent guidelines but 

that the agency’s study could act as a resource for state permit writers as 

they issue permits for drinking water facilities. Or, as also shown in table 

3 for coalbed methane, EPA decided to develop guidelines that it plans to 

propose in 2013. Some of the information EPA can consider during this 

decision making, and some of the information related to the fourth factor 

in its strategy, is the extent to which existing effluent guidelines could be 

revised to eliminate inefficiencies or impediments to technological 

innovation or to promote innovative approaches. Specifically, EPA 

considers whether another way exists—either regulatory or voluntary—to 

decrease pollutant discharges. For example, after the further review of 

the dental facility category in 2008, EPA decided not to develop effluent 

guidelines but to instead work with the American Dental Association and 

state water agencies on a voluntary reduction program to reduce pollutant 

discharges from dental facilities. It later changed its decision because the 

voluntary effort was shown to be ineffective, and the agency plans to 

issue effluent guidelines in 2012.

During 

its further review of the steam electricity power-generating industry, for 

example, EPA sampled wastewater directly at power plants, surveyed 

plant operators about which technologies they were using to minimize 

pollutant discharges and at what cost, and sought information on other 

potential treatment technologies.

It takes EPA, on average, 3 to 4 years to complete the further review 

phase for an industrial category. As of July 2012, EPA had identified three 

industrial categories for which it had decided to revise effluent 

 

28Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, EPA can contact—with a survey or 

questionnaire—up to 9 entities without first obtaining approval from the Office of 

Management and Budget. If EPA decides to contact 10 or more entities, the agency must 

prepare an Information Collection Request. This request describes the information to be 

collected, gives the reasons the information is needed, and estimates the time and cost for 

respondents to answer the request. The office reviews the request and determines if the 

request is approved or disapproved, or it defines conditions to be met for approval.
 

Page 28 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

guidelines—steam electric power generating—or to develop new effluent 

guidelines—coalbed methane extraction and dental facilities.29 According 

to agency documents and officials, EPA has chosen to take no action on 

the other 9 of the 12 categories it has further reviewed since 2002.

Limitations in the screening phase of EPA’s review process may have

caused the agency to overlook some industrial categories that warrant 

new or revised effluent guidelines and thus hinder the effectiveness of the 

effluent guidelines program in advancing the goals of the Clean Water 

Act. First, the data EPA uses in the screening phase has limitations that 

may cause the agency to omit industrial categories from further review or 

regulation. Second, EPA has chosen to focus its screening phase on the 

hazards associated with industrial categories, without considering the 

availability of treatment technologies or production changes that could 

reduce those hazards. The screening phase of the process may thus 

exclude some industrial categories for which treatment technologies or 

production changes may be available to serve as the basis for new or 

revised effluent guidelines.

The two sources EPA relies on during its initial screening process—

discharge monitoring reports and the Toxic Release Inventory—have 

limitations that may affect the agency’s ability to accurately rank industrial 

categories for further review on the basis of the human health and 

environmental hazards associated with those categories. Data from 

industrial facilities’ discharge monitoring reports have the benefit of being 

national in scope, according to EPA documents, but according to agency 

officials and some experts we spoke with, these data have several 

limitations that could lead the agency to underestimate the hazard caused 

by particular industries. Specifically:

• The reports contain data only for those pollutants that facilities’ 

permits require them to monitor. Under NPDES, states and EPA 

 

29EPA also announced in October 2011 the initiation of a new effluent guideline 

rulemaking process for shale gas extraction. The agency decided to undertake the 

rulemaking on the basis of stakeholder concerns about the industrial category without 

going through a further review phase. The agency plans to propose new standards in 

2014. In addition, EPA conducted the further review phase of the airport deicing industrial 

category prior to our 2003 time frames. The agency issued effluent guidelines for the 

category in May 2012. 

Focus on Limited 

Hazard Data to the 

Exclusion of 

Technology 

Information May Have 

Led EPA to Overlook 

Industrial Categories 

for Pollution 

Reduction 

Limitations in Hazard Data 

May Have Caused EPA to 

Overlook Industrial 

Categories
 

Page 29 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

offices issue permits containing limits for pollutant discharges, but 

those permits may not include limits for all the pollutants that may be 

discharged, as for example, if those pollutants are not included in the 

relevant effluent guidelines or need not be limited for the facility to 

meet state water quality standards.30

• The reports do not include data from all permitted facilities. 

Specifically, EPA does not require the states to report monitoring 

results from direct dischargers classified as minor. According to EPA, 

the agency in 2010 analyzed data for approximately 15,000 minor 

facilities, or about 37 percent of the 40,500 minor facilities covered by 

NPDES permits. As a result, the pollutants discharged by the 

remaining 25,500 minor dischargers would not be counted as part of 

the relative toxicity rating and could contribute to undercounting of 

pollutants from those industrial categories. For example, most coal 

mining companies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia are considered 

minor dischargers whose pollutants would not count toward the 

ranking of that industrial category.

If a pollutant is not identified in a 

permit, and hence not reported on discharge monitoring reports, it 

would not be part of EPA’s calculation of hazard and would not count 

toward the ranking of industrial categories.

• The reports include very limited data characterizing indirect 

discharges from industrial facilities to wastewater treatment plants,

according to EPA documents. Thus, the data do not fully document 

pollutants that, if not removed by a wastewater treatment plant, are 

discharged. These data are not incorporated into EPA’s calculations 

of hazard for each industrial category, and thus result in 

underestimated hazards.31

 

30Generally, permits are to establish limitations for those pollutants reasonably expected 

to be present in wastewater with potential to cause or contribute to an excursion above a 

water quality standard. For an industry with an effluent guideline, the guideline specifies 

which pollutants must, at minimum, be included in the permit. For other industries, the 

permit writer uses information provided on the permit application, as well as other sources, 

to determine which pollutants may be present in wastewater and warrant a limitation. In 

addition, permits may include water-quality-based limits derived from the standards for the 

water body into which the effluent is discharged.

31In addition, EPA has identified some limitations in the discharge monitoring report data 

that may cause the agency to overestimate the hazard presented by an industrial 

category. For example, many facilities do not report average quantities for specific 

pollutants, in which case, EPA has to base its estimates on the maximum or other amount

discharged, which could lead to overestimating a facility’s actual discharges.
 

Page 30 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

EPA documents and some experts we contacted also stated that data 

collected in the Toxics Release Inventory are useful to identify toxic 

discharges. Nevertheless, according to the agency and experts, these 

inventory data have limitations that may cause EPA to either overestimate 

or underestimate the relative toxicity of particular industrial categories. 

The limitations they identified include the following:

• The data reported are sometimes estimates and not actual monitored 

data. In some cases, the use of an estimate may overreport actual 

pollutant discharges. For example, some industry experts said that to 

be conservative and avoid possible liability, some facilities engaging 

in processes that produce particularly toxic pollutants, such as dioxin, 

may report the discharge of a small amount on the basis of an EPAprescribed method for estimating such discharges even if the pollutant 

had not been actually monitored.

• Not all facilities are required to report to the inventory, which may lead 

to undercounting the discharges for the industrial categories of which 

the facilities are a part. Facilities with fewer than 10 employees are 

not required to report to the inventory, and neither are facilities that do 

not manufacture, import, process, or use more than a threshold 

amount of listed chemicals. For example, facilities that manufacture or 

process lead or dioxin do not need to report to the inventory unless 

the amount of chemical manufactured or processed reaches 

10 pounds for lead or 0.1 grams for dioxin.

Despite the limitations of these data sources, EPA officials said that 

discharge monitoring reports and the Toxic Inventory Release are the 

best available data on a national level. Experts we interviewed also 

generally supported the continued use of these data sources despite their 

limitations. An EPA official responsible for the screening and review 

process said that EPA could not quantify the effect of the missing data on 

its ranking and setting of priorities for industries without time-consuming 

and expensive collecting of data directly from industrial facilities. Still, 

agency officials agreed that the data limitations can lead to under- or 

overestimating the hazard of discharges from industrial categories, which 

could in turn affect the rankings of these categories and potentially result 

in different categories advancing for further review and potential 

regulation.
 

Page 31 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

EPA’s primary focus during its screening phase is the relative hazard 

posed by industrial categories, without consideration of available 

treatment technologies that could be used as the basis for revised effluent 

guidelines to help reduce pollutant discharges. Because EPA sets the 

cutoff point in its screening process as industrial categories contributing to 

95 percent of total reported hazard, the agency does not consider for 

further review the categories contributing to 5 percent of the total reported 

hazard. Although this percentage is low, the categories involved 

constitute the majority of all industrial categories with effluent guidelines. 

