Opinion ID: 519994
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Complex Wastestreams

Text: 279 Many of the OCPSF plants use a variety of processes to produce a number of different organic chemicals or plastics, and, as a result, the wastestreams from these plants include several pollutants, making the wastestreams complex. Monsanto and Dow contend that current analytical techniques cannot reliably measure low pollutant concentrations in a complex wastestream due to interference from other chemicals and that, therefore, the low effluent levels required by the BAT limitations cannot be achieved by their plants. 280 The EPA has developed comprehensive Guidelines Establishing Test Procedures for the Analysis of Pollutants, known as Part 136. 212 The EPA has determined minimum levels at which these analytical techniques can reliably measure the concentration of a pollutant without interference from other pollutants through a calibration process by which the known concentration of each pollutant is analyzed. The EPA has determined that the limitations are all well above the minimum levels for reliable detection. 213 281 The EPA purports to have accounted in this fashion for the problems of analytical uncertainty and interference from other compounds. Monsanto's and Dow's contentions amount to the argument that their studies are contrary to the EPA's and that their studies show the BAT limitations to be within a range that will be affected by analytical uncertainty and interference. This issue turns on a question of analytical chemistry that this court could not resolve without performing independent laboratory work, and that is beyond both its power and its technical capacity. When reviewing an agency's scientific determinations in an area within the agency's technical expertise, a reviewing court must be at its most deferential. 214 We defer to the EPA's determination of this issue. 282