Steam Electric Power Generating Effluent Guidelines - Proposed Rule

Transcript for the Webcast Held on August 20, 2013 

EPA Office of Water / Office of Science and Technology 

Engineering and Analysis Division (4303T) 

Washington, DC 20460 

epa.gov/guide 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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I-Hsin Lee

►Slide: Steam Electric Power Generating Effluent Guidelines 

Good morning, and welcome to today's webcast on the proposed Effluent Guidelines for the 

Steam Electric Power Generating Category. This webcast is sponsored by EPA's Office of 

Water. I am I-Hsin Lee with Tetra Tech, EPA's support contractor. I will be moderating today's 

webcast. Thank you for joining us. 

►Slide: Guide to Our Webcasts 

So before we start our presentation, let's go over a few housekeeping items. If you would like to 

see closed captioning, please make sure that you have turned off all of your pop-up blockers 

and click on the "Closed Captioning" button on the top of your screen. During the webcast, we 

will poll you guys, our participants, to get a better sense of who you are. To complete the poll 

questions and the evaluation at the end of the webcast, please select the radio button to the left 

of your choice and click "Submit." Do not type your answer in the "Ask" box. 

►Slide: Tips for Attending Our Webcast 

Before we get too far, if you are hearing an echo, please make sure that all your browser 

windows except the one that the webcast presentation is on is turned off. You can also mute 

the presentation by clicking on the microphone icon in the lower left-hand corner of your screen. 

If you are experiencing any technical difficulties with the webcast, you can submit your 

assistance request by entering your webcast technical question in the white box at the bottom of 

your screen just below the slide, and then click on the "Ask" button to receive technical support. 

Your technical questions and the responses to your questions will appear at the bottom of your 

screen, which is below that white box where you entered your question. 

►Slide: To Ask A Question 

EPA will be accepting questions about the proposed rule during today's webcast. So if you 

have any questions, please type your question in the same text box as you typed your technical 

issue. This box is located at the left-hand corner of your screen. And then, when you are 

finished typing your question, click on the "Ask" button. Today our speakers may not be able to 

answer all of your questions, so we have posted contact information under the "Details" tab at 

the top of your screen in case you would like to contact them later on today. 

Now, if you are having trouble seeing that text box at the bottom of your screen, you may need 

to change your screen resolution. Select "Tools" in your webcast browser, and click on the 

"Zoom Out" button. So for any of the members of the media out there listening in today, you 

may send your questions directly to EPA's press officer, Stacy Kika. Her phone number is 

202-564-0906, and her e-mail address is kika.stacy@epa.gov. Please keep in mind that EPA is 

not accepting comment submissions during this webcast. Please see the June 7 Federal 

Register notice for instructions on how to submit comments. EPA is requesting public comment 

on this proposal no later than September 20, 2013. 

So now we have a really quick poll question for our participants. The question will be posted in 

the slide window. Please submit your answer in the same slide window by clicking on one of 

the radio buttons. The question is how many people are participating in your location today? In 

other words, are you participating in a conference room with several people? Is it just yourself? 

Is it two to five people with you today, six to 10, 10 to 20, or 20 or more? Thank you for 

answering our quick poll question. While we wait and ensure that everyone has a chance to 

answer our poll question, a quick reminder. If you have any questions for our speakers today, 

you can submit those questions at any time during this webcast. Please type in your question in 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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the "Ask a Question" button. We will try to ask as many of your questions as possible. 

I believe we are ready to start. Our first speaker today is Ron Jordan. He is the EPA project 

manager for the proposed rule. Ron, please take it away. 

Ron Jordan

►Slide: Reducing Toxic Water Pollution from Power Plants 

Thank you, everyone, for joining us. As you just heard, we are here to talk to you today about 

the proposed effluent limitations guidelines and standards for the Steam Electric Power 

Generating point source category. So it's a proposed rule that is out there right now in the 

public review and comment phase. The purpose today is to provide some overview of the 

rulemaking itself, as well as some aspects, and provide some answers to some of the questions 

we received already. 

►Slide: Overview of Action 

So just a few months ago this year, on April 19th, EPA proposed a regulation to strengthen 

controls on discharges from certain steam electric power plants, and this would do so by 

revising their technology-based effluent limitations guidelines and standards. The steam electric 

power plants are one of the most significant industry sectors in the country in terms of the 

amount of pollutants that they discharge. This industry sector discharges more toxic pollutants 

than any other industry sector that's regulated for discharges to surface waters under the Clean 

Water Act. In fact, this industry sector, the power plants, discharge more than half of all toxic 

pollutants that are regulated in that manner. The key pollutants that we are talking about with 

this particular rulemaking and these facilities are metals, such as mercury, arsenic, selenium, 

and nutrients, also. The kinds of pollutants that we are dealing with here are linked to cancer, 

neurological damage, and ecological damages, too. 

These technology-driven limits -- and I will emphasize the technology aspect of it during this 

webcast -- are created to -- are intended to create a uniform set of requirements that are based 

on demonstrated technologies and processes. And there is a substantial amount of information 

about these proposed regulations on EPA's website. You can see it is a rather long and 

complicated web address. I won't repeat it, but you see it right there on that slide. 

►Slide: Clean Water Act 

So to give you a little background about the Clean Water Act and how it comes into play here, 

the 1972 Clean Water Act established a technology-forcing approach that was intended to give 

an increasingly stringent set of controls aiming towards achieving the goals of the Clean Water 

Act, to eliminate discharges to surface waters. The statute is designed to increasingly elevate 

that technology floor for all dischargers in the industry sector to match the performance of the 

best plants in the industry. So there is an aspect where EPA will periodically review the 

regulations that are already out there and assess whether there needs to be revisions to 

address changes in the industry or reflect different technological controls. These are 

requirements that apply nationally, and they factor into the permits that are issued to direct 

dischargers. So that would be their permits issued under the National Pollutant Discharge 

Elimination System, or their NPDES permits, and they also apply to indirect discharges to 

Publicly Owned Treatment Works or POTWs. And in that case, those are referred to as 

pretreatment standards. 

►Slide: Revised Steam Electric ELG Overdue 

EPA first promulgated effluent guidelines for this industry sector in 1974. Those regulations 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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were amended several times in the years -- the decade after that, I guess would be the best 

way to describe that. But it has been more than 30 years now since they were last amended, 

back in 1982. The Steam Electric effluent guidelines apply to discharges from approximately 

1100 fossil-fueled and nuclear-fueled plants. By fossil fuels, we're referring to gas-fired, oilfired, coal-fired power plants. Those regulations for most wastestreams that are regulated are 

based on settling ponds to control for suspended solids, primarily. And what we have found is 

that those regulations are ineffective for removing many of the pollutants that are present in 

these wastestreams, such as dissolved metals and nutrients. 

I mentioned that, under the Clean Water Act, EPA periodically visits the effluent guidelines that 

are out there to assess whether they need to be updated. We did that several years back, and 

EPA completed its most recent study of the industry in 2009 and, at that time, decided that it 

was time for those regulations to be updated. The study showed that the effluent guidelines 

were outdated and not kept pace with changes that have happened in the electric power 

industry over the last several decades, that technologies are available that can address some of 

the new wastestreams that have been created that weren't contemplated or were not able to be 

fully addressed back in the early '80s, and that there have also been changes to some of the 

wastestreams to where you now have higher concentrations of pollutants in those wastestreams 

and that those needed to be addressed, and that there were technologies available to do so. 

We have also found that, upon a review of existing permits, that in many cases those permits 

rely very heavily on the effluent guidelines issued back in 1982. By that, I mean that you see 

many of the requirements have total suspended solids and limits for just a few other parameters 

but do not include standards for many of the other pollutants that are present in there, especially 

some of the metals that are present. And as a result, there is a fair amount of information in the 

literature showing documented impacts from these discharges, which are currently authorized 

by their NPDES permits, but obviously the ecological harm associated is certainly not an intent 

or desired outcome. And that is also consistent with water quality modeling that EPA has done, 

also. 

►Slide: Key Wastestreams Contributing to Current Discharges 

There are several key wastestreams that are addressed by this proposed rulemaking. There 

are actually quite a variety of wastestreams that are discharged by power plants. This 

rulemaking exercise is focused on a subset of those, the ones that we consider particularly 

responsible for some of the large pollutant loads coming from power plants or that are not 

adequately addressed by the rulemaking. The diagram -- you can see that we are not artists, 

but we did try to give a graphical representation of some of the processes that are creating 

these wastestreams. The flue gas desulphurization wastewater that comes from the sulfur 

dioxide, the SO2 scrubbers, that are present at some power plants; discharges associated with 

the transporting fly ash or bottom ash to ash ponds, using water; leachate that is associated 

with combustion residues that are stored in either service impoundments or in landfills and that 

then subsequently become a point source discharge to surface waters. There are some power 

plants that have installed, or are planning to install, systems to control the amount of mercury 

that's in their air emissions; for example, an activated carbon ejection system. So to the extent 

that that is a system that moves the residues from that process with water to a pond, for 

example, the discharges associated with that would be addressed by this rulemaking. We are 

also looking at wastewater associated with the gasification process such as you would see at an 

integrated gasification combined cycle facility, where you have coal or another fuel type that 

undergoes a process to gasify it for their combustion process. The wastewater associated with 

that process would be covered. And then, we also had proposed requirements that would apply 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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to discharges of non-chemical metal cleaning waste. 

