EPA sets new discharge limits for power plants

The first federal rule on toxic metals in wastewater discharged by power plants, announced Wednesday, won’t be expensive for most utilities.

The rule is the second new standard that will affect how utilities handle coal ash, which is rich in metals, and other byproducts. The Environmental Protection Agency issued new standards for ash disposal in December.

Coal-fired power plants dump 5.5 billion pounds of wastewater into lakes and rivers each year – half of the toxic pollutants discharged by all industries. EPA said the wastewater rule will reduce those pollutants by 1.4 billion pounds a year.

Technologies already in use can achieve the reductions, EPA said. Only 134 of the nation’s nearly 1,100 coal-fired power plants will have to spend more money to comply with the rule, it said.

Duke Energy has said much of its work to comply with December’s ash disposal rule will also help meet the wastewater standards. Duke is among utilities moving to handling ash in dry form, eliminating wastewater.

The company was digesting the final version of the rule Wednesday and had no immediate comment.

“Today’s rule will make a huge dent in the nation’s largest source of toxic water pollution,” said Abel Russ, an attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group. “This is a significant step forward, and it will directly benefit human health and the environment.”

Many metals in ash, such as arsenic and mercury, accumulate in the environment for years once released.

About 23,600 miles of rivers and streams are damaged by metals, EPA says. Arsenic has been detected at the bottom of Charlotte’s main water source, Mountain Island Lake, near Duke’s retired Riverbend power plant.

Mercury can lower IQs of children exposed to it in fish. Arsenic can increase cancer risks.

EPA considered a range of options that would cut toxic discharges by up to 2.6 billion pounds. The final rule settled about midway through that range.

“Of the options in the proposal, we chose a very strong option,” Ken Kopocis, EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for water, told reporters.

Kopocis said EPA delayed the effective date of the wastewater rule, to between 2018 and 2023, to give utilities time to plan how they will comply with two ash-related rules.

“This will allow the industry to make rational decisions on where they want to make investments” in fuel and waste handling, he said.

This story was originally published September 30, 2015 at 4:38 PM with the headline "EPA sets new discharge limits for power plants."