Opinion ID: 516043
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Toxic Pollutants: The Bioassay Test

Text: 32 Having determined that notice and comment opportunity for the toxic effluent limitations was adequate, we turn to the substantive attacks on the toxic effluent limitations. We address first API's challenges to the validity of the test EPA has selected to establish the toxicity level of drilling fluids. That is a process known as the bioassay test. See supra note 6. 33 API makes three separate challenges to the test. API first contends that the toxicity test demonstrates too high a degree of variability of test results and that this test variability renders the toxicity limitation arbitrary and capricious. Here we deal with issues not of fact or law but of scientific measurement. In assessing difficult issues of scientific method and laboratory procedure, we must defer to a great extent to the expertise of the EPA. See Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 462 U.S. 87, 103, 103 S.Ct. 2246, 2255, 76 L.Ed.2d 437 (1983). There the Supreme Court recognized that a reviewing court should be at its most deferential in reviewing an agency's scientific determinations in an area within the agency's expertise. 34 In considering the bioassay test, we must observe that there is no test which has found more favorable acceptance. In the Alaska permit litigation, API challenged the test on other grounds, but conceded that the test was the most widely accepted benchmark for toxicity evaluations by EPA. API, 787 F.2d at 978. Given the widespread acceptance of this test, we find no basis for substituting our judgment for that of the agency. The choice of the bioassay test was within the limits of agency discretion. 35 API next contends that while the EPA set overall toxicity limitations using the bioassay test, it should instead have set limitations for specific toxic pollutants. The regulations, however, do not require EPA to identify and regulate specific toxic pollutants in setting BAT effluent limitations. See 40 C.F.R. Sec. 125.2(d)(3) (1987). Previous limitations that regulated a characteristic of a waste stream without identifying specific pollutants have been upheld. See, e.g., BASF Wyandotte, 598 F.2d at 651 (limiting Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) in a waste stream). Recent amendments to the Act support the view that EPA may set limits on toxicity without regulating specific toxic pollutants. In developing information on methods for measuring water quality criteria for toxic pollutants, the Act specifically provides for establishing such measurements on other bases than pollutant-by-pollutant criteria, including biological monitoring and assessment methods. 33 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1314(a)(8) (West Supp.1988). Toxicity testing is a form of biological monitoring. 36 Additionally, the statutory definition of effluent limitations includes regulation of the concentrations of pollutants. 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1362(11) (1982). The toxicity test at issue here measures the lethal concentration of a toxic pollutant that will kill test organisms. See API, 787 F.2d at 978. Accordingly, the toxicity test is an appropriate effluent limitation gauge. 37 API also contends that the toxicity test procedure is invalid because it has not been approved in accordance with EPA regulations pertaining either to approved or alternative test procedures for pollutants. See 40 C.F.R. Secs. 136.3, 136.4, 136.5 (1987). These regulations, however, do not apply. EPA regulations provide that EPA must use approved test procedures under 40 C.F.R. Part 136 for the analyses of pollutants having approved methods under that part, and according to a test procedure specified in the permit for pollutants with no approved methods. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 122.44(i)(1)(iv) (1987). Because many of the pollutants covered by the permit do not have approved test methods, EPA may use a test procedure specified in the permit. Id. 38