►Slide: Overview of Key Revisions for Existing Generating Units 

Just to walk through some of the key revisions that would apply to the existing generating units, 

it's good to keep in mind that, again, the proposed rule deals with direct dischargers to the 

surface waters and their NPDES permits as well as the indirect dischargers to the POTWs. 

Another way to think of it is that there are existing sources that are out there right now as well as 

new sources that would be built in the future. So we do propose different requirements for the 

existing sources and for the new sources. So just to give you some background here, for the 

existing sources and a little bit of our -- the work that we did for data collection, we had issued 

a -- we distributed a survey to the industry, to approximately 700 power plants, early in the 

rulemaking. It's a fairly comprehensive survey instrument that collected technical and financial 

information from power plants, and its purpose was to enable us to evaluate the feasibility, the 

cost, and the economic achievability of the technological approaches. And we were able to do 

that, certainly for each plant that we collected survey data from, as well as then use that 

information to make some conclusions about the effect on facilities that we did not directly 

survey. 

Based on this data, EPA proposed actually eight regulatory options for existing sources -- four 

of those were highlighted as what we called our preferred options -- and that those four differ 

essentially in terms of the number of wastestreams that are covered. And by that, really it's the 

number of wastestreams that would get new requirements. The wastestreams are all covered 

under each of those options, but in some cases a wastestream might have new requirements or 

would just essentially stay with the current limits that are in the regulations right now. Also, that 

these options differ in terms of the size of the units that would see the new requirements, and 

then the options also differed in terms of the stringency of controls that might apply. And that 

those differences in particular, the difference are associated with the wastewater associated 

with the flue gas desulphurization systems and the bottom ash handling systems. 

In terms of the regulations that were proposed, the effluent limits are based, in some cases, on 

actual wastewater treatment technologies, such as installing a treatment system or upgrading 

an existing treatment system, such as for the FGD wastewater. And in some cases, they are 

based on more of a process change in terms of, for example, with the bottom ash handling 

system, converting to a system that either becomes closed-loop, so that it does not discharge 

any wastewater, or converts to a system that doesn't have to use water to move the ash around 

at all. So that would be the process change, right there. And depending on which of those 

preferred regulatory options you are looking at and EPA ultimately goes forward with for the final 

regulation, we estimate that between 66 to 200 facilities -- and these are facilities that have 

coal-fired units or petroleum coke -- may incur compliance costs. And just to give you a sense, 

again, I think I had mentioned that there were roughly 1100 power plants in the industry sector. 

So this would represent somewhere between 6 and just below 20 percent of all steam electric 

power plants. For the existing sources, EPA proposed to basically not set the more stringent 

new requirements on the very small generating units, those defined as 50 megawatt or smaller. 

So they would not incur compliance costs under the proposed rule. Also, there would not be 

compliance costs under EPA's estimation for gas-fired units, nuclear units, and oil-fired units. 

►Slide: Summary of Proposed Requirements for Key Wastestreams at Existing Sources 

Under Preferred Options 

So this table that we are showing you here is just trying to highlight those differences again for 

the existing sources. These are the four preferred options that were identified in the regulation. 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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Again, there were four additional options that are not shown right here. And what you see, the 

yellow highlight is intended to represent where a wastestream would receive new effluent limits 

under that proposed option, although, just because it would get new limit, there would not 

necessarily incur compliance costs, either for that wastestream or perhaps for some facilities. I 

guess, just to give you a little chartsmanship, of course the columns are representing the 

different regulatory options -- 3a, 3b, Option 3, Option 4a. And the rows, we're listing out the 

different wastestreams that would be addressed by the proposed rule. 

Just to highlight or to walk through that, you will see that the requirements under these four 

preferred options, the requirements would be the same under each of the options for fly ash 

transport water, for flue gas mercury control waste, for leachate, combustion residual leachate, 

for the gasification wastewater, and for the non-chemical metal cleaning waste. So again, the 

real differences between those preferred options are for the flue gas desulphurization and for 

the bottom ash. 

And under option 3a, EPA is proposing no additional new requirements for flue gas 

desulphurization wastewater. So the actions or the limits that apply to facilities right now for the 

FGD wastewater would be unchanged. Under Option 3b, EPA proposes limits for mercury, 

arsenic, selenium, and nitrate/nitrite, but those limits would apply only to those power plants that 

have a total wet scrubbed capacity of 2,000 megawatts or greater, which is a fairly small portion 

of the industry. Under Option 3 and Option 4a, those limits for the mercury, arsenic, selenium, 

nitrate/nitrite would apply to all power plants with FGD wastewater except that units that are 

50 megawatts or lower would not have those requirements. And then, for the bottom ash 

transport water, you see that EPA would establish no new additional -- no new controls under 

Options 3a, 3b, or 3. But under Option 4a, EPA was proposing a zero discharge standard for 

the pollutants present in bottom ash transport water, and that would apply to the generating 

units that are greater than 400 megawatts in size. 

►Slide: Facilities Can Achieve These Proposed Requirements 

So just to remind you that EPA collected a substantial amount of information, there is a 

technical development document that is posted on EPA's website that was on the web address 

that we pointed out on an early slide, and that document highlights or lists the site visits that the 

EPA has been to. So we have seen these technologies operating at quite a few facilities. We 

have the survey information, of course, that -- we did a census where every coal-fired power 

plant received a survey. And what we found is that the requirements that we're proposing are 

based on proven control technologies that are operating in many facilities right now, whether 

they be treatment systems, such as chemical precipitation or biological treatments of 

wastewater, or whether it's the process changes in terms of modifying how people handle their 

ash. And one thing we found was that, in particular with the fly ash, that greater than 80 percent 

of the coal plants already have systems in place that would allow them to meet the proposed 

requirements. And the same is true that a substantial number of facilities have systems in place 

for the bottom ash wastewater. And even the plants with FGD wastewater, many of those 

would already be able to comply with our proposed limits. 

►Slide: Summary of Proposed Requirements for Key Wastestreams at New Sources 

Under Preferred Option 

So turning now to the new sources, just again, these are the -- essentially, you are talking about 

new generating units as opposed to an existing generating unit. We had one preferred 

regulatory option for the new sources, and there no longer would be any kind of exclusion, if you 

will, for the small or the oil-fired generating units. So the requirements that we proposed for new 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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sources would apply to all new generating units, and there is no change. It's the same 

requirements as what apply to the fly ash wastewater, the flue gas mercury control wastewater, 

gasification, the leachate, and the non-chemical metal cleaning waste. The same is also true 

that the flue gas desulphurization wastewater limits would apply to all of these new units, and 

we also would apply the zero discharge standard to all bottom ash wastewater from the new 

generating units. 

►Slide: Benefits of the Steam Electric ELG Are Significant 

So the benefits of this rule are quite significant. There would be a large reduction in the 

pollutant discharges to the U.S. waters. As I said, this industry is a very large discharger right 

now, and our calculations are that we would see reductions, depending on just looking at the 

four preferred regulatory options, somewhere between roughly 500 million pounds to 

2.6 billion pounds per year reduction in those pollutant discharges. There would also be a 

significant reduction in the amount of water used, so you would see reduction in the amount of 

water that is withdrawn from streams, and that amount is somewhere in the order of 50 to a little 

over 100 billion gallons per year. Another benefit associated with this is that there will be a 

reduction or perhaps even an outright elimination of the wet ash -- of the coal ash being handled 

in a wet fashion and then ultimately being stored in an impoundment, a surface impoundment. 

So that would reduce the volumes that will be stored in surface impoundments. And should 

there be a surface impoundment failure, such -- there's been several that have happened in the 

past, including a couple particularly catastrophic and very large ones. By virtue of these 

changes in the industry, that either impoundments would not be used and the potential for that 

failure would go away, or that, to the extent there is a reduction in the amount of ash stored in 

an impoundment, should there be a failure, the expectation is that there would be less damage 

associated with that.

EPA has modeled a substantial amount of water quality criteria exceedances in receiving 

waters, and that is supported by some of the literature that we are seeing in terms of 

environmental impacts. And we anticipate that those would be substantially reduced due to 

facilities complying with the new effluent limits. And as a result, you will see a substantial 

improvement in aquatic habitats as you reduce concentrations of arsenic, mercury, and a 

number of other pollutants. 

