S.EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Water
WH-556
Washington, DC 20460
EPA-822-F-92-001
November 1992
Availability of Removal Credits
(Revisions to 40 CFR
Part 403) -- Fact Sheet
Background
Removal credits increase the amount of a
pollutant that an industrial user (IU) may
discharge to a Publicly Owned Treatment Works
(POTW) and still comply with national
categorical pretreatment standards. Removal
credits do this by taking pollutant removal by
the POTW into account when the POTW sets
discharge limits for the IU. Removal credits are
intended to prevent redundant treatment where
the IU and the POTW to which it discharges
remove the same pollutant. Clean Water Act
(CWA) section 307(b) (1) allows removal credits
provided that:
• The combined pollutant removal by the
POTW and the IU equals what is required of
direct dischargers, and
• Revising the standard does not prevent the
POTW's use or disposal of its sludge in
accordance with CWA 405.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
ruled in 1986 that removal credits could not be
granted until EPA promulgates its sludge use
and disposal regulations under the 1987
Amendments to the Clean Water Act (CWA).
Those regulations are being promulgated today.
Effect of Today's Rule on the Availability of
Removal Credits
Today's rule makes removal credits available for
73 pollutants in POTW sludges that are used or
disposed of in a manner covered by these
regulations.
An appendix containing two lists of pollutants
that are eligible for removal credit is being
added to the removal credit regulations at 41)
CFR 403.7.
• The first list, Appendix G-I, contains the
pollutants controlled for the various use i>r
disposal practices regulated by the Part 503
regulation. If a POTW complies with the
pollutant limit for its use or disposal practice
and complies with the other requirements in
Part 503 for that practice, the POTW may be
approved to grant removal credits for that
pollutant so long as other EPA procedural
and substantive requirements found at 40
CFR 403.7 are met.
• The second list, Appendix G-II, lists certain
pollutants by use or disposal practice and a
concentration for each pollutant. EPA has
determined that these pollutants do not pose
an unreasonable risk to public health and the
environment at the concentrations listed. If
the concentration of a pollutant in a POTW's
sludge is below the listed amount, the POTW
may apply to EPA (or an approved state
program) for removal credit authority for that
pollutant under 40 CFR 403.7.
• In addition, removal credits are available for
pollutants in sludge that is sent to a
Municipal Solid Waste Landfill that complies
with EPA's separate rule applicable to those
facilities (40 CFR 258).
Removal credits are not available for all
pollutants or use and disposal practices at this
time. For some pollutants they are available only
tor a limited number of use or disposal practices.
Removal credits will be available for additional
pollutants and sludge use and disposal practices
only when EPA, after public notice and
comment, controls those pollutants or
determines that they do not present an
unreasonable risk to public health and the
environment when present in sewage sludge.
EPA's Plans for Additional Pollutants
EPA will evaluate additional pollutants as it
prepares the second round of Part 503
regulations as required by the 1987
Amendments to the CWA.
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