Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 423</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0819; FRL-8794-02-OW]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2040-AG23</RIN> <SUBJECT>Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is finalizing a Clean Water Act regulation to revise the technology-based effluent limitations guidelines and standards (ELGs) for the steam electric power generating point source category applicable to flue gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewater, bottom ash (BA) transport water and legacy wastewater at existing sources, and combustion residual leachate (CRL) at new and existing sources. Last updated in 2015 and 2020, this regulation is estimated to cost an additional $536 million to $1.1 billion dollars annually in social costs and reduce pollutant discharges by an additional approximately 660 to 672 million pounds per year. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on July 8, 2024. In accordance with 40 CFR part 23, this regulation shall be considered issued for purposes of judicial review at 1 p.m. Eastern time on May 23, 2024. Under section 509(b)(1) of the Clean Water Act (CWA), judicial review of this regulation can be had only by filing a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals within 120 days after the regulation is considered issued for purposes of judicial review. Under section 509(b)(2), the requirements of this regulation may not be challenged later in civil or criminal proceedings brought by EPA to enforce these requirements. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0819. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information listed in the index is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> confidential business information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical information, contact Richard Benware, Engineering and Analysis Division, telephone: 202-566-1369; email: <E T="03">benware.richard@epa.gov.</E> For economic information, contact James Covington, Water Economics Center, telephone: 202-566-1034; email: <E T="03">covington.james@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Preamble Acronyms and Abbreviations.</E> The EPA uses multiple acronyms and terms in this preamble. To ease the reading of this preamble and for reference purposes, the EPA defines terms and abbreviations used in appendix A (although the list of abbreviations in the appendix is not exhaustive). <E T="03">Supporting Documentation.</E> The rule is supported by several documents, including the following: • <E T="03">Technical Development Document for the Final Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category</E> (TDD), Document No. 821R24004. This report summarizes the technical and engineering analyses supporting the rule. The TDD presents the EPA's updated analyses supporting the revisions to FGD wastewater, BA transport water, CRL, and legacy wastewater. The TDD includes additional data that has been collected since the publication of the 2015 and 2020 rules, updates to the industry ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> retirements, updates to wastewater handling), cost methodologies, pollutant removal estimates, non-water quality environmental impacts associated with updated FGD and BA methodologies, and calculations for the effluent limitations. In addition to the TDD, the Technical Development Document for the Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category (2015 TDD, Document No. EPA-821-R-15-007) and the Supplemental Technical Development Document for Revisions to the Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category (2020 Supplemental TDD, Document No. EPA-821-R-20-001) provide a more complete summary of the EPA's data collection, description of the industry, and underlying analyses supporting the 2015 and 2020 rules. • <E T="03">Environmental Assessment for the Final Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category (EA),</E> Document No. 821R24005. This report summarizes the potential environmental and human health impacts estimated to result from implementation of the revisions to the 2015 and 2020 rules. • <E T="03">Benefit and Cost Analysis for the Final Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category</E> (BCA), Document No. 821R24006. This report summarizes the societal benefits and costs estimated to result from implementation of the revisions to the 2015 and 2020 rules. • <E T="03">Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Final Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category</E> (RIA), Document No. 821R24007. This report presents a profile of the steam electric power generating industry, a summary of estimated costs and impacts associated with the revisions to the 2015 and 2020 rules, and an assessment of the potential impacts on employment and small businesses. • <E T="03">Environmental Justice Analysis for the Final Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category</E> (EJA), Document No. 821R24008. This report presents a profile of the communities and populations potentially impacted by this rule, an analysis of the distribution of impacts in the baseline scenario and with the revisions, and a summary of inputs from potentially impacted communities that the EPA met with prior to publishing the proposed rulemaking. • <E T="03">Docket Index for the Supplemental Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category.</E> This document provides a list of additional memoranda, references, and other information the EPA relied on for the final revisions to the ELGs. <E T="03">Organization of this Document.</E> The information in this preamble is organized as follows: <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Purpose of Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. General Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Does this action apply to me?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. What action is the EPA taking?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. What is EPA's authority for taking this action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. What are the monetized incremental costs and benefits of this action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Clean Water Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Relevant Effluent Guidelines</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. 2015 Steam Electric Power Generation Point Source Category Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2"> D. 2020 Steam Electric Reconsideration Rule and Recent Developments </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Other Ongoing EPA Rules Impacting the Steam Electric Sector</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Steam Electric Power Generating Industry Description</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. General Description of Industry</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Current Market Conditions and Drivers in the Electricity Generation Sector</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Control and Treatment Technologies</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Data Collection Since the 2020 Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Information from the Electric Utility Industry</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Notices of Planned Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Information from Technology Vendors and Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Firms</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Other Data Sources</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Final Regulation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Description of the Options</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Rationale for the Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Subcategories</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Additional Rationale for the Proposed PSES and PSNS</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Availability Timing of New Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Economic Achievability</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Non-Water Quality Environmental Impacts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Impacts on Residential Electricity Prices and Communities with Environmental Justice Concerns</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Costs, Economic Achievability, and Other Economic Impacts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Plant-Specific and Industry Total Costs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Social Costs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Economic Impacts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. Pollutant Loadings</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. FGD Wastewater</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. BA Transport Water</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. CRL</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Legacy Wastewater</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Summary of Incremental Changes of Pollutant Loadings from the Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">X. Non-Water Quality Environmental Impacts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Energy Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Air Pollution</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Solid Waste Generation and ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 758k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━