►Slide: Monetized Costs and Benefits 

As part of this effort, EPA has estimated the compliance costs and tried to put a monetary value 

on the benefits associated and the improvements. And we estimate that our costs for the 

preferred options range from $185 million to $954 million per year. We have estimated that the 

benefits, when we try to put a dollar value on those -- which could be rather challenging action 

just because of the science behind that sometimes -- that those benefits themselves that we are 

able to monetize are quite large, ranging from $139 million to $483 million per year. At the 

same time, we know that that's not all of the benefits, that there other benefits out there we were 

not able to monetize. Some of those would include downstream human health impacts. We did 

try to model such benefits, but we didn't go as far down as we think those impacts actually 

occur, so we think that we have kind of undercounted that benefit, if you will. 

We also think that there are benefits that should be taken into account associated with non-IQ 

type impacts associated with mercury and lead. There are cancers to the lung and the bladder 

associated with arsenic exposure that we did not monetize, and then there are other pollutants 

in the discharge that we have not monetized impacts for. An example would be manganese, 

bromides, aluminum, and so on. 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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►Slide: The Proposal Is Affordable and Is Not Projected to Close Any Plants 

So as part of this, EPA has done an economic analysis to see what the effect on the industry 

would be, and we concluded that it is affordable. There are no power plants that would close, 

based on our analysis. And in that analysis, which essentially assumed that the industry would 

pass none of the costs onto its customers -- so basically, this says that the power plants, the 

companies, would absorb 100 percent of the costs which, of course, is not necessarily the 

reality. But that does give you a sense of the deeper bound of the impacts. And that showed 

that there would be minimal to no impacts on the electric generating capacity, depending on 

which preferred option you were looking at. And that analysis also was based on the effects of 

some of the other rules that are in place. For example, the mercury and air toxics standard rule 

is factored into that analysis. We project that no plants will close entirely and that, at most, only 

a few units would retire. In terms of actual amount of generating capacity that would be 

affected, we estimate that roughly 320 megawatts, .32 gigawatts, out of the more than 1,000 

gigawatts of the total national generating capacity would be affected, which is about .03 percent 

of the overall capacity. 

►Slide: The Proposal Will Have Limited Impact on Future Electricity Costs 

We also looked, as part of this analysis, at the impact on future electricity costs, what kind of 

rates that people would pay, industrial users, commercial users, residential users. In this case, 

the analysis took the opposite approach and said -- assumed that the industry would pass 100 

percent of the costs of the rule on to its customer. Again, not likely to be the reality, but ,again, 

it gives you an upper bounds of what that effect might be. And even doing it that way, saying 

that those costs would all pass on to the customers, the effect is still small, according to our 

analysis. In under the most stringent of the preferred regulatory options, we estimate the 

national average price for the electricity is going to go up by only .27 percent. And what that 

translates to for the average monthly electric bill for residential consumers is 22 cents per 

month, or 0.23 percent. 

►Slide: Timing 

As part of this rulemaking, EPA has tried to be very sensitive to the actual actions that people 

have to take to do the implementation. I think that has been one of the great benefits of doing 

the site visits that we have done. I think we have gotten a great appreciation of what's involved 

in terms of some of the upgrades that would be associated with that as well as how this industry 

operates. Obviously, it's a very important role that the industry plays in terms of providing 

reliable power throughout the country, so that is a factor that EPA gives great consideration to. 

In terms of what people would do to meet the proposed requirements, there are a range of 

strategies available. Some facilities, it would be a matter of installing wastewater treatment 

systems or perhaps upgrading an existing wastewater treatment system that has most of the 

controls that it needs but perhaps isn't quite at what we would consider to be best available 

technology levels. There would be modifications involved were people would be converting 

their ash handling systems so that they are not pumping their ash up to an ash pond but instead 

are trying to handle that ash dry. Obviously, those can be rather substantial actions that have to 

happen at a power plant, and they can get quite complex. Some power plants have multiple 

generating units. Some would be affected; some would already be essentially in compliance 

and would not be affected. As well, there are multiple power plants within an area that are all 

trying to serve power, and you don't want to put the industry in a position of trying to make 

everybody shut down every unit at the same time to install these upgrades. 

So what the proposal does is it tries to recognize that there needs to be some time given to a 

facility that allows for a delayed implementation which could extend up to eight years. We 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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certainly wouldn't anticipate that everybody would take eight years. In fact, some facilities are 

essentially in compliance already based on systems they have already installed. But that 

additional time does give facilities time to raise the capital they need. It gives them time to do 

the engineering, design, and some planning to procure that equipment, install that equipment, 

test the equipment. It gives the industry the flexibility to try to install that equipment during a 

planned shutdown period or maintenance period rather than triggering forced outages, and it 

also provides flexibility to coordinate the outages that would happen at multiple facilities, again, 

trying to recognize that you want to ensure that there is stable electrical power being provided to 

the grid at all times. 

►Slide: Schedule for Public Comment Period and Final Rulemaking 

Just to touch quickly in terms of the rulemaking schedule, again, the Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking was signed April 19th of this year. That was under a consent decree deadline that 

EPA is operating under. That proposed rule that was signed on April 19 was then subsequently 

published in the Federal Register on June 7th. We initially had a 60-day comment period which 

has been extended, and the comment period now ends on September 20th of this year. And 

again, we are still under that consent decree to take final action by May 22nd of next year. 

So I think I will turn this back to our moderator now. 

I-Hsin Lee

►Slide: Questions 

Thank you so much, Ron, for that very informative presentation. So now, before we start 

answering some questions from our audience, let's review the poll question that we answered 

previously. The results have come in, so we have well over 450 attendees during today's 

webcast. The majority of you are listening to this webcast by yourself in a room. So thank you 

for joining us today. 

Before we start answering questions, we have another poll question. This question is asking 

you where you are participating today. Are you at an EPA regional office? Are you at home in 

front of your personal computer? Or are you at work, listening in today? So to give everyone a 

chance to answer this question, a quick reminder that our speakers today will not be able to 

answer every single question during the webcast today, and we have posted their contact 

information under the "Details" tab at the top of your screen. So in case you need to contact 

them today, please click on that tab to get that information. And one more note for our media 

folks out there listening in today, if you have any questions, please contact EPA's press officer, 

Stacy Kika, and her phone number, again, is 202-564-0906, and her e-mail address is 

kika.stacy@epa.gov. 

All right. Well, let's get to our first question today, and I am going to direct this question to 

Jezebele. Jezebele, in a situation where there is only one treatment option commercially 

available at this time but others are being developed that may be a completely different 

approach, will the new standards specify the technology or define the limits that can be met by 

the current technology so that other technologies can be developed to meet those limits? 

Jezebele? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

All right. The answer for that question, under the Clean Water Act, the effluent limitation 

guidelines and standards are performance-based and do not mandate the use of a specific 

technology. In other words, while EPA identifies the technology that is used as the basis for 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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determining the discharge requirements, facilities are not required to use that specific 

technology. Rather, facilities are encouraged to have the flexibility to use other means, as long 

as they meet the discharge is that are required. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Jezebele. Wow, we are getting a lot of questions today. So if we don't get 

to your questions today, we want to apologize. We are trying to queue as many of these up as 

possible. Okay, next question. This one is for Bill. Bill, was the selection of minks and eagles 

as representative indicator species in the Environmental Assessment an appropriate choice to 

determine wildlife aspects across the geographical regions, including the Great Lakes region? 

Bill Swietlik

Thank you, I-Hsin. Let me take a stab at that question. First of all, minks and eagles were used 

as representative indicator species for a national assessment of the impacts on wildlife. And so 

yes, we at EPA, we do feel the two species were an appropriate choice. We made that choice 

primarily because of the data that was available and the fact that these two species are fairly 

evenly distributed across the country, which did allow us to do a national assessment. The 

other reason we chose minks and eagles was because of the data that's available, and if you 

would like some more information on exactly what data and information was available, I would 

encourage our listeners to take a look at Appendix D of the Environmental Assessment, which 

Appendix D does discuss the wildlife model methodology. 

One of the important aspects of the data that we did need were benchmark values for both of 

those two species, minks and eagles, against which to assess the impacts of the different toxic 

contaminants discharge by steam electric power plants. And for the most part, we used the no 

effect hazard concentrations, NEHCs, and those, once again, are listed in Appendix D for those 

listeners who would like to get more information on that. Also in Appendix D, in a discussion of 

that methodology, you will see a description of both the strengths and weaknesses and 

limitations of the analysis. That is all explained there on pages D-1 through 6 or so of the 

appendix. But yes, we do feel the choice of minks and eagles was appropriate and they are 

good indicator species for a nationwide assessment of the impacts of steam electric power 

plants on wildlife. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Bill. So we have another question. This question is for James. James, 

what are the driving factors leading to the relatively high variable cost increase in the electric 

market for NERC region RFC under Option 4, and to what extent were these factors taken into 

consideration as part of EPA's analysis? 

