Opinion ID: 78056
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alternative Treatment-Based Approach

Text: Responding to the detection of this fluid movement and having held a meeting with industry representatives, environmental groups, local governments and other stakeholders, the EPA issued a proposed revision of its regulations on 7 July 2000. This revision would have allowed existing Class I wells in specific areas in Florida to continue to inject if the owners or operators of those wells met certain further treatment requirements. More specifically, the EPA proposed two options that were to apply to all existing Class I municipal disposal wells that had caused or might cause movement of contaminants into USDWs. Revision to UIC Requirements, 65 Fed.Reg. 42,234. Option 1 would have allowed the continued use of wells as long as the facility in question provided advanced wastewater treatment, high-level disinfection, and a non-endangerment demonstration to show that the injectate would not cause a USDW to exceed any national primary drinking water regulations or other health-based standards. Id. at 42,244. This demonstration would have focused on any contaminants that still exceeded the relevant levels after the specified level of advanced wastewater treatment. Id. at 42,239. It would have required a well-owner to identify any such contaminants in the injectate and demonstrate that they would not cause similar exceedences in the USDW at issue. Id. The proposal explained that this demonstration requirement could have been satisfied by something as simple as reference to existing technical literature describing die-off rates for viruses and other pathogens, or how metals bind in soils compared to the results of ground water sampling and analysis pursuant to § 146.13. Revision to UIC Requirements, 65 Fed.Reg. at 42,240. Option 2 would have required facilities to conduct an in-depth hydrogeological demonstration that the injection operation would not cause fluids that could migrate into a USDW to exceed any national primary drinking water regulation or other health based standard. Id. at 42,239. The Option 2 demonstration, at a minimum, would have required ground-water modeling, geochemical analysis, and effluent and ground-water monitoring and analysis. Id. If the demonstration were unsuccessful, the facility in question would be required to provide advanced treatment as necessary to ensure that injectate would not cause any violation. Id. Option 2 also included a sunset provision which would have required high-level disinfection and advanced wastewater treatment at those facilities by 2015 regardless of any hydrogeological demonstration. Id. at 42,240. The area in which the proposed revision applied included the following counties: Brevard, Broward, Charlotte, Collier, Flagler, Glades, Hendry, Highlands, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lee, Manatee, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pinellas, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Sarasota, and Volusia. These counties were included because their underlying geology is predominated by carbonate rocks  a geologic condition which generally involves fractures, faults, and solution cavities that provide preferential pathways for the movement of underground fluids. CE1 at 76; 65 Fed.Reg. at 42,236-37. In connection with this proposed rule, the EPA requested public comment as to (1) whether it should select Option 1, Option 2, or a combination of the two, id. at 42,240; (2) the most appropriate of four proposed levels of wastewater treatment under Option 1, id. at 42,239; (3) the need to require pretreatment as an additional condition under Option 2 to address contaminants that might move through a treatment system and enter into a USDW at concentrations of concern, id. at 42,240; (4) whether owners and operators were able to provide the kind of hydrogeological and other information necessary for a successful demonstration under Option 2, id.; (5) whether there was a need for any additional monitoring requirements for the Final Rule, id. at 42,239; (6) whether the proposed rule should apply to existing wells only, or ... also ... to new wells, id. at 42,238; (7) with regard to the sunset provision in Option 2, which of the four levels of advanced wastewater treatment and nutrient removal proposed under Option 1 should be required, id. at 42,240; (8) the general need to require pretreatment [by industrial users] as an additional condition of authorization, extending the industrial pretreatment standards presently required by the FDEP, id. at 42,239; and, finally, (9) comparing the various means of domestic wastewater disposal in Florida, and considering the effects ... those methods have on Florida's fragile environment, whether this proposal may result in the increased or decreased use of reuse or other disposal practices such as ocean or other surface water disposal, id. at 42,240. [5] The EPA received just under 1200 comments and also held a series of public meetings during the comment period.