EPA does not conduct a further review for these and other industrial 

categories that it has excluded for other reasons, meaning that EPA does 

not examine them for the availability of more-effective treatment 

technologies. As previously noted, the Ninth Circuit Court held in 2008 

that EPA does not have a mandatory duty to consider technology in its 

screening process but stated that the act strongly suggests that any 

review to determine whether revision of effluent guidelines is appropriate 

should contemplate technology-based factors. Regardless of whether 

EPA is required to do so, the agency is not considering technology for 

these industrial categories, and hence EPA cannot ensure that the 

facilities in these categories are using the best available treatment 

technology.

According to our analysis of EPA’s planning documents for the effluent 

guidelines program, since the agency in 2003 began using its current 

screening process, more than half the industrial categories with effluent 

guidelines did not advance beyond the screening phase in any year from 

2003 to 2010. The reason these categories did not advance was that, 

during a given 2-year screening cycle, the relative toxicity of their 

pollutant discharges did not put them among the top 95 percent of 

dischargers. As a result, these industrial categories were excluded from 

further review before EPA would have analyzed the availability of moreadvanced treatment technologies or production processes. As figure 4 

shows, from 2003 through 2010, out of the 57 industrial categories with 

existing effluent guidelines at the time of review, EPA excluded 35 in each 

of the four biennial screening cycles, thus omitting them from further 

review of the availability of treatment technologies or production 

EPA’s Screening Phase 

Does Not Consider 

Treatment Technologies, 

Omitting Some Industrial 

Categories from Further 

Review
 

Page 32 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

processes that could reduce hazards from discharges.32

Figure 4: Number of Times Existing Industrial Categories Were in the Top 

95 Percent of Total Reported Hazards in the Four Biennial Screening Phases from 

2003 through 2010

(See app. III for 

further information on the industrial categories that have and have not 

come within the top 95 percent since 2003.)

Note: The total number of industrial categories with effluent guidelines during this period was 57.

As noted in 4 of the 17 interviews with experts we interviewed from 

academia, industry, nonprofit organizations, and state and local water 

quality agencies, consideration of treatment technologies is especially 

important for older effluent guidelines because either the industrial 

categories or the treatment technologies would have been more likely to 

change, making it possible that new, more advanced treatment 

technologies are available. As table 4 shows, however, effluent guidelines 

 

32And, as we described above, after identifying the industrial categories contributing to the 

top 95 percent of hazard, EPA may use other factors to exclude additional industrial 

categories before beginning the further review phase. Therefore, even those categories 

within the top 95 percent do not necessarily receive the further review examining the 

availability of treatment technology.
 

Page 33 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

have not been revised since the 1980s for 8 of the 35 industrial 

categories that have been excluded from further review. Further, 25 of the 

35 effluent guidelines for categories that were excluded from further 

review have not been revised since 1995 or earlier. Battery 

manufacturing, for example, has not been through the further review 

phase since EPA began using its current screening and review process. 

Yet according to state officials we interviewed, the effluent guidelines for 

this category apply to older battery types and do not address wastewater 

from the manufacture of newer battery types, such as those made with 

lithium. In addition, even in cases where EPA has revised the effluent 

guideline for an industrial category, the revision may have addressed just 

a portion of the guideline. For example, EPA may add pollutants or 

change the limits for a particular industrial category or add a new 

subcategory. Thus, the guidelines for the category as a whole may not 

have been revised since the guidelines were originally promulgated. 

Table 4 shows the 35 industrial categories that were excluded from 

further review over the last 8 years, the year effluent guidelines were 

promulgated, and the year the categories’ guidelines were most recently 

revised.

Table 4: Regulated Industrial Categories Excluded in the Screening Phase from 

Further Review, 2003-2010

Industrial category

Year 

promulgated

Year most 

recently 

revised

Number of 

years elapsed 

since most 

recent revision

Porcelain enameling 1982 1985 27

Electrical and electronic components 1983 1985 27

Electroplating 1981 1986 26

Copper forming 1983 1986 26

Metal finishing 1983 1986 26

Battery manufacturing 1984 1986 26

Aluminum forming 1983 1988 24

Nonferrous metals forming and metal 

powders 1985 1989 23

Asbestos manufacturing 1974 1995 17

Canned and preserved fruits and 

vegetables processing 1974 1995 17

Canned and preserved seafood 

processing 1974 1995 17

Dairy products processing 1974 1995 17
 

Page 34 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Industrial category

Year 

promulgated

Year most 

recently 

revised

Number of 

years elapsed 

since most 

recent revision

Ferroalloy manufacturing 1974 1995 17

Glass manufacturing 1974 1995 17

Grain mills 1974 1995 17

Soap and detergent manufacturing 1974 1995 17

Sugar processing 1974 1995 17

Ink formulating 1975 1995 17

Paint formulating 1975 1995 17

Paving and roofing materials (tars 

and asphalt) 1975 1995 17

Explosives manufacturing 1976 1995 17

Gum and wood chemicals 1976 1995 17

Hospital 1976 1995 17

Carbon black manufacturing 1978 1995 17

Leather tanning and finishing 1982 1996 16

Pharmaceutical manufacturing 1983 2003 9 

Iron and steel manufacturing 1982 2005 7 

Transportation equipment cleaning 2000 2005 7 

Coil coating 1982 2007 5 

Concentrated animal feeding 

operations 2003 2008 4 

Photographic 1976 No revisions No revisions

Metal products and machinery 2003 No revisions No revisions

Concentrated aquatic animal 

production

2004 No revisions No revisions

Meat and poultry products 2004 No revisions No revisions

Construction and development 2009 No revisions No revisions

Source: GAO analysis of EPA documentation.

Note: In a given year, EPA may have revised just a portion of the effluent guideline for an industrial 

category. For example, EPA may have added pollutants or changed the pollutant limits for a particular 

industrial category or added a new subcategory.

Our survey of state water quality directors, who are responsible for 

NPDES permits, also identified industrial categories that have been 

omitted from EPA’s further review phase even when treatment 

technologies may be available. Specifically, state officials identified nine 

industrial categories that they think pose significant risk and have 

treatment technologies or pollution prevention practices available to 

mitigate that risk, categories for which the effluent guidelines should be 
 

Page 35 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

revised. Further, state officials generally thought that industries could 

implement the technologies without financial hardship. Nevertheless, EPA 

has excluded these industrial categories from further review because they 

did not contribute to the top 95 percent of total reported hazard. At least 

one state director identified one or more of the following nine industrial 

categories as needing revised effluent guidelines, noting that their 

pollutants were hazardous to human health or the environment and 

technologies were available to further reduce these hazards: canned and 

preserved seafood processing; dairy products processing; electrical and 

electronic components; electroplating; grain mills; meat and poultry 

products; metal finishing; pharmaceutical manufacturing; and sugar 

processing. With regard to metal finishing, for example, state officials said 

that existing guidelines reflect processes no longer in use and do not 

address newer and more common production techniques and associated 

pollutants. In contrast, state officials agreed with EPA’s efforts to revise or 

develop new effluent guidelines for certain other industrial categories, 

including steam electric power generation and airport deicing. (For more 

information on our survey and its results, see appendix II.)

In its 2002 draft strategy, EPA recognized the importance of including 

treatment technology in its screening phase but later stated that it was 

unable to develop an approach it deemed feasible for gathering such 

information. The draft strategy included treatment technology as one of 

the factors that EPA would use to screen industrial categories to 

determine if they needed new or revised effluent guidelines. According to 

the draft strategy, EPA was to obtain information on available treatment 

technologies and pollution prevention practices by regularly reviewing 

trade publications; participating in professional conferences; and 

consulting with permit writers, industry representatives, and the public. 

EPA initially pursued this approach, but in 2003 concluded that gathering 

the data needed to perform a meaningful screening-level analysis for 

technology was much more resource intensive than anticipated33 and 

restricted the screening phase to comparing the degree of hazard posed 

by various industrial categories.34

 

3368 Fed. Reg. 75515, 75521 (Dec. 31, 2003) (“EPA found that it was much more difficult 

than anticipated to gather the data needed to perform a meaningful screening-level 

analysis of the availability of treatment or process technologies that might reduce hazard 

or risk beyond the performance of technologies in place.”). 

Yet without treatment technology data, 

34Environmental Protection Agency, Factor 2 Analysis: Technology Advances and 

Process Changes (Washington, D. C.: December 2003).
 