James Covington

Thank you for your question. The distribution of costs by region reflects the distribution of plants 

incurring costs. We used the cost in our market analysis as presented in chapter 5 of the RIA 

and looked at the impacts at the national level in each region. Each region may have higher 

cost due to more plants associated in that particular area. So that's why the variable costs are 

different or high. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, James. We have another question now for Jezebele. The proposed ELGs 

do not appear to give credit for the mass of those new regulated constituents from the source 

water supply. The concentration of arsenic, mercury, selenium, and nitrate and nitrate may very 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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well be higher in the makeup water source than what is allowed to be discharged. For example, 

in Florida, nitrate concentrations are very high in many of the lakes and rivers. Will credit be 

given on a mass basis -- you know, like mass in equals mass out? Jezebele? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

Okay. Thank you for your question. As I mentioned before, the effluent limitation guidelines 

and standards apply nationally. Neither the existing steam electric rule nor the proposed rule 

account for concentrations of pollutants present in the receiving water body at a specific facility 

in the discharge limit. The proposed ELG are to be applied on a gross basis. For example, 

permit writers are authorized to grant net credits for the quantity of pollutants in the intake water 

where the applicable ELG has specified that the guidelines are to be applied -- and this is on a 

net basis -- or where the pollution control technology is properly installed and operated meets 

the applicable ELG in the absence of the pollutants in the intake waters. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Jezebele. Let's see. I think we have another question for Bill. Bill, are you 

ready for the question? The question is, footnote 7 on page 2-5 on the Benefit Cost Analysis, it 

states that there may be market benefits associated with the decreased need for drinking water 

treatment, but EPA did not estimate these benefits as part of this analysis of the proposed rule. 

Why is that? 

Bill Swietlik

Thanks again, I-Hsin. Let me briefly -- well, the short answer to that is lack of data. We were 

able to do a proximity analysis by identifying where a drinking water intake sources were for 

public utilities in all of our receiving water bodies that we had information into which steam 

electric power plants do discharge. But we were not able to find or get data indicating how 

much of those discharges and how much of those contaminants are actually getting into the 

intake water that public drinking water utilities are drawing into their treatment plants. So 

without the adequate data to do that analysis, we are not able to quantify the burden on the 

treatment that these additional pollutants would place on the drinking water utilities. So 

because of that, we are not able to then quantify any of the benefits that might accrue from the 

removal or the reduction of those contaminants in the receiving waters that were being used for 

drinking water. So I guess it's a classic example of one of those analyses where we just have to 

list it as a qualitative benefit that may occur, primarily due to the lack of adequate data to get a 

good handle on the quantity of removal and then any monetizable benefits. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. I hope that answers your question. Here is another question for Jezebele. The question 

is: of the 700 plants that were sent an ICR, how many actually responded? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

Basically -- and you can see this in the preamble as well -- from the ICR, we sent a total of 733 

surveys, and we did receive all 733. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. That was interesting information. Okay, I think we have got Ron's mic 

working now. Let's see -- let's ask that question again. Would closed surface impoundments be 

subject to the SI BMPs? 

 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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Ron Jordan

The BMPs would apply to our inspections of the actual surface impoundments themselves. So 

while the service impoundment is active or perhaps is inactive but is not closed, then the BMPs 

would apply. But once the surface impoundment is closed, then the BMPs would no longer be 

necessary. 

I-Hsin Lee

Okay, so what about combustion residual leachate limits? Would they be applicable to surface 

impoundment seepage that does not get discharged to the waters? 

Ron Jordan

So, right, in the case of -- the effluent guidelines are applying to point source discharges to 

surface waters, and that's what the NPDES permit is addressing. So to the extent that a 

surface impoundment generates, or a landfill generates, some sort of seepage or leachate, but 

that is not subsequently discharged as a point source to surface waters, then the effluent 

guidelines would not apply. 

I-Hsin Lee

Okay, great. A couple more about these types of waste. What about surface impoundment 

seepage that is redirected back to the same surface impoundment? Would that leachate be 

subject to the proposed rule? 

Ron Jordan

Yeah, that is actually an excellent question and one that EPA gave quite a bit of consideration to 

during the rulemaking. And the short answer to that is no, it would not be subject to the 

leachate limits if it's redirected back to the impoundment. And certainly, it would normally be 

considered leachate if it's coming out of the impoundment, whether it be through some sort of 

an actual physical collection system or seepage that's somehow captured. But to the extent 

that, for instance, an ash pond that is seeping water out of it, EPA felt that it was appropriate to 

provide sufficient flexibility that if a facility wants to then essentially take that water that just 

seeped out of a pond, pump it right back into the pond, that it would basically still be considered 

pond contents, if you will. So for example, it would be covered by the -- it would be considered 

bottom ash or fly ash or whatever the waste treatment is, rather than leachate in that situation. 

Now, if it were to be discharged and not pumped back into the pond, then it would be 

considered leachate. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great, great. Okay, so one more question about combustion residual leachate. So this 

question says: what about landfills and/or surface impoundments that do not have a leachate 

collection system? So would these types of facilities be subject to the CRL limits? 

Ron Jordan

So again, the proposed effluent guidelines apply to leachate that is collected and then 

subsequently discharged as a point source to surface waters. So to the extent that there may 

not be a system and perhaps there is leachate that makes it to groundwater, unless there was a 

nexus between the contaminated groundwater and a nearby surface water, generally speaking, 

the effluent guidelines and the NPDES permit would not apply to that. Now, something to keep 

in mind is that you don't necessarily have to have a, say, an engineered leachate collection 

system for there to be leachate. If you do have such a system for a landfill or for your 

impoundment system, it is intentionally collecting whatever drains through that waste 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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management structure, and then it is trying to direct that drainage, the leachate, in a controlled 

fashion. But you can have other, say, impoundments that will essentially seep, if you will, like 

through a dike or through a berm, and those volumes of water that are then captured in that 

way, although there is not an actual, necessarily, an engineered leachate collection system, that 

is still leachate. And to the extent it were to be subsequently discharged, it would be covered by 

the proposed requirements. 

I-Hsin Lee

Thank you, Ron. We have another question here for James. This question is: with respect to 

surface water withdrawals, the BCA appears only to discuss the benefits of reduced 

impingement and entrainment. Many of the proposed regulatory options would result in less 

consumptive water use at power plants. Did EPA take into account any benefits of that reduced 

water use in its analysis? 

James Covington

We did not take into account the benefits associated with I&E, impingement and entrainment, 

and we were not able to monetize those benefits from the withdrawals. But we were able to 

look at groundwater withdrawals and come up with the monetization for that particular section, 

but not for I&E. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. I hope that answered your question, participant. A quick reminder, we are still taking 

questions as we are proceeding. So if you have any questions, type them into that box and 

submit them to us. All right, so our next question here is for Jezebele. Jezebele, someone 

wants to know, what are the benefits from requiring plants to use zero liquid discharge, or ZLD, 

to dry handle waste from fly and bottom ash ponds and to use evaporative treatment for 

scrubber waste? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

Some of the benefits for using these kinds of treatment systems are the improvement of surface 

water overall through the reduction of pollutants that are discharged into the water. Another 

benefit is the reduction of potential surface impoundment failures or at least the reduction of the 

severity of these failures. And also another benefit is the reduction of water usage. Some of 

these benefits are in more detail, as well, in the preamble and in the BCA, which is the Benefit 

Cost Analysis report. And if you have further questions, you can contact me. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Jezebele. Now we have a question for Ron. Ron, someone wants to know, 

how is new sources defined? 

Ron Jordan

Okay, so a new source is defined, for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, by 

Part 122 of the Code of Federal Regulations. I don't recall the exact provision off the top of my 

head. There are some effluent guidelines that actually have specialized definitions for new 

sources. This is not one of those. So by default, it's the definition that's in Part 122 that guides 

this. But to put it kind of simply, using a layman's term, what comes into play is the degree to 

which the processes are independent from other processes at a facility. So what does that 

mean in the case of power plants? What actually has been put into practice is that, generally 

speaking, a new source is a new generating unit at an existing facility or, of course, it could be a 

new green field type of facility altogether. But generally speaking, a modification to an existing 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

14 

generating unit has not been treated as a new source by the NPDES programs, certainly for the 

permits that we have seen in state programs that I'm aware of. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Ron. I think everyone is picking on Ron today. Here is another question for 

you. Will the cost of wastewater treatment improvements be put on the customers or the plant 

owners? 

