ii | . ,	Office of Water
United States	r
EPA 821 F 21 002
oEPA Environmental Protection
A g e n cy	Ma rch 2021
Final Clean Water Act Methods Update
Rule for the Analysis of Effluent
Summary
EPA finalized specific changes to analytical test
procedures that are used by industries and
municipalities to analyze the chemical, physical, and
biological components of wastewater and other
environmental samples that are required by
regulations under the Clean Water Act. The changes
include:
¦	revised EPA methods;
¦	new and revised methods published by voluntary
consensus standard bodies, such as ASTM
International and the Standard Methods
Committee;
¦	new and updated methods developed by the U.S.
Geological Survey;
¦	methods reviewed under the Alternate Test
Procedures (ATP) program; and
¦	minor changes to quality assurance and quality
control within individual methods.
Background
EPA approves analytical methods for measuring
regulated pollutants in wastewater, as contained in
the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 40 Part
136. The regulated community and laboratories use
these approved methods for determining
compliance with National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) permits or other
monitoring requirements. Often, these entities have
a choice in deciding which approved method they
will use to measure a pollutant because more than
one approved method is available.
To promote method innovation, the EPA also
maintains a program whereby method developers
may apply for an EPA review and potentially for
approval of ATPs. This ATP program is described for
Clean Water Act applications at 40 CFR Parts 136.4
and 136.5.
Periodically, EPA updates the approved test
procedures in 40 CFR Part 136.
What would EPA's finalized rule change?
The finalized rule changes provide increased
flexibility to the regulated community, improve data
quality, and update Clean Water Act methods to
keep current with technology advances.
Also, in an effort to approve methods more quickly,
this rule is limited to minor procedural or editorial
changes that do not affect the performance of the
methods.
Where can I find more information?
You can view the Federal Register notice for this
proposed rule online at www.regulations.gov under
Docket ID: EPA- EPA-HQ-OW-2018-0826. EPA will
also provide a link to the Federal Register notice on
our Clean Water Act Methods website.
You may also contact Meghan Hessenauer by phone
at 202-566-1040 or by email at
hessenauer.meghan@epa.gov.

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