Page 36 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

the agency cannot be confident that the effluent guidelines program is 

meeting the Clean Water Act’s goal of applying the best available 

technologies economically achievable or that the program reflects 

advances in the technologies used to reduce pollutants in wastewater.

EPA has begun to take actions to improve the hazard data it uses in its 

screening of industrial categories, but it is not fully using potential sources 

of information on treatment technologies for consideration in this 

screening. According to program officials, EPA has recognized that its 

screening phase has resulted in the same industries rising repeatedly to 

the top of its hazard rankings. Program officials said that they are 

considering changes to their screening approach to identify additional 

industrial categories for further review. The primary change, the officials 

told us, would be to rank categories according to toxicity every 2 years, 

rather than annually, and to supplement that ranking with a targeted 

analysis of additional sources of data. To develop such revisions, officials 

from EPA’s effluent guidelines program engaged in an informal 

“brainstorming” exercise within the agency and identified several sources 

of data on new and emerging pollutants, sources that officials think could 

help target industrial categories for further review. EPA officials said they 

will propose revisions to the review process in the 2012 preliminary 

effluent guidelines program plan they expect to issue late in 2012.

To mitigate the limitations with hazard data that EPA currently 

experiences, the agency has taken several steps to obtain new sources 

of information and to improve existing sources. Using additional sources 

of data is consistent with suggestions made to us by several academic 

and governmental experts we interviewed that other sources of hazard 

data may be useful to the agency, including additional monitoring data 

and data on the quality of water bodies receiving wastewater 

discharges.35

• a 2009 EPA survey of sludge produced by wastewater treatment 

plants to identify pollutants entering these plants, indicating that they 

The new data sources would broaden the hazard data 

considered in the screening phase. Among the sources EPA intends to 

pursue for future use are the following:

 

35Notably, of the six experts we interviewed from industry, only one suggested additional 

sources.

EPA Is Adding Hazard 

Data Sources but Is 

Not Fully Using 

Potential Sources of 

Information on 

Treatment 

Technologies 
 

Page 37 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

are not being treated by an industrial facility and might need 

regulation;

• a review of action plans prepared under EPA’s Office of Pollution 

Prevention and Toxic Substances for specific chemicals of emerging 

concern to identify pollutants that are likely to be discharged to waters 

by industrial point sources;

• a review of all EPA air pollution regulations issued within the last 10 

to15 years to identify new treatment processes that could add to or 

change the pollutants in wastewater streams;36

• a review of data and information available concerning industries that 

EPA is considering for a proposed expansion of required reporting for 

the Toxics Release Inventory.

and

EPA is also drafting a rule that would increase the information EPA 

receives electronically from discharge monitoring reports from NPDES 

permittees and permitting authorities. According to officials with the 

effluent guidelines program, increased electronic reporting would result in 

a more complete and accurate database and improve their access to the 

hazard data from facilities’ discharge monitoring reports, thereby 

improving the screening of industrial categories. For example, according 

to EPA officials, data on minor facilities that are not currently reported into 

the discharge monitoring database used in the screening process would 

be reported under the electronic reporting rule, as sent to the Office of 

Management and Budget for review.37

EPA recognizes the need to use information on treatment technologies in 

the screening phase to improve its process and has taken some initial 

steps to develop a database of such information, but it has not made full 

use of potential data sources. EPA started to gather information on 

treatment technology in 2011, contracting with consultants to obtain 

 

36Air pollution regulations can be relevant in that they may cause a shift in pollutants from 

air emissions to wastewater or sludge. For example, EPA’s ongoing effort to revise the 

effluent guidelines for the steam electric power-generating industry is in part a response to 

changes in the industry’s wastewater as the plants installed scrubber equipment that uses 

water to remove pollutants to comply with air pollution regulations to control sulfur dioxide.

37As of August 2012, the Office of Management and Budget is reviewing EPA’s draft 

electronic reporting rule. Accordingly, EPA has not yet proposed the rule.
 

Page 38 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

relevant literature for the database. In its comments on a draft of this 

report, the agency said that it will expand on this work in 2013 and 2014 

once new fiscal year operating plans are in place. According to agency 

officials, a thorough analysis of the literature would give the program an 

updated technology database, which would help in identifying advances 

in technologies in use or with potential use in industrial categories, which, 

on the basis of these advances, may in turn warrant further review. They 

noted that in the 1980s and 1990s, the program used such information 

from an agency database but that the database had become outdated.

In more than half of our interviews (10 of 17), experts told us that EPA 

should consider technology in its screening phase,38

• Stakeholder outreach. Experts suggested that key stakeholders could 

provide information on technology earlier in the screening process. 

Currently, EPA solicits views and information from stakeholders 

during public comment periods following issuance of preliminary and 

final effluent guidelines plans. According to experts, EPA could obtain 

up-to-date information and data from stakeholders beyond these 

formal comment periods. For example, EPA officials could (1) attend 

annual workshops and conferences hosted by industries and 

associations, such as engineering associations, or host their own 

expert panels to learn about new treatment technologies and (2) work 

with industrial research and development institutes to learn about 

efforts to reduce wastewater pollution through production changes or 

treatment technologies.

and some of them 

suggested the following two approaches for obtaining this information:

• NPDES permits and related documentation. Experts suggested that to 

find more information on treatment technologies available for specific 

pollutants, EPA could make better use of information in NPDES 

permit documentation. For example, when applying for NPDES 

permits, facilities must describe which pollutants they will be 

discharging and what treatment processes they will use to mitigate 

these discharges. Such information could help EPA officials 

administering the effluent guidelines program as they seek 

technologies to reduce pollutants in similar wastewater streams from 

similar industrial processes. Similarly, information from issued NPDES 

 

38Five experts said that EPA should not consider technology earlier in its screening phase, 

and two did not provide their opinions.
 

Page 39 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

permits containing the more stringent water quality-based limits—

which may lead a facility to apply more advanced treatment 

technologies—could suggest the potential for improved reductions. 

Further, information in fact sheets prepared by the permitting authority 

could also furnish information on pollutants or technologies that could 

help EPA identify new technologies for use in effluent guidelines.

According to EPA officials, these two sources of information have not 

been extensively used. They said that they would like to obtain more 

stakeholder input during screening and review, but they have limited time, 

resources, and ability to work with stakeholders. They noted that the 

effluent guidelines program does assign staff members responsibility for 

keeping up with technologies and developments in specific industrial 

categories. They also said that the NPDES information suggested by 

experts is not current or readily available for use by the program.

Our analysis of NPDES information, however, showed that EPA has not 

taken steps to make the information available for use by the effluent 

guidelines program. For example, the standard list of treatment processes 

on the NPDES application form has not been updated since 1980, and 

EPA officials said it was out of date. Yet EPA has not updated this 

information or provided it to the effluent guidelines program for use in 

screening available technologies. EPA could have done so through a 

second rulemaking effort under way to improve NPDES data—in which 

EPA is updating NPDES application forms to make them more consistent 

with NPDES regulations and current program practices—but chose not to. 

Agency documents about this rulemaking described it as modifying or 

repealing reporting requirements that have become obsolete or outdated 

over the past 20 years and modifying permit documentation procedures to 

improve the quality and transparency of permit development. 

Nonetheless, effluent guidelines program officials said that they did not 

request potential NPDES permit updates relevant to their program 

because the scope of this rulemaking was too narrow. EPA’s Office of 

Wastewater Management, which is responsible for the rulemaking, 

confirmed that the scope of the proposed rule is to be narrow and not call 

for states or permittees to provide new information.

Further, fact sheets or similar documentation that NPDES permit writers 

develop describing the basis for permit conditions are not stored in EPA’s 

electronic NPDES database and are therefore difficult to obtain and 

analyze, according to program officials. Instead, these NPDES 

documents are now maintained by the authorized states or EPA regions 

and are not readily accessible to the effluent guidelines program. 
 

Page 40 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Program officials said that electronic transmission of fact sheets or 

information about the basis for permit limits could be useful in identifying 

treatment technologies, although the scope of the electronic reporting 

rulemaking did not include such documents or information. Officials from 

the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the office 

responsible for this rulemaking, told us that they discovered such wide 

variability among the states’ practices for gathering and managing 

NPDES information like fact sheets or the basis for permit limits that it 

would be difficult to call for electronic reporting of such information.