Ron Jordan

That's certainly something that is not dictated by EPA. I think what you ultimately see in the end 

is that there is probably a combination of both going on. I think that certainly, depending on 

whether a generating unit is merchant generation or is a regulated public utility, there are 

certainly provisions available for cost recovery for some facilities. And in such cases, a portion 

or perhaps all of those costs would be passed on to the customers. But I think there are 

certainly instances where all of those costs are not able to be passed on, in which case the 

plant owner is absorbing that. So I think that is one reason why, when EPA does its analyses, 

we are certainly not able to discern necessarily, especially for every facility in every generating 

unit, the extent to which the costs will be borne by the company or by the customers. So when 

we do our analysis on the affordability for the facility, we assume that none of the costs get 

passed on to the customers. But then we also do another analysis that assumes all of the costs 

get passed on to the consumers. So in that instance, we're looking at the worst case of both 

potential outcomes. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. We have another question here for Jezebele. Jezebele, what is the 

purpose of EPA's decision not to include the benefits of best management practices, or BMPs, 

as part of the analysis of costs and benefits at the state but only in the final rule if EPA decides 

to include BMPs in the final guidelines? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

All right. The short answer for this question is pretty much resources. The Clean Water Act 

specified the factors that EPA must consider in the determination of BMPs. The cost of 

achieving the discharge requirements is one of those specific factors and, as such, we did 

include costs for the BMPs being considered in the proposed rule. However, cost benefit 

balancing is not similarly a factor that we must consider, and we did not estimate monetized 

benefits at this time. 

I-Hsin Lee

►Slide: Questions Answered By: 

Great. Thank you. Just a quick reminder for the group that's listening out there, all of your 

questions are being currently answered by a very knowledgeable panel, and here are the 

names. We have Jezebele, James, Ron, Jan, and Bill. Now it looks like we have a question 

here for James. James, the question is why did EPA assume, for the purpose of its cost-torevenue analysis, that none of the costs of the rule would be passed on to the utility rate payer? 

Are there not numerous utilities operating in states which regulate electricity markets that are 

likely to request that all of the costs of compliance with the rule be passed on to its utility rate 

payers? 

James Covington

As explained earlier in the presentation, and a few minutes ago by Jez and Ron, the purpose of 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

15 

evaluating the possible impacts of the proposed regulations on firms and plant closures and 

national electric generation, we assume initially it would pass none of the costs on to its 

customers. In this way, we look at worst case scenario for the industry. On the other hand, 

EPA also estimates the possible effects of the proposed rule on future electricity costs. In this 

case, we assumed the industry would pass all of its costs onto customers, again, allowing us to 

look at the worst case for national average prices. In reality, we expect it to vary between the 

two. Thank you. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. Thank you, James. Here's another question for Jezebele. Jezebele, please 

provide an explanation of the compliance timeline. 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

All right. The compliance timeline, EPA is proposing that certain limitations, an example, those 

that are not based on the existing BPTs standards. For those, existing direct and indirect 

discharges do not apply until July 1st, 2017. For example, if a permit is renewed before 

July 1st, 2017, the permit writer will not incorporate the associated limits into the permit until the 

next review cycle, likely by 2021. However, for any permits that are being renewed after 

July 1st, 2017, the permit writer should incorporate the new limits into the permit. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. Let's see. We have a question here for Ron. Ron, someone wants to 

know, does this proposal allow eight years for new source pretreatment standards or for existing 

source pretreatment standards? 

Ron Jordan

In the case of new sources, there is no additional time. The extension of eight years or 

consideration for up to eight years that the EPA talks about in the proposed rule, it actually 

doesn't really matter whether you are talking about pretreatment standards or for new sources 

that are direct dischargers. New sources must comply with the new limits upon the date that 

they begin discharge, begin operation and discharge. So there is no delayed implementation, if 

you will, for new sources. So the eight years only applies to existing sources. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great, great. Here's another question here for Ron. The implementation schedule is unclear. 

The proposed regulations state that implementation will be dictated in the NPDES permit. Is the 

eight year reference from the time of the permit issuance or the time from final regulation, i.e. all 

new controls must be in place no later than 2022? 

Ron Jordan

That's a really good question, and I guess I should help explain. What EPA's intent is to 

essentially make it clear that facilities don't need to comply with the new requirements 

immediately upon EPA promulgates the rule. Now certainly, some facilities already have the 

necessary equipment and processes in place, and they certainly could comply with those new 

requirements right away, or would be able to do so. What EPA was essentially doing is saying 

that the requirements are in effect three years after promulgation. So really, it's that, as 

proposed, if we go final in 2014, consistent with the consent decree, the new effluent limitations 

begin applying three years after that, in 2017. And what EPA is saying is that, since effluent 

guidelines are not self-implementing, that those requirements actually apply to an individual 

facility as their permit is reissued and that, since NPDES permits operate on five-year cycles if 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

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they're not administratively continued, that by the time that five-year cycle is up, we would 

expect that all facilities would be fully in compliance by that time. So we are not saying that 

everybody has eight years or should get eight years, but we are saying that it could take as 

much as eight years for the rule to be fully implemented. 

I-Hsin Lee

Thank you, Ron. I hope that answered your question, participant. We have several lined up for 

Jezebele. Jezebele, did the information acquired by EPA for subcategorization purposes with 

respect to geographic location reveal any pertinent differences between facilities located in the 

Great Lakes watershed and other facilities? And if yes, what are these differences? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

The answer to this question is no, EPA did not identify geographic location as the basis for 

subcategorization, and you can find further detail about this discussion in section 5 of the TDD. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Jezebele. Now we have a question regarding bottom ash. Someone wants 

to know, will flow down from bottom ash sluice water recirculation systems or the quench water 

from wet conveyers, i.e. remote submerged flight systems, be subject to the zero discharge limit 

for bottom ash sluice water? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

The answer is yes. Both of these types of systems use water to move the bottom ash, so 

therefore, these systems both generate bottom ash transport water, so therefore, they will be 

required to meet the limits for bottom ash transport water. 

I-Hsin Lee

Okay, great. Thank you. I think we have one more for Jezebele, and this one is regarding flue 

gas mercury control. For flue gas mercury control, FGMC, what additives that are added to the 

coal that could potentially end up in bottom ash be subject to the no discharge limit for the flue 

gas mercury control? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

The additives that are collected or added to the bottom ash will be subject to the bottom ash 

transport limitations. 

I-Hsin Lee

Slide: Additional Information 

Great. Thank you. Just a quick reminder, I'm going to push another slide out. Now, if you need 

additional information regarding the proposed rule, right now you will see a slide where there 

are some -- a link where you can find additional information. And a really quick reminder that 

comments must be received no later than September 20th, 2013. If you need additional 

instructions on how to submit your comments, please refer to the June 7th Federal Register for 

those instructions. And once again, if you have any technical information or need additional 

information, please contact Jezebele. If you need any additional information regarding 

economics, please contact James. All right. So, let's see, questions -- we have one for Ron. 

Ron, someone wants to know, are these proposed changes only for technology-based effluent 

limitations and, therefore, do not apply to indirect dischargers? 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

17 

Ron Jordan

So to answer the question, the proposed changes do apply to technology-based effluent 

limitations. That's what effluent guidelines are, or more precisely, effluent guidelines and 

standards. They are technology-based effluent requirements, limits, if you will, that the apply to 

both direct dischargers and indirect dischargers and new sources and existing sources. So I 

guess, just to clarify, the answer is yes, these are the technology-based effluent limits that we're 

talking about. They're not water quality-based effluent limits that we're dealing with here. But 

they apply to both indirect dischargers, which are the pretreatment standards, and the effluent 

guidelines that factor in to the NPDES permits. 

I-Hsin Lee

Okay, great. Thanks, Ron. One more question for you. One of our participants wants to know -

- he writes, did I understand that existing NG units are not affected by this? Can you clarify? 

Ron Jordan

So in this case, the question is asking whether existing natural gas units, I presume, natural 

gas-fired units, are not affected by the proposal. Because of the changes that EPA is proposing 

-- so certainly, we encourage people to take a look at the Federal Register notice and the 

discussion in that about what the scope of the proposal is -- there are certain changes that EPA 

is proposing to, for example, the applicability statement of the regulations. And while those, in 

our view, won't trigger compliance costs for facilities or change the scope of the coverage of the 

existing effluent guidelines, technically speaking, they do apply to every facility that is covered 

by these effluent guidelines, which are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations in Part 423. 

So from that perspective, the existing natural gas-fired units would be affected, although we 

don't envision that they would have any compliance costs. And similarly, we are proposing 

requirements for non-chemical metal cleaning waste. And to the extent that a natural gas-fired 

unit generates non-chemical metal cleaning waste and discharges it, then it would also be 

affected. But again, in our view, what we are proposing, there are no compliance costs that 

would be incurred. So by our analysis, no natural gas-fired units would incur any compliance 

costs, but they are, technically speaking, affected by what we are proposing here. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. I hope that answered your question, participant. Let's just throw these questions back to 

Jezebele. We have a couple for you. Someone wants to know, how will permit writers 

incorporate the non-chemical metal cleaning waste limits into facility permits? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

The non-chemical metal cleaning waste limits apply to any wastewater that is resulting from the 

cleaning of any metal process equipment without chemical compounds, such as soap, for 

example. This includes any equipment and machinery washing of metal equipment. However, 

as proposed in the rule, the proposed limits will not apply to any existing discharges of nonchemical metal cleaning wastes that are currently authorized with our copper and iron limits. 

