Opinion ID: 516043
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Toxic Pollutants: Cadmium and Mercury

Text: 48 The NRDC's final challenge to the toxicity limitations is its contention that the EPA should have regulated discharges of cadmium and mercury. Trace amounts of cadmium and mercury are found in barite, which is a compound contained in drilling fluids. See API, 787 F.2d at 971-72; 50 Fed.Reg. 23586 (1985). Cadmium and mercury and their compounds are listed as toxic pollutants. See 40 C.F.R. Secs. 401.15(11), (45) (1987). 49 Different types of barite deposits contain varying amounts of cadmium and mercury. Bedded deposits of barite (often referred to as clean barite) contain low metal levels, while vein deposits have much higher concentrations of cadmium and mercury. See API, 787 F.2d at 973 n. 13. Use of clean barite would reduce toxic discharges of cadmium and mercury. 50 EPA decided not to impose limits on the concentration of cadmium and mercury in discharged barite, because it said it did not know how much clean barite is available. It stated that additional data is needed on the availability of barite which contains mercury and cadmium at the minimum concentrations prior to setting an effluent limitation on these metals. 51 Fed.Reg. at 24912. Although EPA has proposed national limitations on cadmium and mercury concentrations in discharged drill fluids that would require use of clean barite, see 50 Fed.Reg. at 34611, and the general permit for oil drilling in Alaska set such limits, see API, 787 F.2d at 972-73, EPA concluded in this permit that [t]he large number of operations in the Gulf of Mexico prevent the [EPA] Regions from concluding that adequate supplies of clean barite currently are available for all Gulf operations. 51 Fed.Reg. at 24912. 51 We can accept the EPA's statement that it does not have complete information as to the size of the potential supply of clean barite and how long it will be available, but we perceive no justification for the agency's failure to provide in the Gulf of Mexico permit, as it did in the Alaska permit, that clean barite should be used as long as it is available. Congress has demonstrated its intent to require industry to do as much as possible to control toxic discharges. See 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1311(b)(2)(A)(i) (BAT controls for toxic pollutants should result in reasonable further progress toward the national goal of eliminating the discharge of all pollutants). We hold that the agency's failure to provide any regulation at all on mercury and cadmium discharges is invalid.