EPA and the nation have made great strides in reducing the pollutants in 

wastewater discharged from point sources, such as industrial facilities, 

since the Clean Water Act was passed. EPA’s effluent guidelines 

program has been key in contributing to these results by establishing 

national uniform limits on pollutant discharges for various industrial 

categories. Progress within the program has slowed, however, and 

numerous effluent guidelines for particular industrial categories have not 

been revised for 2 or 3 decades, although the act calls for EPA to 

routinely review its effluent guidelines and update or add to them as 

appropriate. EPA’s approach for screening and further reviewing 

industrial categories, as currently implemented, has not identified many 

categories for the agency to consider for new or revised guidelines, and 

the screening process has identified many of the same industrial 

categories year after year. EPA’s approach focuses its resources on the 

most hazardous sources of pollution, but its reliance on incomplete 

hazard data during the screening phase has limited the results of the 

approach, as has EPA’s inability to thoroughly collect treatment 

technology data within its resource constraints. Under EPA’s current 

approach, most industrial categories have not received a detailed further 

review examining the availability of more-effective treatment technologies. 

According to some experts, consideration of treatment technologies is 

especially important for older effluent guidelines because changes in 

either the industrial categories or the treatment technologies are more 

likely to have occurred, making it possible that new, more advanced and 

cost-effective treatment technologies have become available. EPA has 

recently taken steps to obtain more information on treatment technologies 

for use in its screening phase—which could help make up for limitations 

in the hazard data it currently uses—but it has not taken steps to improve 

and gain access to technology information from the NPDES program. 

Further, EPA is reconsidering its approach to its screening and review 

process—initially documented in its draft strategy that was never 

finalized—but has not analyzed a range of possible sources of data to 

Conclusions 
 

Page 41 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

improve the program, including taking full advantage of the NPDES 

database, obtaining relevant stakeholder input, and reviewing older 

effluent guidelines for changes in either the industry or available 

treatment technologies. Without evaluating a range of new sources of 

relevant information, officials with the effluent guidelines program cannot 

ensure that the reconsidered approach can be implemented or that it 

optimizes the agency’s ability to consider technology in the screening 

process. Most important, without a more thorough and integrated 

screening approach that both improves hazard information and considers 

treatment technology data, EPA cannot be certain that the effluent 

guidelines program is reflecting advances in the treatment technologies 

used to reduce pollutants in wastewater.

To improve the effectiveness of EPA’s efforts to update or develop new 

effluent guidelines, we recommend that the Administrator of EPA direct 

the effluent guidelines program to take the following three actions, as it 

considers revisions to its screening and review process:

• Identify and evaluate additional sources of data on the hazards posed 

by the discharges from industrial categories.

• Identify and evaluate sources of information to improve the agency’s 

assessment in the screening phase of treatment technologies that are 

in use or available for use by industrial categories, including better 

use of NPDES data.

• Modify the screening phase of its review process to include thorough 

consideration of information on the treatment technologies available to 

industrial categories.

We provided a draft of this report to EPA for review and comment. In its 

written comments, which are reproduced in appendix IV, EPA said that 

our report adequately describes the agency’s effluent guidelines program 

and agreed in principle with two of the report’s recommendations but 

disagreed with the third recommendation. EPA also provided several 

technical comments, which we have incorporated as appropriate.

Regarding our first recommendation, that EPA identify and evaluate 

additional sources of data on the hazards posed by industrial discharges 

and factor these into its annual reviews, EPA agreed that additional 

sources of such data are valuable. For this reason, EPA said, it began 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
 

Page 42 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

collecting new sources of hazard information in 2011, which the agency is 

using in its 2012 annual review. EPA also said that its preliminary 2012 

effluent guideline program plan will solicit additional ideas for new hazard 

data sources from the public and industry stakeholders. We described 

EPA’s ongoing and planned efforts in our report, but because the agency 

has not yet published its preliminary 2012 effluent guideline program plan, 

we cannot determine the extent to which these efforts address the 

limitations we identified in its hazard data. Likewise, we are not able at 

this time to confirm that EPA will solicit additional sources of such data 

from stakeholders. We support EPA’s stated intent to identify and 

evaluate additional sources of hazard data and retain our 

recommendation, reinforcing the need for the agency to continue the 

efforts it has begun.

Regarding our second recommendation, that EPA should identify and 

evaluate additional sources of information to improve its assessment of 

treatment technologies for industrial dischargers, EPA agreed that 

treatment technology information is useful to its program. The agency 

added that, given the importance of new treatment technology 

information, in 2011 it initiated efforts to gather more treatment 

information across all industry categories and will be expanding on this 

work in 2013 and 2014, once new fiscal year operating plans are in place. 

We described EPA’s initiative to obtain and review technical literature on 

treatment technology in our report. We nevertheless believe that EPA 

could use other sources of information on treatment technology, including 

information associated with NPDES permits, as described in the report. 

We continue to believe that EPA should identify and evaluate these and 

other sources of information on treatment technologies, with the goal of 

ensuring that the agency’s effluent guidelines reflect the best available 

treatment technologies that are economically achievable.

Regarding our third recommendation, that EPA modify the screening 

phase of its review process to include a thorough consideration of 

information on the treatment technologies available to industrial 

categories, EPA agreed that factoring treatment technology information 

into its reviews is valuable. The agency said, however, that the 

recommendation was not workable in the context of the agency’s current 

screening phase, noting that such an effort would be very resource 

intensive. Our concern is that EPA’s current screening phase, while 

targeted toward high-risk industries, does not ensure that effluent 

guidelines incorporate the best available treatment technologies that are 

economically achievable. We acknowledge that evaluating technologies 

for all existing industrial categories could be difficult for EPA to 
 

Page 43 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

accomplish on an annual basis under its current approach. Our 

recommendation, however, did not specify that such an evaluation be 

done every year. For example, EPA could commit to a detailed study of 

the technologies in use and available to an industrial category on a 

periodic basis (i.e., every 5-10 years). As noted in our report, EPA’s 2002 

draft strategy recognized the importance of evaluating treatment 

technologies in its screening phase, and the Court of Appeals for the 

Ninth Circuit held that, while not mandatory, the Clean Water Act strongly 

suggests that in determining whether the revision of effluent guidelines is 

appropriate—which begins with the screening phase—the agency should 

contemplate technology-based factors. However, we are not aware of any 

detailed EPA evaluation of options for considering technology during the 

screening phase since the agency announced in 2003 that performing a 

meaningful screening-level analysis of the availability of treatment 

technologies as planned in the draft strategy was “much more difficult 

than anticipated.” We believe that, nearly a decade later, EPA should, 

within the constraints of available resources, evaluate current options to 

consider such technologies in its screening phase. Furthermore, given its 

efforts to develop and update its technology information, we believe that 

EPA should clarify how it plans to incorporate this information in its 

screening phase.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies to the Administrator of EPA, 

the appropriate congressional committees, and other interested parties. In 

addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at 

http://www.gao.gov. 
 

Page 44 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-3841 or trimbled@gao.gov. Contact points for 

our Office of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on 

the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to 

this report are listed in appendix V.

Sincerely yours,

David C. Trimble

Director, Natural Resources and Environment
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 45 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

To examine the process the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 

follows to screen and review industrial categories and the results of that 

process, we reviewed the Clean Water Act and relevant court decisions 

and agency documents, interviewed agency officials and experts, and 

documented the steps EPA has taken to screen particular industrial 

categories for possible new or revised effluent guidelines. Specifically, we 

reviewed relevant portions of the Clean Water Act to determine EPA’s 

responsibilities regarding the effluent guidelines and pretreatment 

programs. We analyzed several court decisions that ruled on challenges 

to EPA’s effluent guidelines program to determine what, if any, impact 

they had on the agency’s screening and review process. Further, we 

interviewed officials in EPA’s Engineering and Analysis Division to learn 

how the agency has used the process to screen and review industries. 

We focused our review on the results of the process EPA used from 2003 

through 2010 in order to examine the approach it developed after the 

publication in November 2002 of its draft Strategy for National Clean 

Water Industrial Regulations: Effluent Limitation Guidelines, Pretreatment 

Standards, and New Source Performance Standards. By the end of our 

review, EPA had not yet published a preliminary or final effluent guideline 

program plan for the 2011-2012 planning cycle.

To document the results of EPA’s process, we examined the agency’s 

screening decisions for all industrial categories from 2003 through 2010. 

