Pennsylvania Code › Title 25 - ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION › Part I - Department of Environmental Protection › Subpart A - Preliminary Provisions › Article II - Statements of Policy › Chapter 16 - WATER QUALITY TOXICS MANAGEMENT STRATEGY-STATEMENT OF POLICY › Subchapter A - GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPMENT OF CRITERIA FOR TOXIC SUBSTANCES AND WATER QUALITY CRITERIA FOR TOXIC SUBSTANCES › WATER QUALITY CRITERIA FOR TOXIC SUBSTANCES › Section 16.51 - Human health and aquatic life criteria

Current through Register Vol. 54, No. 28, July 13, 2024
(a) Chapter 93, Table 5 lists the human
						  health and aquatic life criteria for toxic substances which the Department uses
						  in development of effluent limitations in NPDES Permits and for other purposes.
						  The Department will maintain a table of site-specific human health and aquatic
						  life criteria that have been developed or reviewed and approved by the
						  Department. The approved analytical procedures and detection limits for these
						  substances will be listed, as appropriate, in Table 2A. The human health
						  criteria, which include exposures from drinking water and fish consumption, are
						  further defined as to the specific effect (that is, cancer or threshold health
						  effects). For those aquatic life criteria which are a function of local water
						  quality conditions and are specified as a formula, such as several of the heavy
						  metals, the hardness and pH values used to derive the appropriate water quality
						  criteria will be determined by instream measurements or best estimates,
						  representative of the median concentrations or conditions of the receiving
						  stream for the applicable time period and design conditions on a case-by-case
						  basis. Some of these criteria may be superseded for the Delaware Estuary, Ohio
						  River Basin, Lake Erie Basin, and Genesee River Basin under interstate and
						  international compact agreements with the Delaware River Basin Commission, Ohio
						  River Valley Sanitation Commission and International Joint Commission
						  respectively. The toxics substances in Chapter 93, Table 5 without a PP NO are
						  State-derived criteria. Water quality criteria for the Great Lakes System are
						  in §
													93.8e, Tables 6 and 7. Criteria in
						  §
													93.8c, Table 5 may apply to the
						  Great Lakes System for those substances not listed in Table 6. Criteria may be
						  developed for the Great Lakes System for substances other than those listed in
						  Table 5 or 6 under the methodologies in §
													16.61 (relating to special
						  provisions for the Great Lakes System).
(b) If the Department determines that the
						  natural quality of a surface water segment is of lower quality than the
						  applicable criteria listed in Chapter 93, Table 5, the natural quality shall
						  constitute the aquatic life criterion for that segment. Notice of all draft
						  natural quality determinations shall be published in the
Pennsylvania
						  Bulletin
and be subject to a minimum 45-day comment period. The
						  Department will maintain a publicly available list of surface waters and
						  parameters where this subsection applies, and will, from time to time, submit
						  appropriate amendments to these chapters. Natural quality determinations are
						  documented in stream investigation reports or water quality criteria rationale
						  documents.