For those discharges, the BAT limits will be set equal to the current BPT, which are the limits 

applicable to low-volume waste, so TSS and oil and grease. So for these extension to apply, 

the existing discharges must be authorized with our copper and iron limits prior to publication of 

the final rule. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great, Jezebele. Thank you. We have one more question regarding kind of the same topic. 

Someone wants to know: does the anti-circumvention provisions that require compliance prior to 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

18 

wastestream mixing apply to the non-chemical metal cleaning waste or the combined residual 

leachate? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

The anti-circumvention provisions do not apply to either non-chemical metal cleaning waste or 

combustion [inaudible] leachate. These provisions do not apply, mainly because the limits for 

these wastestreams are based on the existing BPT standards for low-volume waste, like I 

mentioned before, TSS and oil and grease -- sorry -- and they will not be included in that 

provision. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. Before we continue answering questions, I want to remind everyone that we 

do have a survey that we would like everyone to complete. So the survey will be appearing on 

your screen now. Please consider completing the survey and let us know your thoughts. We 

do appreciate your feedback as we work to improve our webcasts. So while everyone is filling 

out that survey, here is another question for Ron. Ron, does zero discharge mean no liquid 

discharge or no discharge of measurable quantities of pollutants? 

Ron Jordan

So the effluent guidelines precisely are addressing the discharges of pollutants, so from that 

perspective, the zero discharges apply to the pollutants themselves as opposed to the concept 

of discharging liquid. For example, the proposed zero discharge limit for fly ash and bottom ash 

is no discharge of pollutants in fly ash transport water or no discharge of pollutants in bottom 

ash transport water. But in practice, that will mean that facilities would not be discharging that 

because there really is no conceivable way somebody could somehow clean up that transport 

water to the point where there wouldn't be measurable quantities of some sort of pollutants out 

there. So in that case, for those ash waste treatments, people would either need to convert to a 

closed-loop system that does not discharge or to convert to a system that doesn't use transport 

water in the first place. 

I-Hsin Lee

Okay. So now I have a question for both Ron and Jez to consider. Did you, by chance, 

estimate the amount of water saved for this proposed rule? Who would like to answer first, Ron 

or Jezebele? 

Ron Jordan

I can do that. I think we talked about this earlier on, while walking through the slides. We 

estimated a reduction in the amount of water that would be used, and that's essentially based 

on -- driven mostly by people converting to a dry fly ash handling system or bottom ash handling 

system. So our estimate ranged from 50 billion gallons per year to 103 billion gallons per year, I 

believe was the number, and that was for the four preferred options. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Ron. Just another quick reminder, for any members participating today that 

are with the media, and you have questions, you can send your questions directly to EPA's 

Water press officer, Stacy Kika. Her e-mail address is kika.stacy@epa.gov. And if you have a 

chance, please complete the survey. 

Remember, do not answer the survey questions in the "Ask" box. You must click on the radio 

buttons to answer the survey. Okay. Great. Let's see, we have a question here for James. 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

19 

James, does EPA evaluate the collective cost to a sector, e.g. power plants, of concurrent rule 

changes in different programs such as the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act? 

James Covington

Yes. What we do is we look at a model called an IPM, or integrated planning model. This 

model takes into consideration all other guidelines that have been finalized the EPA has 

proposed -- finalized that EPA has completed in the past, and it's included in our analysis. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. Here is another question for Jezebele. Jezebele, was TKN, which is 

representing the sum of total nitrogen ammonia, intended to be excluded from these new limits 

for nitrate/nitrite as in? And if so, why were they? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

In developing this rule proposal for each wastestream, we first looked at factorization data, and 

then -- that is pollutants and pollutants concentration in the wastestreams we are pretty much 

focusing in. From that data, for each wastestream, we then identify a list of POC, or pollutants 

of concern, which included pollutants that were detected at sufficient frequency at treatable 

levels. And it is from that list of pollutants of concern that EPA selected specific pollutants to 

regulate. TKN was not identified as a pollutant of concern based on the data that was available 

to us during the time that we did the analysis, and I guess that if you need a reference looking to 

what I am saying here in further detail, you can look at chapter or section 6 of the TDD. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Jezebele. Now, we have a question for Ron. Ron, do you have figures for 

the number of power plants that will need to upgrade versus those that are already in 

compliance? What is the percentage of these power plants that will need a complete upgrade? 

Ron Jordan

I don't have all of those numbers in front of me right now because that can be dealt with on a 

wastestream-by-wastestream basis. But if you look at the entire regulatory option, if you will, or 

the package -- which means that for some facilities, they don't need to make any changes; 

some facilities might need to only upgrade their flue gas desulphurization system but not their 

ash systems or vice versa -- there is information in the Technical Development Documents, 

which is one of the key support documents to this proposed rule. Again, if you go to EPA's 

website for the Steam Electric Effluent Guidelines, you will see a link to that document. And in 

Table 9-2 of that document, you can see wastestream by wastestream how many facilities are 

expected to incur compliance costs. But just to give you a sense, for the four preferred options 

that I described earlier, the number of facilities ranged from 66 to 200 that would incur costs. 

And I believe we said that was -- the 200 represented about 19 percent of the total industry, and 

it's also less than half of all the coal-fired power plants. And the 66 would be obviously a much 

smaller percentage of that. I would also mention that we actually evaluated eight regulatory 

options there, and the most stringent one, which we really did not go into during this call, this 

webcast, we ended up with a number of 277. So that was the largest number of facilities that 

we estimated would incur compliance costs. Obviously, that's still, I would say, probably 

roughly a quarter of all power plants and a little more than half of all the coal-fired power plants. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. Now we have a question for Jezebele. Jezebele, why are discharge limits 

for mercury, selenium, nitrate/nitrite set at limits considerably lower than the national 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

20 

recommended water quality criteria human health values? For example, the human health 

criteria for mercury is 0.3 milligrams per kilogram, but the ELG requires an average discharge of 

119 nanograms per liter. And then, selenium human health criteria is 170 micrograms per liter, 

but the ELG requires an average of 10 micrograms per liter. Can you tell us why they were so 

much lower and more stringent? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

So when Congress established the Clean Water Act, they pretty much set up a two-pronged 

approach for addressing industrial pollution. One of these is the water quality-based approach, 

and the second one is the technology-based approach. The values that were cited in this 

question, they reflect water quality-based effluent limits that consider the water quality of the 

receiving water body. The steam electric proposed rule numbers are nationally applicable 

technology-based effluent limits which take a more broad look at generally -- and generally 

reflect the pollution reducing capability of process controls and wastewater treatment 

technologies. The two different approaches, however, they are intended to work together 

towards the CWA, or the Clean Water Act, goal of eliminating pollutant discharges. Therefore, 

the similar proposed limits reflect the capability of the treatment technologies that form the basis 

of the limits. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. We have a question here for Ron. Ron, someone wants to know, does 

Option 3a and 3b still require site-specific BAT limits based on BPJ for less than 

2,000 megawatts for as FGD wastewater, FGD meaning flue gas desulphurization? 

Ron Jordan

The answer to that is, for Option 3b, yes, it does, because Option 3b proposes BAT limits for 

FGD wastewater for those power plants with a combined wet scrubbed capacity of 

2,000 megawatts or higher. So any of the facilities that don't reach that threshold of 

2,000 megawatts wet scrubbed, but they do discharge FGD wastewater, since there is no BAT 

that has been promulgated for -- there is no BAT effluent guidelines that's been promulgated for 

this wastestream, then yes, the permitting authority is supposed to develop BAT limits based on 

their own best professional judgment. And then, in the case of Option 3a, there is actually no 

requirements proposed for -- no BAT requirements proposed for the FGD wastewater. So it 

would actually be all facilities that have the discharge FGD wastewater, even those above the 

2,000 megawatt, if you will. The permit writer would need to establish the BAT limit based on 

their best professional judgment. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Ron. We are at 12:30, so we have just 30 more minutes to answer your 

questions. A quick reminder, we will probably not be able to answer everyone's questions 

today. So if you need any additional information, you can always print out our PowerPoint 

presentation. And in those slides, you will find the contact information for our panels. 

Here is a question for James. James, does IPM include the CCR ruling? If so, what version? 

And does the IPM include the cooling water ruling? And if so, what version of that? 

James Covington

I PM does not include any rule that has not gone final. What EPA -- what we intend to do before 

final -- if any rule goes final, we will include that in our analysis. 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

21 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, James. Our next question for Jezebele, for the gasification wastewater 

category requiring an average limit of less than 22 micrograms per liter of total dissolved solids, 

TDS, in discharge wastewater stream is not very logical or efficient. A TDS concentration this 

low is essentially high purity condensate or demineralized water which should be recycled back 

into the gasification facility for use as a makeup water source for other plant needs. So setting 

the TDS limit this low does not make any sense. You wouldn't make demineralized water gas 

from the discharge of your facility. So how can you explain this? Can you explain this, the 

rationale behind this? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

Well, as explained earlier, the proposed limits reflect the capability of the technology basis for 

the proposed limits. As such, the proposed gasification limits reflect the TDS concentration 

obtained using the identified technology basis. Facilities do not have to discharge the 

wastewater. Those that elect to or choose to recycle it will be in compliance with the proposed 

limits. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. So, just a quick reminder, if you haven't completed your survey, please do 

so. We have a question here for Ron. For the FGD wastestream that employs ZLD, which is 

zero liquid discharge, is this wastestream subject to the proposed BAT limits? And if so, how? 