Specifically, we examined EPA’s final effluent guideline plans and 

technical support documents for 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010 and the 

agency’s website to identify screening decisions and subsequent studies 

associated with particular industries. We examined these studies to 

identify those industries that EPA subjected to further review, which 

included an examination of available treatment technologies. Specifically, 

we examined preliminary and detailed studies for the 12 industries that 

EPA advanced beyond the screening phase into further review and 

selected 7 of them for more robust analysis to document how EPA had 

applied the process to those industries. The 7 industries were ore mining 

and dressing, coalbed methane extraction, steam electric power 

generation, chlorine and chlorinated hydrocarbon, drinking water 

treatment, pharmaceuticals management, and dental facilities. That 

analysis included in-depth interviews with EPA staff assigned to those 

industrial categories. These 7 industrial categories met our selection 

criteria that they be active or recently active, that is, that EPA was 

reviewing them or had made a decision to proceed or not to proceed with 

a rulemaking as recently as 2011 or 2012. We also documented the 

current status of any regulatory actions or other steps that EPA had taken 

with the other 5 industries that received a further review. We also 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 46 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

examined the planning documents for 2 industrial categories—airport 

deicing and construction and development—that did not go through 

EPA’s 2003-2010 screening and review process but were the subject of 

regulatory activity during our study period.

To examine limitations to EPA’s screening and review process, if any, 

that could hinder the effectiveness of the effluent guidelines program in 

advancing the goals of the Clean Water Act, we pursued three separate 

methodologies: we (1) interviewed a cross section of experts on EPA’s 

effluent guidelines program, (2) surveyed the water quality permit 

directors of the 46 states that are authorized to issue permits for the 

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), and (3) 

analyzed information about the hazard data sources EPA uses in its 

screening process.

We identified individuals for possible “expert” interviews by compiling a 

list of approximately 50 people from a variety of sources relevant to the 

effluent guideline program, including referrals from EPA, the Association 

of Clean Water Agencies, and the National Association of Clean Water 

Agencies and by consulting other knowledgeable individuals, relevant 

academic literature, and litigation documents. We classified the 

individuals by their affiliation with a particular stakeholder category 

(academia, industry, nongovernmental organization, or state and local 

water quality agencies). We then excluded from consideration 13 

individuals for whom we could not obtain contact information. We called 

or sent an electronic message to those individuals for whom we had 

contact information to ask if they were familiar with EPA’s current effluent 

guidelines screening and review process. We excluded from 

consideration those individuals who told us that they were not familiar 

with these processes, those who could not speak with us during the time 

frame of our review, and those who said they were not interested in 

contributing to our review. From our larger list of approximately 50 

experts, we selected 22 individuals to interview whom we determined to 

be experts on the basis of their familiarity with the program and their 

affiliation with a particular stakeholder category. We conducted 

17 interviews including these 22 individuals from February 2012 to April 

2012. Six of these interviews were with officials from industry, 4 from 

academia, 4 from state and local government, and 3 from 

nongovernmental organizations. In 4 cases, more than one expert 

participated in an interview. We prepared and asked a standard set of 

questions about the overall effectiveness of the effluent guidelines 

program and EPA’s use of hazard data, stakeholder input, and 

information on treatment technology in the screening process. We then 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 47 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

reviewed their responses to identify common themes. The sample of 

experts is a nonprobability sample, and we therefore cannot generalize 

their opinions across all experts on the effluent guideline program.

To assess the extent to which effluent guidelines might need to be 

revised, we conducted a web-based survey of state water quality 

directors, and we statistically analyzed the data. Appendix II presents a 

complete description of our survey and our data analysis.

To obtain information about an industry that EPA had not analyzed in a 

further review phase, we selected one of the nine industries that states in 

our survey said presented a risk to human health or the environment, had 

treatment technology available to reduce that risk, and warranted 

revision. We asked officials from the five states whose responses for the 

metal finishing industry met all three of the above criteria a standard set 

of questions about the risk the metal finishing industrial category posed, 

the technology available to mitigate this risk, and the likely effect of a 

revised effluent guideline.

We further interviewed experts about their views on the adequacy of the 

hazard data that EPA uses in its screening process—discharge 

monitoring reports and the Toxics Release Inventory—and whether the 

experts had suggestions for alternative data sources. We also reviewed 

EPA’s own examinations of the benefits and limitations associated with 

the two data sources. EPA reports on these examinations of data quality 

in the technical support documents that accompany its effluent guideline 

program plans. In addition, we interviewed officials from EPA’s Office of 

Enforcement and Compliance Assurance to learn about the management 

of the databases that store discharge monitoring data. We also 

interviewed officials from the Engineering and Analysis Division in EPA’s 

Office of Water about possible effects that incomplete or inaccurate data 

could have on the screening process. We did not perform an independent 

assessment of data quality, although we concluded from the information 

we gathered that the data do have limitations that could affect EPA’s 

screening process.

To examine the actions EPA has taken to address any limitations in its 

screening and review process, we interviewed effluent guideline program 

officials from the Engineering and Analysis Division about their plans to 

modify the biennial screening and review process. We also reviewed 

papers prepared for the division by a contractor, which describe new 

sources of data that the division could use to identify industrial categories 

potentially posing environmental hazards and warranting further review 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 48 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

for possible new or revised effluent guidelines. In addition, we interviewed 

officials from the Engineering and Analysis Division, the Office of 

Wastewater Management, and the Office of Enforcement and 

Compliance Assurance about agency efforts to revise the NPDES 

permitting process and the database that contains NPDES permit 

information. We conducted these interviews to determine what steps EPA 

has taken or could take to use these activities to improve the hazard and 

treatment technology data available for the screening process.

We conducted this performance audit from September 2011 to 

September 2012, in accordance with generally accepted government

auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the 

audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 

basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We 

believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 49 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

To assess the extent to which effluent guidelines might need to be 

revised, and to better understand the reasons for any such revisions, we 

conducted a web-based survey of state water quality officials, and we 

statistically analyzed patterns in the survey data. Our analysis identified 

numerous industries in numerous states for which state officials think that 

EPA should revise its guidelines. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that 

a few key factors—particularly, the significance of risk posed by effluent 

and the availability of pollution control technology—largely influence these 

officials’ views about whether guidelines should be revised. Details about 

our survey and our data analysis follow.

We designed our survey to ask respondents both (1) whether they 

thought EPA should revise effluent guidelines for certain industrial 

categories and (2) whether they thought the major factors that EPA 

considers when revising effluent guidelines were present for these 

industrial categories in their state. We reviewed EPA’s 2002 draft 

Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations and identified 

the four key factors that the agency uses to determine whether effluent 

guidelines should be revised. These factors include (1) whether the 

effluent from a particular industrial category poses a significant risk to 

human health or the environment; (2) whether technology is available to 

substantially reduce the risk; (3) whether industry could adopt the 

technology without experiencing financial difficulty; and (4) whether other 

factors are present, such as whether current effluent guidelines for that 

industrial category are difficult to administer and whether revised 

guidelines could promote innovative regulatory approaches. We 

summarized these factors, using the exact language from EPA’s 

guidance wherever possible, and wrote survey questions that were simple 

enough to yield valid responses. We determined that the fourth factor was 

too complicated to be expressed as a single survey question, and we 

divided it into two simpler questions. By designing the questionnaire in 

this way, we sought to increase the reliability of our survey data in two 

ways: First, asking respondents to assess each of the factors that EPA 

considers for revision before providing their views about whether EPA 

should revise effluent guidelines focused their attention on providing an 

informed opinion. Second, by obtaining data on both the decision-making 

factors and the need for effluent guideline revisions, we were able to 

conduct a statistical analysis to identify how these factors appear to 

influence states’ views about the need for guideline revisions.

Our survey was divided into three sections. In the first section, we asked 

states to respond to a series of questions about each of the five industrial 

Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Questionnaire Design
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 50 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

categories that release the greatest amount of toxic effluent in their state. 

We originally considered surveying states about each of the 58 industrial 

categories regulated by effluent limitation guidelines. During initial 

interviews with state officials, however, we determined that this approach 

would be burdensome and impractical. Therefore, we used data on 

pollutant discharges from EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory and discharge 

monitoring reports to select the five industries that discharged the 

greatest amount of toxic effluent in each state in 2010.1 For each of these 

five industrial categories, we asked states six questions, the first five of 

which pertain to EPA’s decision-making factors and the last of which 

pertains to the need for revised effluent guidelines. The six questions we 

asked about each industry are as follows:2

1. Are the existing effluent guidelines for this industry3 sufficient on their 

own—that is, without additional water quality-based effluent limits—to 

protect your state from significant risks4

2. Is there a technology, process change, or pollution prevention action 

that is available to this industry that would substantially reduce any 

risks that remain after the state applies existing effluent limits? 

to human health or the 

environment?