The same year the proposed options were published, Congress directed the EPA to study the relative risks of deep well injection, ocean disposal, surface discharge, and aquifer recharge of treated effluent in South Florida. In April 2003, the EPA published a Relative Risk Assessment (Risk Assessment). Therein the EPA confirmed that effluent from some Florida Class I wells had migrated out of the permitted injection zones and, in a few instances, into USDWs. CE1 at 413. The study also concluded that each alternative disposal method posed enough risk to human health and the environment that none was clearly preferable to underground injection. CE1 at 611-12. The EPA issued a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) as to the Risk Assessment and its underlying data on 5 May 2003 and requested public comment as to the potential impact of the Risk Assessment on the July 2000 proposed options. Underground Injection Control Program  Revision of Underground Injection Control Requirements for Class I Municipal Wells in Florida; Notice of Data Availability, 68 Fed. Reg. 23,666 (May 5, 2003) (proposed rules to be codified at 40 C.F.R. pt. 146). Specifically, the EPA also asked for comments on (1) an alternative option for defining the appropriate level of wastewater treatment required for continued injection (the proposed rule had suggested 4 specific levels of biochemical oxygen demand with disinfection, some also involving nutrient removal) [6] ; (2) the practicability and feasibility of Option 2 as proposed  particularly as it incorporated an in-depth hydrogeological demonstration  including any suggestions for viable alternatives to the sunset provision requiring treatment by 2015; and (3) the possibility of reclassifying certain Class I wells as Class V wells, thereby requiring them to meet higher wastewater treatment standards instead of changing the standards for all Class I wells. Id. at 23,672-73. The EPA received a little over 200 additional comments in response to the Risk Assessment NODA.
The EPA published a Final Rule revising its UIC regulations on 22 November 2005. According to this Rule, which took effect on 22 December 2005, owners and operators of existing Class I municipal wells have a choice: (1) They may continue to operate under the no-fluid-movement standard, assuming their wells have not been deemed likely to cause fluid movement. If their effluent reaches a USDW, they face the consequences under that standard as originally promulgated. Underground Injection Control Program  Revision to the Federal Underground Injection Control Requirements for Class I Municipal Disposal Wells in Florida, 70 Fed.Reg. 70,513, 70,531-32 (Nov. 22, 2005) (to be codified at 40 C.F.R. pt. 146). Or, (2) they may continue their operations, despite evidence of fluid movement, as long as, within five years after 22 December 2005, they meet additional treatment requirements. Id. In publishing this Final Rule, the EPA explained that these new requirements  including secondary treatment[] and high-level disinfection  provide USDWs a level of protection equivalent to that afforded by the no-fluid-movement standard. [7] CE1 at 81. The Final Rule further requires that owners and operators with significant industrial users implement a pretreatment program that meets certain Florida standards designed to prevent industrial contaminants from endangering the public. Finally, the Final Rule applies to all existing and new Class I wells in the specified area. Underground Injection Control Program  Revision, 70 Fed.Reg. at 70,532. The EPA observed that the Final Rule was essentially a modified version of Option 1 of the July 2000 Proposed Rule and explained that the non-endangerment demonstration requirement had been eliminated because the Final Rule had adopted a treatment standard which would necessarily eliminate any concern about microorganisms remaining after treatment. Id. at 70,524. The EPA further explained that uncertainties about the geology of certain counties in Florida make demonstrations inadequate to fully characterize or predict movement of pathogens in the subsurface and for this reason, the `demonstration' option provided in the proposed rule is not an appropriate way of ensuring non-endangerment. CE1 at 109, 108.
The Sierra Club, Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach City filed timely Petitions for Review of this Final Rule on 19 January 2006, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 300j-7(a)(2). The next day, City of Cooper City, City of Miramar, City of Sunrise, City of Ft. Lauderdale and City of Margate also filed timely Petitions for Review. The Municipalities' petitions were consolidated with the County's in February 2006, and Sierra Club's petition was, in turn, consolidated with the all of those in March 2006.