How does the facility establish compliance or show compliance? 

Ron Jordan

Okay. Well, I think the t best way to think of this is that the effluent guidelines apply to the 

discharges of the FGD wastewater. So if there is a discharge of FGD wastewater, then the 

limitations will apply. So then the next question is, for the facility that employs ZLD, or zero 

liquid discharge, how might that apply? And to that extent, it may depend on how the facility is 

actually employing that system. To the extent that the facility is using a ZLD system and then 

takes that distillate or condensate, whichever you wish to call it, and then uses that in another 

plant process that ultimately discharges or mixes it with another wastestream that would then 

subsequently be discharged, the compliance would be measured by monitoring that 

wastestream prior to its reuse in another process or before it gets mixed with another 

wastewater. And what you would have to show is that that distillate meets the effluent limits that 

are included in the proposed rule. If the facility is taking that condensate, however, and reusing 

it back in the process, the FGD process, there would be no need to actually monitor it because 

there would be no discharge of it. It would just stay within the process. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. We have another question here for Ron. This is in regards to a Jordan 

Memorandum. Was the Jordan Memorandum, which established that non-chemical metal 

cleaning waste was to be treated as low-volume waste in accordance with the power station's 

NPDES, TPDS, OPDS, et cetera, taken into account when stating that chemical and 

non-chemical MCW have been treated similarly since the last set of ELG? 

Ron Jordan

The first thing I want to do is issue a disclaimer and say that the Jordan Memorandum that we 

talk about here is not associated with any family member of mine. It's a happy or unhappy 

coincidence, however you want to look at that. But the answer is yes, we were certainly well 

aware of that Jordan Memorandum and what it says as well as we based our information and 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

22 

our conclusion on the large number of site visits that we conducted across the country and data 

that we collected with the industry survey. So that information was taken into account. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Now we have a couple of questions for Jezebele. The first one is in regards to the Great 

Lakes region. In total, how many facilities would the proposed rule affect in the Great Lakes 

region? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

Because pretty much there are over 1,000 steam electric facilities, we are not prepared, 

actually, for this question, to address if specific facilities or specific facilities and specific 

locations in the country, in this case, such as the Great Lakes region. I guess that for facility or 

location specific questions, you can contact me directly, and I will be more than happy to find an 

answer to your question. [Inaudible]. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great, great. Participant, you have Jezebele's e-mail address. So if you can, shoot her an 

e-mail, and she will be happy to help you. Let's see. We have a question here for Ron. Ron, 

what concerns does EPA have over storm water runoff from coal piles reaching rivers and 

streams? 

Ron Jordan

Sorry. I was still on mute there. To the extent that you have storm water running off from coal 

piles, that is typically, based on our experience, and certainly it's one of the discharges that is 

specifically covered by the current effluent guideline. That would be called coal pile runoff, and 

that has effluent limits that apply to it right now. It is not a discharge that EPA has included 

within the scope of the current revisions, so there are existing requirements that apply to it. I 

guess I would just say, generally speaking, the kind of concerns EPA would have would be just 

the extent to which the runoff might contain some of those other pollutants that are associated 

with coal. And certainly, the standards on the books try to address that to a limited extent, and 

then, of course, the NPDES permits could include additional water quality-based effluent limits 

as appropriate. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Ron. Our next question deals with best professional judgment, BPJ. 

Jezebele, this question is for you. Some of the options under the proposed rule would rely on 

BPJ rather than specify industry-wide imitations. Has EPA estimated the cost to state agencies 

of having to develop BPJ limits for hundreds of power plants? Jezebele? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

EPA estimated cost for the proposal that are incremental to the existing operation costs of 

industry. In the absence of nationally applicable BAT limits, permitting authorities are required 

to perform BPJ analysis to consider technology-based effluent limits. As such, there are not any 

incremental costs associated with BPJ analysis, and EPA did not estimate these types of costs 

in the proposed rule. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you, Jezebele. Our next question is for Ron. Ron, what type of technologies will 

be the most likely installed at power plants as a result of the new regulatory limits? Are you 

expecting biological treatment systems, IX systems? Can you give us more info, please? 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

23 

Ron Jordan

Well, that question is asked -- I guess is focused on the FGD wastewater. I will go ahead and 

actually take a stab first, talking about ash. In the case of fly ash, our expectation is that most 

facilities would convert to a dry fly ash handling system rather than try to turn that into closedloop system. That's actually a rather straightforward conversion since the ash is collected dry 

initially and then it's mixed in with the water and pumped to an ash pond. So it's actually a 

pretty straightforward retrofit, if you will, and one that has been accomplished at many power 

plants already. 

In the case of bottom ash, we think that, if EPA were to promulgate requirements for zero 

discharge for either some or all of the existing bottom ash units, then I think we would see a mix. 

We think some facilities would make a modification to the bottom of their boiler and go with kind 

of a chain drag system, submerged flight conveyor. There are several terms that are used for 

that. Or it could use that system, continue to use a wet sluicing system, and do a remote 

submerged flight conveyor type system, which we're starting to see coming into the industry 

now. That actually offers a lot of opportunity in terms of economy of scale, if you will. And then 

there's also some other types of bottom ash conversions that go with a completely dry system 

because there is some benefit associated with getting some improvements in terms of energy, 

getting more energy from the combustion process, more energy out of the coal, if you will. And 

then, of course, you could also have systems that essentially are almost a closed-loop system 

already so that they incorporate a pond or some sort of a tank system, and they are converting -

- they could convert that into a closed-loop type system. So we think, for bottom ash, there are 

a lot of opportunities in terms of ways people will try to comply with that. 

For the FGD system, our expectation is that you will see people install a combination of 

chemical precipitation and biological treatments. There are some other approaches. There are 

facilities out there now that are able to manage that process in a way, based on the metallurgy 

of the system and in terms of what they do with their gypsum, that they are able to actually 

operate that system as a zero discharge system. There are facilities out West that are able to 

also manage as a zero discharge type system. You know, it's possible that you could see some 

facilities going the ZLD approach, the zero liquid discharge system approach, and use that in a 

way. And there has also been discussion among some facilities where they might actually 

factor in a dry FGD system as part of the system at the power plant so that they can essentially 

turn the FGD system into a zero discharge -- since wet scrubbers are actually very large 

consumers of water, there could be opportunities to try to use up the excess water and manage 

the water balance in that way. But I think, for the discharging facilities, you would likely see a 

combination of chemical and biological treatment in most cases. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. Before we ask Ron more questions. I believe Bill has some additional 

information about a question that we asked earlier. The question was in regards to how many 

facilities would the proposed rule affect in the Great Lakes region. I believe Bill has some 

numbers for us. Bill? 

Bill Swietlik

Yes, I do. So just to add a little bit more information to the answer that Jezebele provided 

earlier, folks who are interested in exploring this question and some of the information on data 

more thoroughly can find, in section 3 of the Environmental Assessment Report that supports 

the proposed rulemaking, a fairly detailed discussion of the pollutant loading to the Great Lakes 

watersheds. Now, in relation to the Great Lakes watersheds, we identified, in the Environmental 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

24 

Assessment, 26 different steam electric power plants that do discharge to the Great Lakes 

watersheds in one form or the other. Of those, 14 plants discharge to Lake Michigan; four 

plants discharge to Lake Erie; and in total, these plants are contributing about 57 percent of the 

mercury wastewater into the Lake Erie system from all wastewater sources. We did do an 

estimate of the total annual discharge in the way of loadings to the Great Lakes from the steam 

electric industry, and these numbers are summarized again on page 3-22 of the Environmental 

Assessment. We estimated that roughly two million pounds of total nitrogen, 19,800 pounds of 

zinc, 6,240 pounds of selenium, 4,170 pounds of arsenic, 1,410 pounds of cadmium, and 

117 pounds of mercury are being discharged to the Great Lakes on an annual basis. So for the 

person who asked that question, there is a little more detailed information so you have a more 

complete answer. I hope that helps you. Thanks. 

I-Hsin Lee

Thank you, Bill. Here, we're going to toss the questions back to Ron, a very popular guy today. 

Someone wants to know, will the final rule for existing sources be based solely on which option 

receives the most support in the public comments period? 