 

1

Although these data have certain limitations, which we describe elsewhere in this report, 

we determined they were sufficiently reliable for the purpose of selecting industries on 

which to focus our survey questions.

2

Because state officials might not have complete information about all the key factors for 

each of the five industries, we allowed them to report their level of certainty in their 

response by answering each of the questions with either definitely yes, probably yes, 

probably no, definitely no, or don’t know or no response. We collapsed these five 

categories into three categories—yes, no, and don’t know or no response—for 

subsequent analysis.

3

In the online version of the questionnaire, we customized the survey questions by 

inserting the name of each of the specific industries for each state.

4

We based our survey questions on EPA’s draft 2002 strategy, which uses the term risk

rather than the term hazard. To be consistent with the precise wording of the survey 

questions, we use the term risk when describing the survey results. Elsewhere in this 

report, we use the term hazard in accordance with our discussions with EPA officials 

about the agency’s screening process, in which contaminants are first assessed for 

hazard and then assessed for risk. 
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 51 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

3. Do you think this industry can afford to implement this risk-reducing 

technology, process change, or pollution prevention action without 

experiencing financial difficulty?

4. Are the current effluent guidelines for this industry difficult to 

understand, implement, monitor, or enforce?

5. Do you think the current effluent guidelines for this industry could be 

revised to promote innovative approaches, such as water quality 

trading or multimedia benefits?

6. Given your responses to the previous questions, do you think EPA 

should revise the current effluent guidelines for this industry?

In addition to asking about the top five industrial categories in each state, 

we asked states about two other sets of industrial categories. First, we 

asked state officials to list up to three other categories that were not 

among the top five in their state but for which they thought the effluent 

guidelines should be revised. Second, we asked these officials to list up 

to three categories that are not regulated by effluent guidelines but for 

which they think EPA should consider developing guidelines. To be 

confident that our questions would yield reliable data, we conducted four 

pretests with state officials. During these pretests, we sought to determine 

whether the questions were clear, could be reliably answered, and 

imposed a reasonable burden on respondents.

We administered our survey to the directors of the water quality programs 

in the 46 states that are authorized to implement NPDES. These state 

officials are largely responsible for issuing permits to industrial facilities 

and for incorporating effluent guidelines into those permits. They have 

regular, firsthand experience with the guidelines, and their experience 

may supplement EPA’s information on effluent. We determined that these 

officials were therefore sufficiently knowledgeable to answer our survey 

questions. We obtained a list of these officials and their contact 

information from EPA and verified this list through Internet searches and 

phone calls with state officials. We identified the primary contact for each 

state but asked these individuals to consult with others in their office to 

determine the most accurate answer for each survey question.

Survey Respondents
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 52 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

We implemented our survey as a web-based questionnaire. We notified 

the state water quality permit directors in February 2012 of our intent to 

conduct the survey and requested their participation. We instructed the 

states on how to access the web-based survey on March 2, 2012. We 

sent three e-mail reminders and telephoned states that had not 

responded before we closed the survey in April. We received responses 

from 31 of the 46 states, for an overall response rate of 67 percent of 

states. The survey data are based on responses from 42 individuals in 

these 31 states. Because we surveyed state officials only about the 

industrial categories that discharge the greatest amount of toxic effluent in 

their state, and because several states did not respond to our survey, the 

results of our analysis are not generalizable to all industrial categories in 

all states.

To determine the extent to which state officials think that effluent 

guidelines should be revised, we analyzed the univariate frequencies of 

responses to our six primary survey questions. We aggregated the survey 

responses to create industry-by-state cases, such that each case 

represented the views of a particular state about the guidelines for a 

particular industrial category in that state. The completed survey 

questionnaires from 31 states led to 155 possible state-by-industry cases. 

Because not all states responded to all of the survey questions, however, 

we had at most 123 valid cases for analysis, depending upon the survey 

question. A summary of the responses to these questions appears in 

table 5.

Table 5: State Officials’ Responses to the Key Questions in Our Survey for the Industries Discharging the Greatest Amount of 

Toxic Effluent in Their State

Probably yes or 

definitely yes 

(percentage)

Probably no or 

definitely no 

(percentage)

Don’t know or no 

response 

(percentage)

Total number of 

casesa 

Are the existing effluent guidelines for this 

industry sufficient on their own—that is, 

without additional water quality-based 

effluent limits—to protect your state from 

significant risks to human health or the 

environment?

(percentage)

51

(42)

69

(57)

2 

(2) 

122

(100%)

Is there a technology, process change, or 

pollution prevention action available to this 

industry that would substantially reduce any 

risks that remain after the state applies 

existing effluent limits?

38

(31)

51

(41)

34

(28)

123

(100)

Survey Administration

Summary of Survey 

Responses 
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 53 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Probably yes or 

definitely yes 

(percentage)

Probably no or 

definitely no 

(percentage)

Don’t know or no 

response 

(percentage)

Total number of 

casesa 

If yes to the previous question: Do you think 

this industry can afford to implement this riskreducing technology, process change, or 

pollution prevention action without 

experiencing financial difficulty?

(percentage)

31

(82)

2 

(5) 

5 

(13)

38

(100)

Are the current effluent guidelines for this 

industry difficult to understand, implement, 

monitor, or enforce?

30

(24)

91

(74)

2 

(2) 

123

(100)

Do you think the current effluent guidelines 

for this industry could be revised to promote 

innovative approaches, such as water quality 

trading or multimedia benefits?

44

(36)

59

(48)

19

(16)

122

(100)

Given your responses to the previous 

questions, do you think EPA should revise 

the current effluent guidelines for this 

industry?

63

(51)

60

(49)

0 

(0) 

123

(100%)

Source: GAO analysis of survey data.

a

This column represents all cases for which the survey respondent selected one of the response 

options, which included “don’t know/no response.” It does not include responses from individuals who 

skipped the question entirely.

These tabulations indicate that a substantial number of cases exist for 

which states thought that EPA should revise effluent guidelines and also 

for which they perceived that one or more of EPA’s decision-making 

factors were present. In 51 percent (63 of 123 cases), state officials said 

that EPA should revise the effluent guidelines for the corresponding 

industry. With regard to whether the key decision-making factors were 

present, state officials reported that effluent posed a significant risk in 

57 percent of cases, that technology was available in 31 percent of cases, 

that the guidelines were difficult to administer in 24 percent of cases, and 

that revised guidelines could promote innovative approaches in 

36 percent of cases. We had far fewer responses to our question about 

whether industry could adopt technology without experiencing financial 

difficulty because that question was applicable only if the respondent said 

such technology was available. Among these cases, state officials 

reported that the technology would not cause financial hardship to the 

industry in 82 percent of cases (31 of 38 cases).

We repeated this analysis after removing the 29 cases representing the 

three industrial categories whose effluent guidelines are in revision, 

leaving at most 96 cases for analysis, depending upon the question. Of 

the remaining cases, state officials said that EPA should revise the 
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 54 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

effluent guidelines for a substantial percentage of them; they also said 

that key decision-making factors were present in a substantial percentage 

of cases. For example, in 46 percent of these cases, state officials said 

that EPA should revise the effluent guidelines for the corresponding 

industry.

We compared state officials’ views about whether effluent guidelines 

should be revised with their views of each of the factors that EPA uses 

when considering guideline revisions. For three of the four factors, our 

results show that when state officials perceived the factor to be present, 

they were significantly more likely to think that EPA should revise the 

effluent guidelines for the corresponding industrial category. (We had too 

few cases with valid responses to the survey question about cost to 

determine whether that factor was significantly associated with views 

about guideline revisions.) The risk posed by effluent and the availability 

of technology were the strongest predictors of states’ views about the 

need for guideline revisions. In particular, we found the following:

• When state officials perceived effluent from a particular industrial 

category to pose a significant risk, they were 3.8 times more likely to 

think that EPA should revise the guidelines for that category than 

when they did not perceive the effluent to pose a significant risk. 

Specifically, among the cases in which state officials perceived 

effluent to pose a significant risk, they thought the effluent guidelines 

should be revised 75 percent of the time (52 of 69 cases), compared 

with 20 percent of the time (10 of 51 cases) when they thought the 

effluent did not pose a significant risk.

• When state officials perceived technology to be available to 

substantially reduce the risk for a particular industrial category, they 

were 4.3 times more likely to think that EPA should revise the 

guidelines for that category than when they did not perceive 

technology to be available. Specifically, among the cases in which 

these officials perceived technology to be available, they thought EPA 

should revise the effluent guidelines 84 percent of the time (32 of 

38 cases), compared with 20 percent (10 of 51 cases) when they 

thought that technology was not available.

