Opinion ID: 519994
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Monsanto and Ethyl

Text: 236 Petitioners Monsanto and Ethyl similarly claim that the EPA failed to adequately account for wastewater characteristics in setting BPT limits and that the EPA's subcategorization scheme is therefore unlawful. Monsanto claims specifically that plants using BPT technology may not be able to achieve the EPA's TSS limits where their wastewaters contain high total-dissolved-solids (TDS) levels and that the EPA should have created a separate subcategory for plants that have high levels of TDS in their wastewater. Monsanto maintains that two of its plants will be unable to comply with the TSS limits for this reason. Similarly, Ethyl asserts that its Elgin plant will be unable to comply with the TSS limits because the plant's wastestream contains high levels of brine. Ethyl claims that dilution is necessary to treat wastewater with high brine content but that the BPT effluent limits are based on process flow only, without allowing for dilution. Ethyl notes that it may be possible to meet the standards based on effluent only but that the EPA has not identified the appropriate technology for doing so and therefore has not accounted for the cost of such technology in its BPT limitations. 237 In response to these objections, the EPA asserts that Ethyl failed to submit any comments during the rule-making proceeding that would establish that a plant's TDS levels would preclude compliance or greatly increase the cost of compliance and that only one company in the industry, Monsanto, claimed during the rulemaking to have a compliance problem caused by high TDS levels in its wastestream. 179 The EPA states that it therefore declined to create a subcategory based on TDS levels because there was not sufficient information in the record to demonstrate that any plant in the OCPSF industry could not comply with the TSS limits as a result of elevated TDS levels. 238 The EPA notes that while CMA also commented on the relationship between TDS and TSS, its comments weighed against the creation of a separate subcategory based on TDS influent levels. 180 The EPA determined that technology does exist to clarify wastestreams with especially high levels of solids and that facilities use a variety of methods to ensure the effective biological treatment of unique wastestreams that contain pollutants that impede biological treatments. The EPA noted, for example, that technologies such as reverse osmosis can eliminate materials in a plant's wastewater which may inhibit or upset biological treatment systems. 181 239 In specific response to Monsanto's comment, the EPA stated that three facilities which have TDS levels exceeding 5,000 mg/l have nevertheless achieved good TSS removal. 182 The EPA further concluded that few, if any, OCPSF plants have TDS levels of sufficient magnitude to impair TSS removal. 183 Accordingly, the EPA rejected Monsanto's request that a correction factor for high TDS levels be incorporated into the final TSS limits. 184 240 Although Monsanto takes issue with the EPA's responses, we conclude that the EPA's decision not to establish a special subcategory based upon TDS levels was reasonable. The EPA found, based upon the record before it, that it was uncertain at best whether any plant in the industry had TDS levels that precluded effective treatment and that if there were any such problems, they would be unique to Monsanto, the only company to claim TDS problems. Therefore, Monsanto's concerns would be more properly addressed through an FDF variance proceeding than through the national rulemaking. 241 The EPA notes that, unlike Monsanto, Ethyl never submitted comments--in response to either the proposed regulations or the three subsequent public notices--to inform the EPA that it believed its Elgin plant would experience TSS compliance problems as a result of the level of TDS in the plant's wastewater. Ethyl asserts that it does not suggest that the EPA should have created a separate subcategory for its Elgin plant, but rather submits the argument that the Elgin plant cannot meet the TSS limits as evidence that the EPA failed adequately to consider wastewater characteristics in establishing BPT. To the extent that Ethyl challenges the overall validity of the EPA's subcategorization approach, based on the EPA's alleged failure to adequately consider wastestream characteristics, that issue is addressed above. Furthermore, as we also conclude above, the fact that a single plant may have difficulty in meeting BPT requirements due to unique characteristics of that plant, does not render the entire rulemaking invalid. To the extent that Ethyl does raise concerns unique to its Elgin plant, those issues are properly raised through an FDF variance proceeding rather than through the national rulemaking.