Ron Jordan

Well, the answer to that, I'm sure we are all happy to hear, is no. And in fact, I'm not even sure 

if I would hang on the word "solely" in this case. EPA certainly invites people to provide input 

and feedback, and what EPA is looking at is the Clean Water Act specifies -- in the provision for 

these effluent guidelines, the Clean Water Act is expressly clear about the types of factors EPA 

is supposed to consider in determining what represents best available technology economically 

achievable. And certainly, popularity is not even listed in there, nor -- I don't think EPA has ever 

really considered that. What we are looking for is to hear from people about whether they think 

we are in the right place in terms of what we've proposed, if there are certain things that we've 

overlooked and we need to be taking into account, and that's the kind of input that we are 

looking for. But I think, in terms of just a strict popularity contest, comments like that really 

aren't going to be particularly helpful for EPA. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. That was very informative. We will give Ron a break for now. Let's throw it 

back to Jezebele. Jezebele, can you please indicate where in the 2010 Information Collection 

Request, the ICR, that EPA asks utilities for distances from ash ponds and coal ash waste sites 

and private/public wells? And can you also indicate where in the 2010 ICR that EPA asks 

utilities for the distance between the bottom ash -- the bottom of their ash waste site ponds and 

landfills and the uppermost water table or the aquifers? Can you give us information about 

that? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

Okay. Regarding the survey or the ICR back in 2010, you can find most information regarding 

ponds and landfills in general in Part F and Part G. However, the information that is actually 

indicated in these questions, the distance of ponds or surface impoundments and landfills from 

local private or public wells, as well as the distance between the uppermost water table and the 

[inaudible] aquifers, this kind of information was not requested in our survey. Thanks. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. All right, Ron got a drink of water, and now he's ready to answer more 

questions. This question is in regards to local versus national limits. So someone wants to 

know, the proposal calls for local limits for bromides and TDS and not national guidelines for 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

25 

these pollutants. Why did EPA decide to do that? 

Ron Jordan

I think the way to look at this is, as part of this rulemaking, EPA has put a great deal of effort into 

identifying technologies that appear to be feasible and available and that potentially are 

economically achievable, and we also look at a variety of other factors including cross-media 

transfers, what the Clean Water Act refers to as non-water quality environmental impacts. So 

as part of the development of this, we identified the zero liquid discharge system -- which is a 

thermal system; it's based on evaporation -- as a technology that was potentially available and, 

in fact, is used at some power plants in the U.S. as well as at power plants in other countries. 

And that technology addresses pollutants that are not addressed by some of the other 

technologies that we evaluated as part of our regulatory options. 

So for example, with the FGD wastewater, which is what this question is really getting at, we 

established or we prepared some technology option that was based on chemical precipitation 

treatments which can be quite effective at dealing with certain types of pollutants, such as 

mercury and arsenic, but is not effective at dealing with other pollutants, for example, selenium. 

But then there are other pollutants that neither the chemical precipitation nor the biological 

treatments are particularly effective at addressing, and that's where the evaporator system, the 

ZLD system, can come into play. 

So that is one of the options that EPA has proposed. I did say that there were actually eight 

different regulatory options that EPA proposed for existing sources. Four of those were flagged 

as the preferred set of options, if you will, but the other four are still there in the proposal and 

are actually still viable potential outcomes for the rulemaking, which is what we're soliciting 

comment on, of course. But essentially what we were saying was that EPA -- and again, I 

would suggest that you read the full discussion in the Federal Register notice -- but what EPA 

said was that we were not selecting Option 5, as we called it, which included that particular 

requirement for the FGD wastewater. And what was really at play here was basically the high 

total cost of the rule and actually some potential concern about economic achievability. So I 

think we -- I would say we had some warning signs. I don't think we reached the conclusion that 

it was not economically achievable, but certainly we, at time of proposal, came to the conclusion 

that it looked like this did not represent BAT which, again, is a national type standard. 

At the same time, though, what we wanted to do was to point out what that technology was able 

to do for discharges, if you will, in terms of if you have certain areas of the country -- which, in 

fact, is the case happening -- where there are pollutants that are present in the FGD wastewater 

that are causing problems, bromides is a perfect example of that, where there are problems, for 

example, in Pennsylvania. There are problems in North Carolina, just to name two places, that 

are caused by bromides. And people have speculated -- well, it's gone beyond speculating -- 

that power plants are certainly a contributing factor. They're not the only factor for bromide 

issues, TDS issues, in Pennsylvania. And a power plant was clearly implicated as a cause of a 

bromide issue at a water treatment plant in North Carolina. 

So what we were saying in our Federal Register notice was that EPA was not selecting that 

regulatory option as BAT on a national basis but that there could still be water quality issues, 

site specific water quality issues in various parts of the country. And what we were doing was 

drawing attention to the fact that there is a way to deal with those -- or one potential way to deal 

with that issue, to the extent that it's bromides coming from the FGD wastewater system, is that 

a permitting authority could still set a water quality-based effluent limit based on the ability of 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

26 

that technology. And it's just saying that that technology was available, that this wasn't just a 

wastewater that nothing could be dealt with. So that's where we were going with that. We 

weren't necessarily suggesting that bromide limits be established in every permit, but we were 

saying there was an alternative to what we were doing in the effluent guideline. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Here is another question for you, Ron. What concerns does EPA have over storm water 

runoff from coal piles reaching rivers and streams? 

Ron Jordan

I think we touched on that one already. 

I-Hsin Lee

Okay. Let's go to the next one. The FGD wastewater discharge limitations must be met prior to 

co-mingling with any other wastestream. So does that mean no CWF, combined wastestream 

formula, can be used in this situation? 

Ron Jordan

That is correct. What EPA is finding in terms of power plant operations and the pollutants that 

are present and the potential for interference in terms of being able to monitor for compliance 

when the FGD wastewater is mixed with other wastestreams would cause challenges, we think 

insurmountable challenges, to try and use the combined wastestream formula. So the proposal 

would have plants monitor for compliance prior to co-mingling that wastestream with other 

waste. Certainly as an example, you could look at the mercury effluent limits and the presence 

of mercury in other wastewaters that would likely be mixed -- that the FGD wastewater would 

likely mix, for example, ash wastewater or potentially coal-power runoff. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. We have a question regarding using soap for metal cleaning. Using soap, would that be 

considered chemical cleaning, Jezebele or Ron? 

Jezebele Alicea-Virella

Yes. As mentioned before in one of the previous questions, yes, using soap to clean metal 

equipment, process equipment, it is considered chemical metal cleaning waste. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Okay, here is another question. Why is iron discharge limits cited in the non-chemical 

cleaning discussion so low, at 1 milligram per liter, which is the same as the copper limit? What 

was the basis behind this? 

Ron Jordan

What EPA was doing here in this proposal is there is an existing standard right now for metal 

cleaning waste, which includes both non-chemical metal cleaning waste and chemical metal 

cleaning waste. It's what we call a BPT effluent limit, a best practicable technology limit, so 

that's another type of effluent guideline that's currently on the books and has been since the 

'80s or before, for that matter. So what EPA was proposing as part of this rulemaking is to set 

the BAT limit equal to the BPT limit which, like I said, is essentially already there at 1 milligrams 

per liter for both copper and iron. 
EPA Webcast Transcript - Steam Electric Power Generating ELG August 20, 2013 

27 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. It looks like we have time for only one more question. Once again, we want 

to apologize that we couldn't answer all the questions from everyone today. If you need more 

information, all our speakers' contact information is in the PowerPoint. So don't forget to go 

ahead and download it and print that off so you can contact our speakers today. Our last 

question, of course, is for Ron again. Ron, based on the preamble, EPA will be working to 

combine the compliance requirements or timing with the CCR. How and when will this be 

clarified? 

Ron Jordan

That's the $64 million question, or maybe we need inflation to take that higher. This is an issue 

that EPA has spent a lot of time on in terms of coordinating both with, actually, the Solid Waste 

office as well as the Air office because, as everybody knows, there is a lot of work looking at air 

emissions controls for power plants, too. The effluent guidelines, right now we have a consent 

decree deadline of May of next year to take final action. The CCR rulemaking was proposed -- I 

forget the date on that -- just recently issued a Notice of Data Availability, taking some more 

comments, and EPA is working to finalize that rulemaking also. And I think, at every 

opportunity, EPA tries to explain how we are trying to work these two together. Certainly, I think 

when EPA takes final action on one or both of these rules, you will always see EPA explain how 

we envision these two rules fitting together. I think we are getting a pretty clear vision of how 

they can fit together and not work at cross purposes. They actually can dovetail quite nicely 

together, and that's what EPA is trying to finalize, that effort. 

I-Hsin Lee

Great. Thank you. Well, it looks like that's all the time we have for today. One final reminder to 

submit your comments no later than September 20th, 2013. If you need more additional 

information on how to submit your comments, please refer to the June 7 Federal Register for 

instructions. 

So at this time, I would like to conclude today's webcast. I want to thank all of our speakers, Bill, 

Ron, Jezebele and James. You guys, I don't know how you answered all those questions, but 

you did great. And so, of course, thank you, everyone, for joining us today. And this ends our 

webcast for today.