• When state officials thought that other factors were present for a 

particular industrial category, they were 2.3 times more likely to think 

that EPA should revise the guidelines than when they did not think 

these factors were present. “Other factors” refers to either that the 

Relationships between Key 

Decision-Making Factors 

and States’ Views about 

Whether EPA Should 

Revise Effluent Guidelines
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 55 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

current guidelines were difficult to understand, implement, monitor, or 

enforce or that revised guidelines could promote innovative 

approaches. Specifically, when state officials thought that such other 

factors were present, they thought that EPA should revise its effluent 

guidelines 70 percent of the time (43 of 61 cases), compared with 

30 percent of the time (18 of 60 cases) when they thought these 

factors were not present.

Table 6 presents the complete results of these bivariate comparisons. We 

excluded one of the factors from the discussion above—namely, whether 

the industry could afford to implement the technology, process change, or 

pollution prevention action—because the responses to this question 

applied only to the subset of cases for which such a technology, change, 

or action was available, only 33 of which provided a yes or no response. 

In 87 percent of those cases in which the technology was perceived to be 

affordable (27 of 31 cases), state officials said that EPA should revise its 

guidelines for the corresponding industry. We repeated this analysis after 

removing the 29 cases representing the two industrial categories whose 

effluent guidelines EPA is already revising. We found that, even after 

removing these cases, the same three factors retained a significant 

relationship with state officials’ views about whether effluent guidelines 

should be revised. This result indicates that these key decision-making 

factors appear to influence state officials’ views even for industrial 

categories whose guidelines EPA is not already revising.

Table 6: State Officials’ Views about Whether EPA Should Revise the Effluent Guidelines for the Industries Discharging the 

Greatest Amount of Toxic Effluent in Their State, by the Four Factors EPA Considers When Deciding Whether to Revise 

Effluent Guidelines

Do you think EPA should revise the current effluent guidelines for this industry?

Probably yes or definitely yes 

(percentage)

Probably no or definitely no 

(percentage)

Total number of casesa

Are the existing effluent guidelines for this industry sufficient on their own—that is, without additional water-quality-based effluent 

limits—to protect your state from significant risks to human health or the environment?

(percentage)

Probably yes or definitely yes 10

(20)

41

(80)

51

(100%)

Probably no or definitely no 52

(75)

17

(25)

69

(100)

Total 62

(52)

58

(48)

120

(100)

Is there a technology, process change, or pollution prevention action available to this industry that would substantially reduce any 

risks that remain after the state applies existing effluent limits?

Probably yes or definitely yes 32

(84)

6 

(16)

38

(100)
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 56 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Do you think EPA should revise the current effluent guidelines for this industry?

Probably yes or definitely yes 

(percentage)

Probably no or definitely no 

(percentage)

Total number of casesa

Probably no or definitely no

(percentage)

10

(20)

41

(80)

51

(100)

Totalb 42

(47)

47

(53)

89

(100)

If yes to the previous question: Do you think this industry can afford to implement this risk-reducing technology, process change, or 

pollution prevention action without experiencing financial difficulty?

Probably yes or definitely yes 27

(87)

4 

(13)

31

(100)

Probably no or definitely no 1 

(50)

1 

(50)

2 

(100)

Totalc 28

(85)

5 

(15)

33

(100)

Are the current effluent guidelines for this industry difficult to understand, implement, monitor, or enforce or could the current effluent 

guidelines for this industry be revised to promote innovative approaches?

Probably yes or definitely yes

d

43

(70)

18

(30)

61

(100)

Probably no or definitely no 18

(30)

42

(70)

60

(100)

Totala 61

(50)

60

(50)

121

(100%)

Source: GAO analysis of survey data.

a

This column represents all cases for which the survey respondent selected one of the response 

options, which included “don’t know/no response,” for both the question on whether EPA should 

revise its effluent guidelines and the question on whether a given factor was present. It does not 

include responses from individuals who skipped the questions entirely.

b

Cases were excluded from this analysis if the response to either question in the cross-tabulation was 

“Don’t know or no response.” 

c

This question pertained only to the cases for which respondents answered that a technology, 

process change, or pollution prevention action was available.

d

This category combines two survey questions. Cases in this category were coded as “probably yes 

or definitely yes” if that response was given to either of the two questions.

To understand how the various decision-making factors interact to 

influence states’ views about the need for revised effluent guidelines, we 

used the data from our survey to conduct decision-tree analysis. We 

developed the decision tree by splitting the data into smaller and smaller 

subgroups according to whether state officials perceived each of the 

factors to be present for a particular industrial category. Beginning with 

the first factor, risk, we divided the cases into subgroups, depending upon 

whether state officials perceived the effluent from the particular industry to 

Decision Tree of States’ 

Views about Whether EPA 

Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 57 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

pose a significant risk to human health or the environment. For each of 

these subgroups, we tabulated the number of cases in which state 

officials said the effluent guidelines should be revised, compared with the 

number of cases in which they said the guidelines should not be revised. 

We then split these subgroups again, according to whether state officials 

thought that technology was available to substantially reduce the risk. 

This split resulted in further subgroups. We continued splitting the data 

into smaller and smaller subgroups by next assessing state official’s 

views of the cost of technology and finally assessing their views on the 

presence of other factors. At each step, we stopped splitting the data if 

(1) the original group had fewer than 10 cases, (2) the resulting 

subgroups did not differ significantly in terms of the percentages of 

respondents who said that EPA should revise the guidelines; or (3) the 

resulting subgroups tended to support the same conclusion as to whether 

EPA should revise the guidelines. We examined the cases terminating in

each of the branches and found that the overall decision tree was based 

on a broad variety of industries and states. The resulting decision tree, 

which is shown in figure 5, has four splits and six branches.
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 58 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Figure 5: Decision Tree of State Officials’ Views of Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent Guidelines for Specific Industrial 

Categories

Note: This analysis is based on 119 industry-by-state cases from our survey of state water quality 

permit writers. Each case represents the views of a single state about a single industry in that state.

a

Whether the state official views the effluent from a particular industry to pose a significant risk to 

human health or the environment, according to their response to the first question on our survey.

b

Whether the state official views technology to be available to substantially reduce the risk to human 

health or the environment, according to their response to the second question on our survey.

c

Whether the state official views other factors to be present—such as current guidelines difficult to 

enforce or revised guidelines able to promote innovative approaches—according to the fourth and 

fifth questions in our survey.
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 59 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

d

The decision tree illustrates how the key decision-making factors 

collectively predict states’ views about whether EPA should revise effluent 

guidelines, and it corroborates the reliability of our survey data. Overall, 

when the risk of effluent was perceived to be significant and technology 

was perceived to be available, state officials overwhelmingly thought the 

corresponding effluent guidelines should be revised. Even when 

technology was not perceived to be available, many states still thought 

the guidelines should be revised if they thought that other factors were 

present. In particular, in three scenarios, corresponding to three branches 

of the decision tree, state officials generally said that effluent guidelines 

should be revised:

Based on responses to the sixth question on our survey, as to whether state officials think EPA 

should revise the effluent guidelines for a particular industrial category. The tabulations in 

parentheses represent the number cases in which state officials answered yes and no, respectively, 

to this question for each branch of the decision tree.

• When state officials thought that effluent from an industrial category 

poses a significant risk to human health or the environment and when 

they thought technology was available to substantially reduce that 

risk, they generally said that EPA should revise the effluent 

guidelines. In such instances, they thought that EPA should revise the 

effluent guidelines 83 percent of the time (in 30 of 36 cases). This 

scenario is illustrated by the far left branch of the decision tree.
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 60 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

• When state officials thought that effluent from an industrial category 

poses a significant risk, they generally thought that EPA should revise 

the effluent guidelines even when they perceived that technology was 

not available—as long as they perceived other factors to be present. 

In such instances, they thought that EPA should revise its effluent 

guidelines 83 percent of the time (5 of 6 cases). This scenario is 

illustrated by the second-to-left branch of the decision tree.

• When state officials thought that effluent from an industrial category 

poses a significant risk, they generally thought that EPA should revise 

the effluent guidelines even when they did not know if technology was 

available—as long as they perceived other factors to be present. In 

such instances, these officials thought EPA should revise its effluent 

guidelines 100 percent of the time (11 of 11 cases). This scenario is 

illustrated by the branch of the decision tree in the third column from 

the right.

By contrast, in two scenarios, state officials thought EPA should not 

revise the guidelines. In the primary scenario, officials did not perceive 

the effluent to pose a significant risk, although officials also thought that 

guidelines should not be revised when the risk was significant but neither 

technology nor other factors were present. In particular, our decision tree 

identified the following two scenarios:1

• When state officials did not think the effluent from a particular 

industrial category posed a significant risk to human health or the 

environment, they generally thought that EPA should not revise the 

corresponding effluent guidelines. In these instances, state officials 

thought that EPA should not revise the guidelines 80 percent of the 

time (41 of 51 cases). This scenario is illustrated by the branch of the 

decision tree on the far right.

• When state officials thought the effluent from a particular industrial 

category posed a significant risk but that technology was not available 

and other factors were not present, they generally said that EPA 

should not revise the effluent guidelines for that industry. In such 

instances, state officials thought that EPA should not revise the 

 

1

Responses were evenly split when risk was perceived to be present, state officials were 

uncertain whether technology was available, and they did not report that other factors 

were present. This split is illustrated by the branch of the decision tree in the second 

column from the right.
Appendix II: Survey of State Water Quality 

Permit Writers and Analysis of Views about 

Whether EPA Should Revise Effluent 

Guidelines

Page 61 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

guidelines 100 percent of the time (5 of 5 cases). This scenario is 

illustrated by the branch of the decision tree in the third column from 

the left.

Corresponding to this decision tree, we further examined the data to 

identify specific industrial categories that presented the strongest 

evidence for needing to be revised. Because the significance of risk and 

the presence of technology are the two primary decision-making factors, 

we selected the 30 cases for which states said these two factors were 

present and for which they said effluent guidelines should be revised. 

These cases fall into the far left branch of the decision tree in figure 5. 

These 30 cases represent 14 industrial categories: canned and preserved 

seafood processing; cement manufacturing; coal mining; fertilizer 

manufacturing; meat and poultry products; metal finishing; metal molding 

and casting; oil and gas extraction; ore mining and dressing; petroleum 

refining; pulp, paper, and paperboard; steam electric power generation; 

sugar processing; and timber products processing. We added industries 

that state officials cited in the second section of our survey, in which we 

asked them to identify industries that were not among the top five 

dischargers in their state. This addition lengthened the list by 22 cases, 

representing 7 additional industrial categories: centralized waste 

treatment, dairy products processing, electrical and electronic 

components, electroplating, grain mills manufacturing, landfills, and 

pharmaceutical manufacturing. In total, therefore, we identified 52 cases 

representing 21 industrial categories for which state officials thought 

effluent guidelines should be revised. Of these 52 cases, 39 represent 

industrial categories whose guidelines EPA is not already revising.

Industrial Categories for 

Which States Thought 

Effluent Guidelines Should 

Be Revised
Appendix III: Additional Details on Industrial 

Categories with Effluent Guidelines

Page 62 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

EPA has promulgated effluent guidelines for 58 industrial categories 

beginning in the mid-1970s. EPA has also revised the guidelines for most 

of those industries, although many have not been revised in recent years. 

As described elsewhere in this report, EPA uses a screening process to 

determine which categories may warrant further review and possible 

revision. According to our analysis, since EPA began using its current 

screening process in 2003, more than half the industrial categories with 

effluent guidelines did not advance beyond the screening phase in any 

year from 2003 to 2010 because, during a given 2-year screening cycle, 

the relative toxicity of their pollutant discharges did not put them among 

the top 95 percent of discharge hazard. Table 7 provides further 

information on the industrial categories, including the year their effluent 

guidelines were first promulgated, the year the guidelines were most 

recently revised, and the year(s) in 2004 through 2010 when their hazard 

ranking scores came within the top 95 percent.

Table 7: Years Effluent Guidelines Were Promulgated and Revised for Industrial Categories and Years the Categories Were in 

the Top 95 Percent of Total Reported Hazard, 2004-2010

Year(s) the industrial category was in the top 

95 percent of total hazard

Industrial category

Year 

promulgated

Year most 

recently 

revised 2010 2008 2006 2004

Airport deicing 2012 Not revised

Aluminum forming 1983 1988

Asbestos manufacturing 1974 1995

Battery manufacturing 1984 1986

Canned and preserved fruits and vegetables 

processing

1974 1995

Canned and preserved seafood processing 1974 1995

Carbon black manufacturing 1978 1995

Cement manufacturing 1974 1995 X 

Centralized waste treatment 2000 2003 X 

Coal mining 1985 2002 X 

Coil coating 1982 2007

Concentrated animal feeding operations 2003 2008

Concentrated aquatic animal production 2004 Not revised

Construction and development 2009 Not revised

Copper forming 1983 1986

Dairy products processing 1974 1995

Appendix III: Additional Details on Industrial 

Categories with Effluent Guidelines
Appendix III: Additional Details on Industrial

Categories with Effluent Guidelines

Page 63 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Year(s) the industrial category was in the top 

95 percent of total hazard

Industrial category

Year 

promulgated

Year most 

recently 

revised 2010 2008 2006 2004

Electrical and electronic components 1983 1985

Electroplating 1981 1986

Explosives manufacturing 1976 1995

Ferroalloy manufacturing 1974 1995

Fertilizer manufacturing 1974 1995 X X X X 

Glass manufacturing 1974 1995

Grain mills 1974 1995

Gum and wood chemicals manufacturing 1976 1995

Hospital 1976 1995

Ink formulating 1975 1995

Inorganic chemicals manufacturing 1982 1984 X X X X 

Iron and steel manufacturing 1982 2005

Landfills 2000 2000 X 

Leather tanning and finishing 1982 1996

Meat and poultry products 2004 Not revised

Metal finishing 1983 1986

Metal molding and casting 1985 1986 X 

Metal products and machinery 2003 Not revised

Mineral mining and processing 1975 1995 X 

Nonferrous metals forming and metal powders 1985 1989

Nonferrous metals manufacturing 1984 1990 X X X X 

Oil and gas extraction 1979 2012a X 

Ore mining and dressing 1982 1988 X X X X 

Organic chemicals, plastics, and synthetic fibers 1987 1993 X X X X 

Paint formulating 1975 1995

Paving and roofing materials (tars and asphalt) 1975 1995

Pesticide chemicals 1978 1998 X X X 

Petroleum refining 1982 1985 X X X X 

Pharmaceutical manufacturing 1983 2003

Phosphate manufacturing 1974 1986 X 

Photographic 1976 Not revised

Plastics molding and forming 1984 1985 X X 

Porcelain enameling 1982 1985

Pulp, paper, and paperboard 1998 2012a X X X X 
Appendix III: Additional Details on Industrial 

Categories with Effluent Guidelines

Page 64 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Year(s) the industrial category was in the top 

95 percent of total hazard

Industrial category

Year 

promulgated

Year most 

recently 

revised 2010 2008 2006 2004

Rubber manufacturing 1974 1995 X 

Soap and detergent manufacturing 1974 1995

Steam electric power generating 1982 2012a X X X 

Sugar processing 1974 1995

Textile mills 1982 1983 X X X 

Timber products processing 1981 2004 X 

Transportation equipment cleaning 2000 2005

Waste combustors 2000 2004 X X 

Source: GAO analysis of EPA documentation.

Notes: In its screening phase, EPA ranks some industrial categories that are not subject to existing 

effluent guidelines and are therefore not included in this table. When EPA revised the effluent 

guideline for an industrial category, it may have revised just a portion of the guideline. For example, 

EPA may have added pollutants or changed the limits for a particular industrial category or added a 

new subcategory. In some cases, EPA may have made revisions that did not affect the stringency of 

the effluent guidelines. With the exception of three 2012 revisions, we did not determine the nature of 

the revisions shown in this table.

a

The revisions to these industrial categories did not increase the stringency of the effluent guidelines.
Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Environmental Protection Agency

Page 65 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Environmental Protection Agency
Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Environmental Protection Agency

Page 66 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 67 GAO-12-845 EPA's Effluent Guidelines Program

David C. Trimble, (202) 512-3841 or trimbled@gao.gov

In addition to the individual named above, Susan Iott (Assistant Director), 

Elizabeth Beardsley, Mark Braza, Ross Campbell, Ellen W. Chu, Heather 

Dowey, Catherine M. Hurley, Paul Kazemersky, Kelly Rubin, Carol 

Hernstadt Shulman, and Kiki Theodoropoulos made significant 

contributions to this report. Wyatt R. Hundrup, Michael L. Krafve, Armetha 

Liles, and Jeffrey R. Rueckhaus also made important contributions to this 

report.

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(361320)
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